Love ultimately conquered Utes

Bryce Love isn’t going away.

The Stanford junior continues to lead the nation in rushing by a sizable margin — 247 yards over San Diego State’s Rashaad Penny — but it wasn’t easy for Love or for Stanford on Saturday night.

The Cardinal needed to recover an onsides kick to seal a 23-20 victory at Utah.

A 68-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run by Love provided the winning points. It also gave him 152 yards on 20 carries, meaning he’d had to battle on most of the other 19. In fact, his first nine carries produced all of eight yards.

“You look at their personnel and it’s like an NFL defense,” Stanford coach David Shaw said of the Utes. “Big guys all over the place. They can all hit. They can all tackle. We knew with enough opportunities Bryce Love was going to break one or two of them out and he did that.”

The 68-yard run marked Love’s eighth straight game with a touchdown run longer than 50 yards.

He now has 1,240 total yards on 118 carries in six games. He leads the nation in yards per game (206.7) and yards per carry with a whopping 10.51 average.

“It’s just a testament to our offense,” Love said, noting that facing the Cardinal defense in practice prepares him well for these types of games. “We’re really big on grinding it out for however long it takes and we just need one opportunity to make something happen. The line trusts me when they give me a crease that I have to hit it and get what I can. That’s really my job.”

Previously unbeaten, the Utes (4-1, 1-1) were ranked 20th in the Associated Press poll and boasted the No. 1 run defense in the Pac-12.

• Keller Chryst and K.J. Costello alternated at quarterback, as Shaw had said they would.

Chryst, who missed the previous game because of concussion-like symptoms, got the start. He completed 7 of 14 passes for 106 yards and rushed four times for 23 yards.

Costello completed 6 of 10 passes for 82 yards and ran for another 19.

Chryst was under center for all of Stanford’s scoring drives.

“Both played pretty well,” Shaw said. “Give them about a B-minus.”

Shaw said Utah’s focus on Love created some running abilities for both quarterbacks,

“There’s not a lot of clean places to run the ball,” Shaw said. “So on our first touchdown the quarterback had to pull it. We pulled a couple of them today and got positive yards on the quarterbacks legs.”

• Stanford (4-2, 3-1) plays Saturday night at home against Oregon (4-2, 1-2), a 38-10 loser at home to Washington State on Saturday night. The Cardinal then has a bye week before returning to action Oct. 26 at Oregon State (15). Then comes the backto-back biggies against No. 8 Washington State (there) and No. 5 Washington (here) on Nov. 4 and Nov. 10.