Sanders gains 92 to pace rushers
Midway through the third quarter Saturday, Stanford took possession at its 2-yard line. The ground game, which had operated in fits and starts much of the game, suddenly switched into high gear.
Kelsey Young ripped off 18 and 9 yards before giving way to Barry Sanders, who suddenly started looking a little like, well, Barry Sanders.
He gained 14 yards on one carry, then broke loose down the right sideline for 44 yards before being brought down by cornerback Chris Carnegie, a St. Mary’s-Berkeley alum.
Itwas the longest run of Sanders’ career. The redshirt sophomore said hewasn’t surprised he was caught. “I heard he had a good angle,” Sanders joked, “so I’mgoing to stick to that story.”
Sanders nearly reached the 100-yard rushing mark for the first time in his college career. He had 92 yards in nine carries, a 10.2-yard average.
“Overall, the offense started to click in the second half,” Sanders said. “The offensive line started staying on its blocks a little longer, and we had some good runs.” Montgomery the intimidator: Army punter Alex Tardieu generally kept the ball away from Ty Montgomery with his high, short kicks. Montgomery totaled only 11 yards on two returns and fumbled on one of them.
Head coach David Shaw said he expects other teams to take a similar approach, and he doesn’t mind.
“Hopefully that leads to positive field position,” Shaw said. “We’ve had some teams punt the ball away from Ty, punt out of bounds, punt high and short. We’ll take all those. That helps field position.” He said Montgomery represents “an intimidation factor.”
Montgomery also caught eight passes for 86 yards and scored twice. Army’s trickery backfires: During theweek at practice, Stanford special-teams coach Pete Alamar had warned about Army’s onside kicks and fake punts. Early in the fourth quarter, the vigilance was rewarded.
On a fake punt, Tardieu passed to DeAndre Bell, whowas tackled by Patrick Skov well short of the first down. Taking possession at the Army 24, Stanford quickly drove to a touchdown. Briefly: Freshman tailback Christian McCaffrey caught a 12-yard pass to set up a touchdown and had a 23-yard run in the closing seconds.… Stanford has held opponents to 20 points or fewer in each of its past 11 games.… Redshirt freshman tight end Austin Hooper had four catches for 46 yards.