Author: bentleonard18

By: Ben Leonard
Follow @ben___leonard

photo credit: AP Stanford defensive end Aziz Shittu sacks Iowa quarterback CJ Beathard at the Rose Bowl

PASADENA, Calif. — Bend but not break? That used to be the knock on Stanford’s defense, but you can’t say that anymore.

Iowa learned it the hard way — Stanford’s defense was tough, physical, and strong-willed, leading the Cardinal to a dominant 45-16 win in the 102nd Rose Bowl Game.

A team known for partying in the backfield in recent years, Stanford had acted like it was a Tuesday night for all of 2015, registering just 27 sacks all season long. The Cardinal used to a defensive powerhouse, but after returning just three starters heading into this season, it fell to a middling 45th nationally in total defense. As a unit, the defense bent a lot but mostly tightened in the red zone.

But they finally put it all together on Friday night, keeping Iowa off the scoreboard until just over three minutes left in the third quarter. Iowa had never trailed by more than seven points all season long, but Stanford’s “D” forced the Hawkeyes to stare at a 38 point deficit.

Heisman finalist Christian McCaffrey quickly put the Hawkeyes on their heels, dashing for a 75-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage before most fans had settled into their seats, just eleven seconds into the game. From there with a 7-0 lead and a boatload of confidence, the defense, led by Rose Bowl defensive MVP Aziz Shittu, took over the game. As head coach David Shaw put it, “If we can get ourselves the lead, we’re a tough team to beat.”

A fifth-year senior, Shittu had a career day in his final game at the college level, picking up career highs in sacks (1.5), tackles (10), and tackles for loss (3.5). The 6’3″, 279-pound defensive lineman was all over the field, making key stop after key stop for the Cardinal. His experience in Pasadena might have been a big part of it — it was Shittu’s third trip to the Rose Bowl, although just his first time seeing extensive playing time.

But in typical fashion, the team leader was quick to credit his teammates for the individual accomplishment. “It feels awesome, just to see all your hard work come and you be able to walk away with some hardware is never a bad thing,” Shittu said after the win. “But it’s really that the whole defense played a great job today. Wouldn’t have been able to do it myself. Wouldn’t have been able to make the plays I made today by myself. As a unit, we work so well together… It’s just been cool watching those guys that have done the job before me and be able to replicate that and play my hardest.”

Shittu was part of a defensive line that held Iowa, a team built around its run game, to a minuscule 1.3 yards per carry, and sacked dual-threat quarterback C.J. Beathard seven times. Shaw credited Shittu and the line for the victory: “Aziz was phenomenal today. When you can establish the line of scrimmage on the offensive side and establish line of scrimmage on the defensive side, you’ve got the edge.”

Once an afterthought, a defensive line buoyed by seniors Brennan Scarlett and Shittu put Iowa’s elite offensive line on their heels, so much so that it led some reporters to wonder whether the playing surface was affecting their grip.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz quickly dispelled those thoughts, saying that the grass had nothing to do with it: “You’ve got to play with your feet up underneath you. That’s what it gets down to. The surface was excellent. That’s part of playing on natural grass. It wasn’t the shoes. It’s just they’re a good football team…They just outplayed us. They outplayed us in every turn, and credit goes to them.”

Winning the battle in the trenches has always been a huge point of emphasis for Shaw: “It’s a key for every football game. When you walk in the locker room, that’s the reason we put our locker room the way it is. When our players walk in the locker room, to the left is the offensive line, to the right is the defensive line. Our guys are reminded every day that the game starts in the trenches. That’s where it starts in establishing the physical nature.”

The secondary also did its part, once again coming up clutch, stopping whatever momentum the Hawkeyes had begun to gather. Down just 14-0, Iowa was driving deep into Stanford territory for the first time, holding the ball at the Cardinal 36 on third down and short.

But freshman cornerback Quenton Meeks came up big, picking off Beathard on a bad sideline pass and taking it 66 yards to the house, giving Stanford a 21-0 lead with four minutes left in the first. Meeks’ play sucked the life out of the throng of the gold and black clad fans at the Rose Bowl.

After three quarters, Iowa had thrown for just 87 passing yards on 22 attempts, of which they completed just 12. It was an overwhelming effort, all the more impressive because they were on the field so much. Because Stanford’s offense was moving so quickly, in the first half alone the Cardinal defense was on the field for nearly twenty minutes. They showed no signs of fatigue, only yielding large chunks of yards in garbage time while playing prevent defense.

They’re here to stay — Stanford is losing just three starters on a defense loaded with freshman and inexperienced players. Look out, Pac-12 offenses. Stanford’s defense is back.

By: Ben Leonard
Follow @ben___leonard

photo credit: oregonlive.com Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan in action

LOS ANGELES–Stanford’s Rose Bowl hopes could have ended on a bright Saturday morning in Evanston. The heavily favored Cardinal had all the confidence in the world heading into a game against unranked Northwestern — until they stepped on the field. 

Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong — the offense sputtered to score just six points, accrued needless penalties, and turned the ball over twice. Even Heisman finalist Christian McCaffrey was bottled up, rushing for just 66 yards.

 Not exempt from the team’s struggles was fifth-year senior quarterback and team captain, Kevin Hogan, who posted the second lowest yards per attempt mark in his career. Back then, nobody would have guessed that the Cardinal would be playing the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Rose Bowl on Friday.

Hogan expressed disappointment after the loss, one that had made many believe the Cardinal were in for a long season: “It was very disappointing, just because we knew we were such a better team than that. And we were playing a great Northwestern team, and there’s a lot of things going against us that day, but we still feel like we could have executed better and worked our game plan better.”

The team’s leader could have given up — but Hogan doesn’t know how to quit. The week after the crushing loss, the captain rallied his troops, gathering the team with his fellow captains.  Hogan and his captains that told the Cardinal not to lay down. To get back to work. Not to quit.

Hogan knows a fair amount about dealing with adversity. For all of last season, Hogan knew that his father was dying of cancer, but none of his teammates or coaches knew until the very end, when he passed away after the end of the regular season.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hogan explained how the loss changed him: “It changes your mind-set on a lot of things; it changes your perspective. At the end of the day, it’s just a game we’re playing. You have to treat it that way. Have fun with it, relax. You can’t tense up. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all year, and I feel comfortable out there. I’m never nervous.”

So when Hogan and the other captains told the team not to quit, they listened. As Hogan put it, “the guys bought in. It was total buy-in. Great leadership all around. [We] got back to work and put on a nice little streak there.”

A nice little streak it was — led by Hogan, Stanford won 11 of its last 12 games. Over that stretch, no signal-caller had a better quarterback rating than Hogan. Not Heisman finalist and Clemson quarterback DeShaun Watson, and not even Cal’s star quarterback Jared Goff.

However, that one loss stands out because the normally steady, poised Hogan fumbled twice down the stretch. Two muffed snaps gave Oregon a 38-36 victory, ending Stanford’s chance to control their own destiny to make the College Football Playoff. But even then, he almost singlehandedly brought Stanford into overtime against the Ducks, engineering a brilliant 49-yard two-minute drill to get Stanford within two. His throw on the two-point conversion was just too low, and the Ducks ended up upsetting the Cardinal.

Even after that heart-crushing game, Hogan got right back up and won the Big Game, and then led his team to an emotional victory on Senior Night over Notre Dame, setting up a last-second game-winning field goal with another brilliant drive.

Some might say perseverance is his middle name. After the win over the Irish, head coach David Shaw gushed about his quarterback: “After all he’s been through, he’s come out so mature and so confident. He’s a great leader, and such a great football player.”

Even after knocking off undefeated Notre Dame and ending the Irish’s playoff hopes, the unflappable Hogan didn’t let the moment get to him. All business even when Shaw spoke with him after the instant classic, Hogan smiled and said “we got to play USC next week.”

Shaw always had known Hogan had it in him. “We had very, very high hopes for Kevin because, number one, ultimately, he is extremely competitive,” Shaw said Tuesday. “He’s very competitive. He’s very athletic. We knew he had a high ceiling when he came as a starter, though we tried to nurse him along a little bit. Last year was rough on all of us, on everybody at every position and Kevin both on and off the field. Then this year to watch him start the season with such maturity and such toughness and be the kind of leader that you want a fifth-year senior to be, it’s been great. It’s been truly special because we’ve leaned on him a lot, both on and off the field.”

Lesson learned: don’t try to knock down Kevin Hogan — he’ll get right back up off the mat and knock you out.

By: Ben Leonard
Follow @ben___leonard

photo credit: USA Today Longhorns Isaiah Taylor hits the game winner vs. Stanford

STANFORD, Calif. —A native of nearby Hayward, Texas guard Isaiah Taylor is no stranger to the Bay Area. For a Texas Longhorns team (8-3) that hadn’t played a true road game all season long, Taylor looked right at home in Palo Alto while “settl[ing] the team down” in the words of his coach, Shaka Smart, carrying his team to a nail-biting 75-73 win over the Stanford Cardinal (5-4) with 26 points. 

Taylor was lights out all night long, making 11 of his 17 field goal attempts while driving into the paint for bucket after bucket, especially in the first half. He dropped 16 in the first half, including 12 in the first 11 minutes to help his team break out to an early 11-4 lead. As Smart put it, he was the “one guy on the team who played with a constant poise.” 

Stanford struggled in the early going, turning the ball over four times in the first five minutes. As Stanford guard Dorian Pickens put it, the team came out “lack[ing] energy.” Texas was employing a full-court press that forced Stanford’s turnovers, preventing a team suddenly without forward Reid Travis from working the ball down low. As forward Rosco Allen put it, “we let it affect our game. We had to swing the ball around the perimeter because of the pressure.” 

