The Mercury News

Cardinal offense bottoms out

- By Ray Hacke Correspond­ent

STANFORD — Stanford’s stagnant offense had its worst output of the season — and all but negated one of the defense’s best performanc­es — Saturday afternoon in a 10-5 loss to Colorado before an announced crowd of 44,535 at Stanford Stadium.

Even the return of star tailback Christian McCaffrey couldn’t give the Cardinal’s offense a much-needed boost. After sitting out last week’s win over Notre Dame with an undisclose­d injury, the junior rushed for 92 yards on 21 carries and caught two passes for 26 yards.

Still, McCaffrey was held without a touchdown for the fourth time since Stanford’s Sept. 17 win over USC. In fact, the Cardinal’s entire offense has scored just two meaningful touchdowns since that game — goahead TDs against UCLA on Sept. 24 and Notre Dame last week.

“We’ve had a lot of selfinflic­ted wounds, a lot of penalties,” junior center Jesse Burkett said. “All we can do now is keep working, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Stanford (4-3, 2-3 Pac-12), which has now lost three of its past four games, lost to Colorado for the first time in David Shaw’s six years as head coach. It was also former San Jose State coach Mike MacIntyre’s first victory over the Cardinal since taking over at Colorado in 2013.

Shaw blamed himself for not getting the most out of his offense.

“The guys we have now are capable of so much more,” Shaw said. “I have to find a way to stoke their fire, get some consistenc­y and get some playmaking.

“Consistenc­y makes good teams, consistenc­y makes good players, and we haven’t had it.”

Stanford’s only offensive points against Colorado (6-2, 4-1) came in the first quarter when senior placekicke­r Conrad Ukropina made a 26yard field goal. The Buffaloes gave Stanford two more in the final seconds when senior quarterbac­k Sefo Liufau ran out the back of the end zone for a safety.

In between, the Cardinal doomed itself with three fourth-quarter turnovers — all courtesy of quarterbac­k Ryan Burns.

The first came on firstand-goal from Colorado’s 4yard line with 10:34 remaining. Burns fumbled the snap from Burkett, and Buffaloes linebacker Kenneth Olugbode recovered.

Burns then threw intercepti­ons on each of Stanford’s next two possession­s. The senior threw three picks on the afternoon, marring an otherwise solid 16-for-29, 170yard passing performanc­e.

Shaw said he may need to make some changes at quarterbac­k to shake up his offense.

“We have had poor production from the quarterbac­k position,” the coach said. “We have not been getting the play that we need.”

Stanford’s defense, meanwhile, turned in one of its best performanc­es of the season. The Cardinal limited a Colorado team that had been averaging 39 points per game, and been held below 20 just once, to its lowest point total of the season.

Still, Stanford’s defensive players refused to throw the offense under the bus for failing to generate points.

“When the offense doesn’t perform, we take it as an opportunit­y to be great,” defensive end Solomon Thomas said. “(Today) we missed too many tackles, and although we only gave up 10 points, we surrendere­d over 200 yards rushing, which is unacceptab­le.”

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