The Cougars inched their way one step closer to bowl eligibility with a 52-14 beat-down of a Stanford team that has become the PAC-12 doormat and now stand just one game shy of the six needed to compete in the post season. Scoring five TD’s in their eight first half possessions as well as a sixth on a Cardinal fumble returned to the house, Washington State led 42-7 at the half and held Stanford scoreless in two of the four quarters. QB Cameron Ward didn’t exactly set the world on fire wiih just a 50% completion rate for the Cougars but he did fill up the box score throwing two TD’s to WR’s Anderson Grover and Donovan Ollie, no interceptions, and rushed five times for 38 yards and another score. His freshman backup, John Mateer, followed in his footsteps early in the 4th Qtr while connecting on both of his throws for 32 yards and a TD to WR Orion Peters while rushing four times for 58 yards. More than half the 306 yards and one of three scores on the ground for the Cougars were gained by Junior RB Nakia Watson who rushed 16 times for 166 yards and 1 TD—and average of over ten yards per carry. There are only seven teams in all of the 130 FBS teams that are giving up more rushing yards than Stanford.
Although Stanford QB Tanner McKee was a bit more efficient than Ward while connecting on 23-of-40 for 236 yards and not throwing a pick, he also never connected in the end zone. The Cardinal’s two TD’s in the game were both provided by back-up QB Freshman Ashton Daniels who, like Mateer for the Cougs, connected on both of his throws while also rushing 7 times for 14 yards and 2 TD’s. Stanford, currently in the bottom 20% of all FBS teams in rushing yards per game, ran the ball 28 times for an anemic 71 yards, an average of 2.5 yards per carry. As if they didn’t have enough problems scoring, the Cardinals fumbled the ball five times—loosing four—with three of those happening within the last 8 minutes of the 2nd Qtr—all leading to TD’s by the Cougars.
As the AP pointed out in their Recap for ESPN, “The Cardinal lost six of their first seven conference games for the first time since 2006 — the year before Jim Harbaugh arrived on “The Farm” to turn Stanford into a contender . . . Stanford hasn’t won more than four games in a season since going 9-4 in 2018.” In their Take Away for Stanford regarding this game they wrote; “They trailed 21-0 before generating a first down, lost four fumbles in the first half and looked disorganized.” Maybe it’s not in Stanford’s DNA to not let Shaw back on the bus like USC did to Lane Kiffin or fire him in mid November like the Washington AD did to Jimmy Lake, but how much longer can he possibly keep his job.