Travis, the team’s leading rebounder, who is sidelined indefinitely with a stress reaction in his left leg, was sorely missed on Saturday. Head coach Johnny Dawkins told the media that the injury will be a “tough lesson” for Travis, who was the hardest worker Dawkins has ever seen — too much extra work spelled doom for Travis.

Without Travis, no one could stop Taylor in the paint in the first half — Stanford was outscored 20-6 in the key in the first half. However, after the sluggish start, Pickens and Stanford started to turn it around. Pickens dropped 15 points in the first half, propelling the Cardinal to cut the Longhorns’ halftime lead to 41-35. The sophomore guard came off the bench and finished with a career-high 24 points on 6 of 7 shooting from beyond the arc.

Dawkins expressed a lot of confidence in his guard, whether he comes off the bench or starts. For Dawkins, he’s “starting to find out how good he can be. As a young player, he can build off of that.” 

But Pickens’ career night ultimately wasn’t enough, mostly because of Taylor’s dominant play. After being down for about ten for most of the first and second half, Stanford came storming back. After Michael Humphrey forced a steal and had a breakaway thunderous dunk to light up Maples Pavillion, Stanford had cut the Longhorns’ lead to just two with 29 seconds remaining. The crowd was back in it, and it felt like Stanford was going to take it.

But after three made free throws from Taylor and Javan Felix, Stanford found itself down by three with 17 seconds left. Pickens nearly saved the day for the Cardinal, nailing a three, but it was to no avail. As he did all night long, Taylor sped down the court and knocked down a driving left-handed layup, giving Texas the win. Dawkins said he was the fastest guard he had seen in the past few years — hours upon hours of watching his film couldn’t get the Cardinal adjusted to it.

Notes: Travis had an MRI on Friday, and there is no timetable for his return….Stanford won the last meeting (2014) between these two squads in an overtime thriller, an upset victory on the road over the then-ninth-ranked Longhorns…The Cardinal will move on and play Sacramento State on Tuesday….

By: Ben Leonard
Follow @ben___leonard

photo credit: sfgate.com Stanford’s point guard Roscoe Allen

STANFORD, Calif.–When you come to Stanford, you know you’re committing to a standard of academic excellence. And that means you have to sacrifice playing games during finals week, or turning in a 14-page paper at noon on game day in point guard Christian Sanders’ case. 

After hitting the books for 15 days, the Cardinal pushed past the Dartmouth Big Green 64-50 in a battle of academic powerhouses. Rosco Allen led the way for the Cardinal, scoring 17 points and grabbing 6 rebounds, while Reid Travis also chipped in with 14 points. 

For their first game in over two weeks, the Cardinal didn’t have much rust to shake off — they jumped out to a quick 12-4 lead to start the game, and coasted from there, never trailing in the win. Even though the team didn’t play any games during that time, they had to go hard in practice, almost like it was “game week” as Reid Travis put it, and helped bring the team “back to the drawing board.”

Stanford thoroughly dominated the undersized Big Green on the offensive glass, pulling down 17 offensive boards to Dartmouth’s 11, and took it to Dartmouth in the paint, scoring 28 points in the key to Dartmouth’s 10. As Travis put it, “we start a huge lineup, all big guys that like to crash the boards. It’s always an emphasis to go after the offensive rebounds.”

The Cardinal used their height to take a commanding 37-24 halftime lead, in part fueled by the team’s 4 of 8 shooting from beyond the arc. Rosco Allen had three of those four and had another huge game after dropping 25 on Arkansas in his last game. Coach Johnny Dawkins said he was very proud of Allen, who has “started to come into his own. He’s been in an aggressive mindset. Coming in and attacking has helped to round out his game. 

But the Cardinal started to take the foot off the gas late in the second half, letting Dartmouth creep back into the game despite holding a 17 point lead with just ten minutes to play. The Big Green made it a game with five minutes to play, down just eight after Miles Wright hit a three.

Dawkins was quick to credit Dartmouth and not be disappointed in his team for the comeback — Dartmouth was “one of the grittiest teams [he’d] seen all season. They’ve been in all of their games, a testament to their ability to keep fighting. They give a heck of a 40-minute effort.

Dawkins had even shown his players an entire montage of Dartmouth players taking “charge after charge.” He was only a little disappointed that Dartmouth took two charges on his team.

After a fleeting comeback, Stanford pulled away behind some more sweet shots from Rosco Allen, including a trey that iced the game, helping Stanford take a 64-47 lead with just over a minute left.

Notes: Saturday’s game was a rematch of the 1942 NCAA championship game, when Stanford won its first and only national title…Stanford moved to 6-1 all-time against Dartmouth….The Big Green hasn’t beaten a Pac-12 team since 1971….