September 21, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Plenty of work still to do

by Rick Eymer

The pained, shocked look on Menlo-Atherton High grad T.C. Ostrander's face wrote volumes to the frustration he and his Stanford football teammates felt after suffering a stunning 20-17 upset loss to the upstart UC Davis Aggies on Saturday night.

A week after traveling cross country to beat Navy, Stanford fell flat in its home opener against a team full of players who were virtually ignored by Division I schools.

The Cardinal (1-1) have two weeks to prepare for their Pac-10 opener with Oregon. While Stanford will heal its wounds and regroup, the Ducks host the nation's top-ranked team, USC, this weekend.

Ostrander saw his first action of the season under stressful conditions. Starting quarterback Trent Edwards was knocked out of the game early and Ostrander got his first taste of running coach Walt Harris' complicated version of the West Coast Offense and immediately led the Cardinal on its longest drive of the night.

The drive ended, unfortunately, when Ostrander threw an interception at the Davis' one-yard line.

Ostrander refused to blame anyone but himself.

"I was extremely disappointed in how I played," Ostrander said. "It was a big letdown. A couple of those sacks were my fault. When (Edwards) went down I was ready. Our defense played great all night. The offense needs to do what we're coached to do. Guys didn't do what they were coached to all the time and I'm a big culprit of that."

Ostrander may get a chance at redemption when Oregon comes to visit on Oct. 1 depending on the extent of Edwards' injury.

"We have two weeks to prepare for Oregon," Ostrander said. "It will be big, it will be intense. We've got to get this taste out of our mouth. We're going to be real hungry to play in two weeks."

Ostrander has the credentials to become a successful Division I quarterback, and he showed that ability last year when he replaced Edwards against the Ducks last year, throwing for 236 yards and a touchdown in a relief role.

His scoring toss put Stanford up early in the fourth quarter, and he rallied the Cardinal into scoring position on the final series of the game and a long field goal try on the last play fell short.

Overall Ostrander threw for 914 yards and four touchdowns as a redshirt freshman. He threw for career-high 247 yards against Oregon State.

Once Edwards won the starting job during fall camp, Ostrander was resigned to watch and learn while Edwards got the majority of reps with the first-team offense.

"That's not an excuse," Ostrander said. "I never get as many reps as I'd like but as the No. 2 quarterback it's my job to get experience watching the No. 1 guy."

For the next few days at least Ostrander will be getting as many reps as he wants as he continues to master the system.

"I'd never seen anything like it," Ostrander said of the playbook. "It was different. After awhile you can see how good the system is. I've had it for six months and still, unfortunately, there's a little bit of a learning process. Playing helped. It's going to be tough to watch that film. I think we learned a lot about ourselves."

What went wrong against the Aggies? Injuries played a part. Edwards was lost to a right hand injury in the first quarter, and then Stanford lost several offensive linemen.

On the final offensive series, right guard Alex Fletcher and right tackle Jon Cochran were the only starters left standing. Center Brian Head was replaced by Tim Mattran, Ben Muth took over for Josiah Vinson and Ismail Simpson was pressed into service in place of Jeff Edwards.

"Unfortunately we had some injuries but that's part of the game," Harris said. "What could go wrong went wrong and we weren't able to overcome it. We have a lot of work to do."

Trent Edwards, who looked so fluid in running the offense last week, completed just one of four passes for 10 yards before UC Davis defensive linemen James Amos and Naveen Daftari crashed through to sack him, and end his night.

Edwards favored his throwing hand the rest of the evening, resting it against his chest. He had the middle two fingers taped together and briefly tried taking snaps before removing his helmet for good. He lasted 10 plays and less than six minutes.

"Something is wrong with his hand," Harris said. "He broke his . . . whatever happened to his hand. I don't know if it's broken or not. I don't know his status. It's a big loss. He's a mighty fine football player."

Ostrander, who performed so well in relief of Edwards last year, struggled mightily in his first experience with the new system. He threw for 108 yards, completing seven of 17 passes and was intercepted once - at the most inopportune time.

Ostrander looked sharp in his first series, marching the Cardinal a game-best 64 yards in five plays. He completed his first two passes and escaped trouble to gain nine yards on another play.

Then Ostrander threw his ill-advised pass that Adam Cook picked off at the Davis one-yard line. Stanford never got close again, and the offense is still trying to figure out what went wrong.

Stanford managed just 192 offensive yards for the game. UC Davis had 186 yards at halftime.

"You can't go out and play that poorly and expect to win," Ostrander said. "We thought we had a good chance to win. What is there to say? It's a big disappointment."

The Cardinal's longest drive of the second half went 24 yards in seven plays. The Aggies had three drives of at least 41 yards in the final two quarters.

UC Davis scored the game-winning touchdown with three seconds remaining to play after driving the ball 72 yards in 2:34. Stanford went 60 yards on 27 plays for the entire second half.

"There were a lot of plays that didn't happen," Harris said. "It's sad when we don't play the game the way it's meant to be played. It's hard to live with. The bottom line is when you lose, you lose. It doesn't matter if it's Davis or USC. When you play like that you're going to lose."

It only got this bad once last year, when Stanford was able to muster just 180 yards in last year's Big Game loss to California.

"We didn't finish," Stanford linebacker Kevin Schimmelmann said. "I had no doubt we could stop them. I'm disappointed in our defense for not finishing. We've got the Pac-10 schedule coming up and that's important. We can make a good turnaround."

Schimmelman fell on a fumble in the end zone, and Michael Craven sprinted 54 yards after picking up a fumble to account for Stanford's touchdowns. Michael Sgroi added a 48-yard field goal.

NOTES: UC Davis dominated in nearly every category. The Aggies had the ball for 35:43, holding the ball longer in every quarter except the third. UC Davis had the ball for over 10 minutes in the fourth quarter alone. The Aggies converted 12 of 22 third down plays, while Stanford managed just three of 12 . . . Gunn High grad Thomas Blake was credited with two tackles, including half a quarterback sack, for UC Davis . . . It didn't take long for disgruntled fans to light up the message boards. A sampling:

"Stanford University should dissolve their football program immediately. That was the most disgusting display of football I have ever seen."

"It's tragically fitting that Edwards goes out on a sack by UC Davis . . . We embarrassed ourselves and the entire conference tonight. Stanford will never live this loss down."

"I want to blame Harris, but the magnitude of the beating tonight demonstrates just how bad we are. Players with decent talent shouldn't need a whole lot of coaching to get more than 180 yards against Davis."

"The only hope is that Stanford can make the kind of improvement that Pitt did last year. Barring that, this loss is so bad it will scar Stanford for years."

A joke making the rounds: When you invite the Aggies to The Farm, you should expect to be ploughed.

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