Frosh quarterback fuels late-season run
Costello lauded for his presence and strong arm
Stanford is a different football team than it was when it lost back-to-back games early in the season. The main reason is a quarterback who gets the play call in the huddle and is apt to announce, “OK, boys, I’ve got a saucy one for you.”
That means K.J. Costello is especially enthusiastic about the play call, according to associate head coach and offensive coordinator Mike Bloomgren.
The redshirt freshman’s play coming off the bench against UCLA — nine scores on his 10 drives — and in his three most recent starts has given the Cardinal a particularly saucy sensation.
Bryce Love’s season-long brilliance powered their remarkable recovery from the losses at USC and San Diego State, and Costello’s emergence has driven them to heights nobody could have anticipated in September.
Costello put in a solid performance to complement Love’s 166 yards and three
touchdowns in the win over Washington, his touchdown pass to tight end Kaden Smith was one of the keys in a surprisingly tough win over Cal, and his four artful TD passes led to Saturday’s victory over Notre Dame.
Given Love’s often uncooperative ankle, Costello probably will need another big game if the Cardinal are to knock off USC in Friday’s Pac-12 title game at Levi’s Stadium.
So far, he’s averaging 130 yards passing per game, a modest number in the Pac-12. He has been at his best in the red zone and when his team needed it the most. He has thrown nine touchdown passes, most of them against tough competition.
He loves to throw downfield with accuracy that often allows only his tall receivers a shot at the ball. His two interceptions in 162 pass attempts came on desperation throws at the end of a game (Washington State) or a half (Cal).
Beyond the numbers, he has injected spunk into an offense that desperately needed it. When head coach David Shaw listed his attributes this week, he started not with his arm strength or passing touch but with his “fire” and “passion.”
How intense is Costello? Listen to JJ Arcega-Whiteside.
With about six minutes left in Stanford’s 30-22 win over Washington, the wide receiver said, the Cardinal were up by 15 points and feeling pretty good about themselves. “On the sideline, there was no sense of urgency,” he said.
Except for the quarterback, who was “electric,” ArcegaWhiteside said.
Costello told his teammates,
“He chooses to play (quarterback) the hardest way, which is out-preparing the other team.” K.J. Costello, Stanford quarterback, on Tom Brady
“Next drive, we’ve got to put this game away!” He wasn’t hearing any talk about the score. “We’ve got to go up by more!” he said.
As it happened, the Huskies scored with 4:22 left and made it a one-possession game. Stanford held off Washington, but even after the players joyfully rushed the field, Costello still had his game face on. It was as if he didn’t know “that we won,” Arcega-Whiteside said.
Costello’s four scoring throws against the Irish were like different golf shots, although none came on what he calls “the club,” a throw Shaw has likened to “a Nolan Ryan fastball.” Not even a bullet to Smith in the end zone was the club, Costello said. Call it a slider, he said, although the analogy might be imprecise.
“It’s thrown nearly at max, but it’s got a little bit of top (elevation) to it to get it over the backers,” he said. “To get it in a position where it’s (the receiver) or nobody. A fastball doesn’t really have the top on it. It’s just the angle of the throw that changes.”
He came very close to a five-touchdown game that night. Tight end Colby Parkinson couldn’t hang on to a throw in the end zone in the third quarter. After practice Monday night, the two worked on the same play for 30 minutes, Costello said.
“I told him we both owe each other one,” Costello said. “I missed him on a third down where I overthrew him a little bit.”
While setting 19 school passing records at Santa Margarita Catholic, including Carson Palmer’s record for career yards, Costello was heavily recruited by USC. That was Palmer’s school. Costello rooted for the Trojans as a kid. Picking USC, he decided, would have been an emotional decision but not the smart one.
To Costello, the gold standard of quarterbacks is Tom Brady. “The quarterback position,” Costello said, “can be played a lot of ways, but he chooses to play it the hardest way, which is out-preparing the other team. And then bringing a sense of fire, knowing that his preparation allows him to do so.”
Fire, of course, is one of Costello’s calling cards. That’s why it’s a little surprising to hear his calm reaction to Shaw’s odd refusal to play him in the Oregon State game when then-starter Keller Chryst was struggling.
“I think it’s simple,” he said, although the mystery — which Shaw has not explained — baffled many Stanford fans. It was about loyalty, he said, and he supported it. “Keller was our guy . ... I respect the way coach Shaw goes about it. The older guy, the guy who has put in the time, is our guy until told otherwise.”
Now that Costello is the guy, he’s 4-1 as a starter. Friday’s game will be his fourth start against a Top 25 team. A truly saucy assignment.