Oregon's Perfect Revenge vs. Stanford Means Cardinal's Playoff Hopes Are Dead
The fierce Oregon-Stanford rivalry experienced a role reversal heading into Saturday night's clash down on the Farm.
This time around, Stanford was the Top 10 team looking to stay alive in the race for the national championship. The Cardinal had bounced back from a Week 1 loss to rise all the way to No. 7 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings.
Oregon was looking to play the spoiler, and it went beyond the usual requirements for the "underdog" in this series.
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The Ducks' three losses in the first half of the season doomed them to a unranked state less than a year removed from a run to the national championship game.
It wasn't revenge for the most recent game—Oregon beat down an average Stanford team in Autzen Stadium last season—but the Ducks program still got to give Stanford a taste of its own medicine with a 38-36 upset Saturday.
Many of the Ducks at Stanford Stadium on Saturday knew the bad taste they had after that same Stanford program stopped their chances at titles before last year's run to the first playoff.
Stanford cost then-No. 1 Oregon a title shot with an overtime win in 2012. A year later, the Cardinal handed the No. 2 Ducks their first loss of the season with a 26-20 victory.
But the only title dreams getting dashed Saturday night were owned by David Shaw's Stanford Cardinal.
The College Football Playoff committee already gave Stanford a good boost in the rankings heading into Week 11.
Citing "body clocks" from the early kickoff in the loss to Northwestern and pointing out double-digit wins over quality opponents, the CFP placed Stanford as its third-highest-ranked one-loss team.
But before moving on to any championship scenarios, the Cardinal first had to get by the Ducks, and that was much, much easier said than done.
Stanford's defense, ranked third in the Pac-12 in yards allowed per play at 5.08, gave up an unreal 9.08 yards per snap to an Oregon offense that has found its ridiculous form again with a healthy Vernon Adams at quarterback.
The Cardinal's grind-it-out attack had the ball for 24 more minutes than the Ducks. That didn't matter as Oregon put together six scoring drives that all featured six or fewer plays.
Other than a Kani Benoit two-yard rushing touchdown in the first quarter, Oregon's scores were explosive plays.
Two of them went for 47 and 49 yards, while another one to Charles Nelson was a one-play, 75-yard touchdown drive shortly after Stanford retook an early lead.
It was a quintessential offensive performance from Oregon, which was coming off a school-record performance against Cal. Big plays abounded, and the Ducks only went three-and-out twice.
Stanford's offense had its own letdowns, too, against Oregon.
The Cardinal turned the ball over three times for the first time all season, with two fumbles coming late in the fourth quarter. One of the fumbles turned into a vital field goal for the Ducks, and the other ended a potentially game-tying scoring opportunity with 2:06 left in the game.
Stanford managed to get the ball back and set up a late touchdown drive, but it pinned the entire game on a two-point conversion.
The Cardinal lost the ball down by five in the fourth quarter and down by eight—in the red zone—with all three of its timeouts still remaining.
It was an all-around uncharacteristic night for a Stanford team that had been playing some of the best football in the country for the most part these last two months.
But those kinds of nights in a "survive and advance" Saturday of college football will get teams beat, and they'll dash playoff dreams in a heartbeat.
Now with two losses on the season, Stanford has to refocus and defeat rival Cal next Saturday to clinch the Pac-12 North. A loss there could hand the division to the Ducks, depending on their result against USC.
The payback game of sorts for Oregon couldn't have come at a worse time for those in the Pac-12 offices, as Stanford appeared to be the league's best shot at getting into the final four.
That won't matter to the defending conference champions, who got a taste of sweet revenge and kept themselves alive in the race for a surprising title defense.
Stanford, on the other hand, will have an extremely bitter taste in its mouth for a while after losing its chance at a national title run.
Game statistics courtesy of StatBroadcast. Unless otherwise noted, other statistics courtesy of CFBstats.com.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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