Cardinal QB McKee looks impressive in rout of USC
Stanford has its quarterback, finally.
Tanner McKee, a Southern California native making his first collegiate start, led the Cardinal to a 42-28 rout of 14th-ranked USC on Saturday night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The 6-foot-6 sophomore from Corona, 40 miles west of the stadium, passed for 234 yards and two touchdowns, ran for a third, didn’t turn the ball over or take a sack as the 17-point underdogs built a 29-point lead.
“Pregame you’re thinking of nerves and so many things can happen,” said McKee, who completed 16 of 23 passes. “Once you get out there you realize you’ve seen this front a million times in practice; you’ve run through it in walkthroughs… I felt very comfortable out there.”
McKee split snaps with senior Jack West in the opener against Kansas State after coach David Shaw said neither player had won the QB competition. The Cardinal were disjointed offensively in the 24-7 loss and didn’t score until late in the fourth quarter.
But McKee did enough against the Wildcats to win the QB competition and was officially named the starter last Tuesday.
“People would say we should have done it earlier,” Shaw said. “But I’m a firm believer that two of the worst things you can do to a young student-athlete is No. 1, not give them something they earned, and No. 2, give them something they didn’t earn. And up until this last game, he hadn’t earned the job. And now once you earn it, you really take advantage of it and you really appreciate it. He came out (Saturday) and played extremely well.”
Shaw’s trust in McKee was evident midway through the second quarter. With the game tied at 7, USC jumped offside on a 25yard field goal by Stanford kicker Joshua Karty. Shaw accepted the penalty, taking the points off the board and setting up fourth-andgoal from the 3.
McKee bootlegged right, looped around a defender and delivered a low pass to Elijah Higgins, who made the catch for the go-ahead score.
Stanford added to its lead before halftime on McKee’s first two-minute drill at Stanford. Though, at one point, the Cardinal had to use their last timeout to avoid a delay of game. But McKee led a 66yard touchdown drive in 1:40, including a 49-yard pass to running back Austin Jones and a 6-yard TD to Brycen Tremayne, who managed to get one foot down in the back of the end zone with nine seconds left.
That score put Stanford up 21-10 and led to some fans booing as USC left the field at halftime. More fans would head to the exits after a QB sneak from McKee put Stanford up 35-13 in the third quarter.
McKee joins Tavita Pritchard (2007 at No. 2 USC) and Kevin Hogan (2012 vs. No. 13 Oregon State) as Stanford QBs who beat a ranked opponent in the first career starts dating back to 2003.
Of course, McKee didn’t do it alone. He got help notably from running back Nathaniel Peat and cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly.
After generating just seven points and 39 rushing yards against Kansas State, Stanford scored six minutes into the game Saturday on an 87-yard run by Peat, the fifth-longest run in program history. The speedster went off-tackle on the left side, taking advantage of a block by tight end Bradley Archer.
“The O-line blocked it perfectly, I broke one tackle and it was all green grass,” Peat said. “I just had to put the wheels on.”
The Cardinal gained just 54 yards on its 29 other carries, but Shaw said the team built on the momentum of Peat’s run.
On the defensive side, Kelly intercepted a pass for the second week in a row and returned this one 31 yards for a touchdown. The pick-6, which came with Stanford’s lead cut to 21-13, was the first for Stanford since 2017 (Bobby Okereke vs. Washington State).
Kelly’s assignment was to contain USC receiver Drake London, who had 12 catches in a 30-7 Week 1 win over San Jose State. Until an 11-yard touchdown in garbage time, London had three catches for 57 yards.
“I know it was going to be a battle,” said Kelly, who had three pass breakups and seven tackles. “He’s good, I’m good, he’s going to win some, I’m going to win some. I just had to be confident.”
Shaw has now scored a road victory over a Top 20 team in eight of his 11 seasons at Stanford.
The 100th meeting of these teams produced yet another upset. It didn’t surpass the 85th meeting in 2007 — Stanford, a 41-point underdog, won 24-23 — but it can be mentioned in the next breath. If not for two garbage-time touchdowns by USC, Stanford would have challenged its most lopsided win in the series, a 55-21 shocker against a ninth-ranked USC team in 2009. That was the Jim Harbaugh-Pete Carroll “what’s-your-deal” game. NEXT GAME >> Stanford plays its third straight game away from home when it visits Vanderbilt on Saturday at 5 p.m. The Commodores’ losing streak reached 11 games with a seasonopening 23-3 home loss to East Tennessee State, an FCS team, but won 24-21 at Colorado State on Saturday.