Bryce Love rushed for 136 yards and a touchdown and K.J. Costello threw for 183 yards and a touchdown and Stanford opened its Pac-12 Conference football season with a 17-3 victory over USC on Saturday.
Malik Antoine intercepted two passes, one in the end zone, late in the game to seal the victory.
Jet Toner tacked on a 30-yard field goal late in the third quarter, giving the Cardinal (2-0, 1-0) plenty of breathing room to run out the clock.
Love broke one of his patented runs, a 59-yarder that led to Toner’s field goal. He nearly broke another one in the fourth quarter.
“Can’t commend Bryce Love enough,” Stanford coach David Shaw said. “His patience, his toughness, breaking tackles, getting two yards when there was two yards there, getting two yards sometimes when two yards weren’t there and then the big runs happen. We know that about him.”
Stanford opened the game with an 8-play, 83-yard drive that culminated in Love’s six-yard touchdown run.
The Cardinal defense held USC to 20 yards on its first possession and played well throughout, limiting the Trojans to a field goal a week after they torched UNLV for 43 points.
Bobby Okereke and Sean Barton each recorded 10 tackles for Stanford, which hosts UC Davis in a nonleague game next Saturday at 11 a.m.
The Aggies beat San Jose State in week one and pounded San Diego, 54-21, Saturday.
Bartin, Casey Toohill, Joey Alfieri and Jordan Fox were each in on a combined four quarterback sacks.
Senior strong safety Ben Edwards added nine tackles and broke up one pass.
“I really felt the momentum in terms of when I came off the field on a third down that we didn’t pick up, I really had trust that I was going to be out there pretty quickly and that’s a great feeling,” Costello said.
Stanford went into halftime with a 14-0 lead after Costello and Colby Parkinson connected on a nine-yard scoring toss with 34 seconds left in the second quarter.
“We knew we were making it hard on ourselves there that first half,” Costello said. “At times we came out with a good first drive and then from there we continuously shot ourselves in the foot. But third down, we converted some of those, we always want to be playing in front of the stick.”
Costello was 16 of 27 passing and did not throw an interception.
Trent Irwin caught five passes for 31 yards and Kaden Smith and JJ Arcega-Whiteside each caught four passes for 77 and 62 yards, respectively.
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports
Early on, good defenses stop good offenses. The Stanford offense must get much better to win even HALF of the remaining games. Stanford has one break in the schedule – playing lowly UC Davis next week. But it was not that long ago that Stanford lost to UC Davis in football. So take nothing for granted. The biggest regular season game looks to be at the University of Washington on November 3. If Stanford loses that game, the Cardinal will not play in the Pac 12 championship game or in the final four for the national championship (set for Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara in January). And the Cal Bears are pretty good this year. Watch out for that BIG GAME.
I understand that Bryce Love wants to be a pediatrician someday. Will the continual impact and collisions of playing collegiate football eventually have an adverse effect on his brain and various decision-making processes?
I don’t think I’d want my children going to a doctor who is ‘punchy’ and suffering early signs of dementia.
“Will the continual impact and collisions of playing collegiate football eventually have an adverse effect on his brain and various decision-making processes?”
from another football thread… https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29701560
Sarah, please ask these 181 department chairs of neurology and orthopedics… July 2018 study
“High prevalence of prior contact sports play and concussion among orthopedic and neurosurgical department chairs
OBJECTIVE
Increased understanding of the consequences of traumatic brain injury has heightened concerns about youth participation in contact sports. This study investigated the prevalence of high school and collegiate contact sports play and concussion history among surgical department chairs.
METHODS
A cross-sectional survey was administered to 107 orthopedic and 74 neurosurgery chairs…
RESULTS
High school contact sports participation was 2.35-fold higher (65.3%, p < 0.001) for orthopedic chairs and 1.73-fold higher (47.9%, p = 0.0018) for neurosurgery chairs than for their high school peers”
and
“CONCLUSIONS
The high prevalence of youth contact sports play and concussion among surgical specialty chairs affirms that individuals in careers requiring high motor and cognitive function frequently played contact sports.
The association highlights the need to further examine the relationships between contact sports and potential long-term benefits as well as risks of sport-related injury.”
One doubts if these 181 department chairs attained their esteemed positions while being “punchy” or demented.
> One doubts if these 181 department chairs attained their esteemed positions while being “punchy” or demented.
But how many of them actually played football?