By Jeremy Harness

STANFORD – It appears now that Stanford is back to the form that it showed in winning the Pac-12 championship in 2013.

The latest installment, however, did come against a team that was, to say the least, not exactly firing on all cylinders.

Arizona traveled to Palo Alto without their vital components on both sides of the ball, as quarterback Anu Solomon missed the game while recovering from a concussion he suffered in last week’s loss to UCLA. After returning from a knee injury, star linebacker Scooby Wright sprained his right foot in that same game and is expected to be out several more weeks.

The end result was a beatdown in Stanford’s favor, a 55-17 win at Stanford Stadium that kept the 18th-ranked Cardinal (4-1) undefeated in Pac-12 play.

Christian McCaffrey led the way in gouging the Wright-less Arizona defense with 156 rushing yards, 113 of them coming in a first half that saw Stanford send a clear message that it was the dominant team, while the Cardinal defense held Arizona to 102 total first-half yards, most of which came on one drive in the second quarter that netted a field goal. The Wildcats (3-2, 0-2 Pac-12) finished with 314 total yards, but most of that came when the game had already been decided.

The only thing the two teams had in common was the fact that neither turned the ball over once.

McCaffrey got his game going right away. His first touch of the game was a 12-yard run for a first down and eventually led to a field goal, and on Stanford’s second possession, the sophomore running back dashed the Arizona defense for a career-long 49-yarder. On the very next play, quarterback Kevin Hogan used his legs to get out of trouble and complete a 19-yard pass on the run to Trenton Irwin to the Wildcats’ 19.

However, the Wildcats defense tightened up and eventually forced the Cardinal to settle for another field goal.

Stanford finally cashed in on their third drive by running and throwing to their tall tight end, the two long-standing staples of the Cardinal offense. After McCaffrey picked up 12 yards and a first down, Hogan found Devon Cajuste down the middle for 32 yards to the Arizona 9-yard line. Two plays later, McCaffrey punched it in to give the Cardinal a 13-0 lead.

Hogan completed 17 of his 19 passes and finished the game with 217 passing yards and threw for two scores along the way, while his running game did the heavy lifting.

Without Solomon manning the controls, Arizona could not get its offense on track in the first half and did not get into Stanford territory for the first time until early in the second quarter. At that point, the Wildcats embarked on a 20-play, 73-yard drive but blew a great scoring opportunity in the process.

Jerrard Randall, a redshirt senior who started in Solomon’s spot and finished 178 yards on 15-of-28 passing and a touchdown, missed a wide-open Nate Phillips in the corner of the end zone from the Stanford 8, and the Wildcats settled for a field goal to narrow the Cardinal’s lead to 13-3.

Arizona, however, got things moving slightly after halftime, getting into the end zone on their first possession of the second half, courtesy of a 15-yard touchdown throw to Johnny Jackson. Late in the quarter, the Wildcats scored again, this time cashing in with a 1-yard dive by running back Nick Wilson.

However, Stanford answered each Arizona touchdown with one of their own, and by the end of the third quarter, the Cardinal were increasingly getting runs in huge chunks with their backups on the field. Immediately following the punch-in by Wilson, Barry Sanders, Jr. bolted past the demoralized Wildcats defense for a 65-yard touchdown that extended Stanford’s lead to 48-17.

The Cardinal will now enjoy the benefit of a bye week, and they will play Oct. 15 at home against a UCLA team that was shocked by Arizona State on Saturday.