San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Victory follows Ducks’ fumble in final minute
EUGENE, Ore. — Down by 17 at the half, playing against a red-hot quarterback and an almost unstoppable receiver in a hostile stadium, Stanford had the Oregon Ducks right where it wanted them.
Well, not exactly. But the resilient Cardinal scored 10 points in the final three minutes of regulation and sent the game into overtime Saturday night.
In the overtime, K.J. Costello threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to tight end Colby Parkinson, who tipped the ball in the air before securing it. And after stopping the No. 20 Ducks when it was their turn, the No. 7 Cardinal had a
38-31 victory, one of their most memorable in many years.
To any East Coast TV viewers who turned the game off in the second half before the big comeback, Parkinson said, “Pac-12 football is pretty exciting. Keep watching.”
The Ducks (3-1, 0-1) got a 26-for-33, 346-yard performance from their 6-foot-6 quarterback, junior Justin Herbert, who was simply sensational as a crowd of 58,453 roared their approval at Autzen Stadium. But it wasn’t enough.
“The reason why you work so hard in the offseason,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said, “is to get into late games, on the road, overtime games against good football teams and hostile environments, and play your best football.
“The first half was not our best football. We had a lot of things to clean up. There’s no excuse for a lot of the mistakes we made in the first half … a lot of individual errors up front. Now, the second half we played a lot better.”
After the Parkinson score, Stanford (4-0, 2-0) still had to shut down the Ducks when it was their turn in overtime. Cornerback Paulson Adebo broke up three passes that Herbert intended for Dillon Mitchell. On the final play, Herbert’s pass was tipped by Alijah Holder and intercepted by Alameen Murphy.
Mitchell was marvelous all night. The 6-2 junior had 14 catches for 239 yards, three yards shy of the school record.
This game, however, will be remembered mostly for Stanford’s valiant comeback. In truth, the Oregon lead could easily have been 31-7 but for a replay review that overturned a 17-yard touchdown run by Jaylon Redd. On the overturn, the ball was placed at the 1.
Three plays later, center Jake Hanson’s snap was too high for Herbert to handle. Stanford linebacker Joey Alfieri, an Oregon native, picked up the football and ran 80 yards for a touchdown that made it 24-14.
“That was my first time running the ball in about five years,” Alfieri said, referring to his days as a tailback for Jesuit High in Portland. “It felt good. It made me kind of miss the tailback days. I don’t know if I’d do it again. It took me a while to recover.”
Shaw called it “the biggest play of the game.” But there were more defensive heroics to come.
Costello, who completed 19 of 26 passes for 327 yard and three touchdowns without an interception, hit JJ ArcegaWhiteside for a 15-yard touchdown with 3:10 left, cutting the Oregon lead to 31-28.
In the final minute, it looked as if the Ducks had the game locked up. But with 51 seconds left, Stanford’s Sean Barton recovered a fumble by CJ Verdell on a hit by backup safety Noah Williams. Costello’s passing set up a 32-yard field goal by Jet Toner that tied the game 31-31 on the final play of regulation.
Stanford tight end Kaden Smith caught six passes for 95 yards, and Bryce Love, back from a week on the injured list, had 89 yards on 19 carries, including a 22-yard burst on which he ducked just inside the pylon late in the third quarter.
That play cut the Ducks’ lead to 24-21. Oregon went up 31-21 on a 1-yard run by Mountain View native Cyrus Habibi-Likio, but Stanford scored the game’s last 17 points.
Verdell had 20 carries for 115 yards for Oregon, 48 of them on a touchdown run in the second quarter.
For the second straight week, redshirt freshman Osiris St. Brown caught a long pass from Costello, this time a 49-yarder that set up Arcega-Whiteside’s second touchdown catch.
“I don’t think I’ve ever won a game like this before,” Arcega-Whiteside said. “It’s one of the top three games I’ve ever been a part of.”