By Jeremy Harness

AP photo: Linebacker Casey Toohill celebrates with teammate Mike Tyler as the Stanford Cardinal win their second game this season on Saturday over the SC Trojans at Stanford Stadium

STANFORD – Stanford head coach David Shaw said that once his team gets a two-score lead in the second half of a game, the goal is to run the ball. It’s really that simple.

That worked out quite beautifully for the Cardinal (No. 7 AP/No. 6 USA Today), to the tune of 47 carries for 295 yards that pointed the way to a 27-10 win over USC in its Pac-12 opener Saturday night at Stanford Stadium, sending a clear message to the rest of the conference in the process.

The Stanford offensive line appeared to start the process of taking the fight out of the Trojans as early as late in the second quarter, when the Cardinal marched 57 yards on eight plays – all of which were running plays – while using up 4:25 of time to do so. The drive culminated in Christian McCaffrey’s 1-yard plunge to give the Cardinal a commanding 17-3 lead, an advantage that they carried into halftime.

“I think our MO is pretty much set in stone,” Shaw said. “We’re going to be physical. We talk about intellectual brutality, (and) we’re trying to end the game with the ball in our hands.

“We try to put pressure on the guys up front – offensively and defensively, on our team – to end the game for us.”

Playing Stanford, particularly with an relatively-unproven starting quarterback in Ryan Burns – who completed nine of only 15 throws for 109 yards – requires keeping a close eye on McCaffrey, a Heisman Trophy candidate who has had particularly big games against the Trojans. However, late in the first quarter, USC somehow failed to do this, and Stanford made the Trojans pay.

McCaffrey took advantage of a blown coverage in the secondary, ending up wide open on a wheel route when free safety Marvell Tell III lost track of him and watched as the all-purpose back streaked 56 yards untouched for a score that gave Stanford an early 7-0 lead.

He finished with 260 all-purpose yards, the eighth consecutive game that he has amassed at least 200, which is an ongoing NCAA FBS record. If that wasn’t enough for USC to handle, Stanford welcomed back sophomore back Bryce Love, who missed the Sept. 3 season-opening win over Kansas State with a lower-body injury.

Love, who is said to have more top-end speed than McCaffrey, had 11 carries for 51 yards on Saturday.

“I think we’re one of the most dangerous, most dynamic offenses in college football today, and I think that shows,” big-play receiver Michael Rector said. “We have Christian to make plays, we have Bryce who can make plays, and myself, and (receiver) Francis Owusu. There are so many people on the field that can make you pay in different ways.”

Added Shaw: “It was good to get Bryce out there again. He’s explosive, he’s fast. He’s one shoe-string tackle away from running away from everybody.”

Despite all of this, the Trojans still clawed their way back into the game at the start of the second half. Thanks in much part to a 38-yard completion to tight end Tyler Petite, they went right down the field on the Stanford defense and capped things off when Ronald Jones punched in from a yard away.

By the third quarter, USC was a bit more focused on McCaffrey – 195 all-purpose yards in the first half probably had something to do with that – but Stanford countered that with a little trickery. The Cardinal faked an inside run to No. 5, and when Rector took the end around, he zoomed around the corner and beat everyone to the end zone for a 56-yard score that re-established command for the Cardinal, 27-10.

“We saw that they were doing a lot of corner blitzes and safety blitzes when we’re running the run play, so we thought we fake (the inside run) and then run around the end and catch them asleep,” Rector said.

The Trojans had their opportunities to stay in the game, however.

As USC got close to the red zone early in the fourth quarter, receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster had a touchdown pass bounce off his hands, and two plays later, it was forced to give up the ball after failing to covert a 4^th-and-1 at the Stanford 18.

Stanford gave the ball right back to USC after Adoree’ Jackson intercepted Ryan Burns at the Trojans’ 26-yard line, but the Trojans could not make much headway. They gained only one first down before being forced to punt after failing to get in field-goal range.

USC made one last run at the end zone in the final minutes, but that, too, was thwarted when backup quarterback San Darold’s pass was deflected and intercepted by Noor Davis in the end zone.

Stanford will be further tested in the next two weeks, as they face a UCLA team next Saturday that has rebounded nicely from a season opening loss at Texas A&M before going on the road to play No. 8 Washington, which boasts arguably the nation’s best defense.