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For three minutes and 15 seconds, Stanford was in control of its Pac-12 Conference football game with visiting UCLA on Thursday night.
And then the Cardinal received a reality check in the form of a 34-16 defeat at the hands of the Bruins, who beat Stanford for the first time since 2008, a span of 11 games.
Jack West became Stanford’s third different starting quarterback of the season, the first time that’s happened since 1974. He drove the Cardinal to an early 3-0 lead. He wasn’t the same afterward.
K.J., Costello was out with a thumb injury. Davis Mills was out with a knee injury. Stanford went West and then went south.
The Bruins (2-5, 2-2 Pac-12) scored touchdowns on their first two possessions, both touchdown passes to Kyle Phillips, to open a 14-3 lead with 4:48 remaining to play. It was UCLA’s first lead of more than seven points this season. Phillips caught 10 passes for 100 yards.
Stanford (3-4, 2-3) took the opening kickoff and drove 51 yards before Jet Toner connected on a 42-yard field goal.
Toner suffered an apparent right knee injury on the ensuing kickoff and did not return. Punter Ryan Sanborn took over the kicking duties.
“Losing Jet Toner early in the game was really difficult,” Stanford coach David Shaw said. “It’s not often that you see a kicker get hit on a kickoff. So I need to see that film and see how that happened.”
After scoring, the Cardinal lost eight yards on their next three possessions combined as West was sacked on three consecutive third downs.
Stanford’s Brycen Tremayne fell on a blocked punt in the end zone to make it 14-10. Spencer Jorgensen got his left hand on the kick and re-directed it toward the end zone for a defensive score.
“Any time you get a blocked kick like that, it’s the guy that blocked it, but it’s usually the guys right next to him that did their job so he could get through,” Shaw said. “It was a great job by those guys. We worked that multiple times this week and it was great to see it happen.”
Stanford didn’t score again until there were under three minutes to play in the game and West directed a 7-play, 75-yard drive that ended when Cameron Scarlett flipped into the end zone. A big run from Austin Jones, a pass interference call against the Bruins and a long pass to Simi Fehoko were the big plays of the drive.
West was 6-for-8 for 86 yards on the two scoring drives combined. In between he was 9-of-24 for 57 yards.
“Pass protection, there were times we thought we had enough time to get it off and didn’t get it off,” Shaw said. “Sometimes we didn’t have enough time to get it off. We missed some throws and we got some balls deflected.”
Said West: “Gotta play better. At the end of the day I’ve got to put my team in better situations especially on second and third down, more manageable downs. It came down to execution, which is what we didn’t do well enough.”