Costello gives quite a performance
Quarterback throws for a career-high four touchdowns against Irish and the Cardinal is in the Pac-12 title game against USC.
PALO ALTO — K.J. Costello threw two of his career-high four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter and No. 21 Stanford rallied for a 38-20 victory over No. 8 Notre Dame on Saturday night.
The game couldn’t have gone much better for the Cardinal (9-3), who got the help they needed when Washington beat Washington State 41-14 in the Apple Cup to send Stanford to the Pac-12 Conference championship game against USC on Friday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
“I was just so worried about this game,” Costello said. “At the end of the day, I couldn’t care less about that. Now I’m stoked that we have that opportunity.”
The Cardinal, who started 1-2, finished tied for first in the North with the Huskies but won the head-to-head matchup to take the tiebreaker.
“We sat here at 1-2 with a lot of doubt and some of it was internal,” coach David Shaw said. “We had to ask ourselves a lot of questions, change some pieces around on our end.”
Bryce Love ran for 125 yards but Costello was the star of the offense against the Fighting Irish (9-3) by throwing for 176 yards and delivering the four scores. Stanford has won seven of nine games in the series, including the last five at home.
Notre Dame committed two turnovers in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter and Stanford turned a 20-17 deficit into a 3820 lead in a span of 3 minutes 36 seconds.
It started when Costello found Kaden Smith down the middle for a 19-yard touchdown on third down that gave Stanford the lead for good.
Brandon Wimbush had a pass intercepted by Curtis Robinson on the first play of the ensuing drive and the Cardinal needed only three plays to turn it into a touchdown when Costello found Dalton Schultz in the corner of the end zone on a 12-yard pass.
C.J. Sanders then fumbled the kickoff for Notre Dame and Cameron Scarlett put the game away with a three-yard touchdown run.
“We turned a good game into a not-sogood game by turning the ball over,” coach Brian Kelly said.