Little things like school holidays aren’t enough to stop Stat on the Back. There’s no print issue this week, but here’s an online-only look at how Stanford kept the Axe in its rightful home yet again.

 

Number of the game: 1

 

What it means: The Cardinal got humbled by Oregon but found a way to bounce back and stop the losing skid at one game. And even though it was far from a pretty win, Stanford is now likely just one win away from a BCS bowl.

 

Why it matters: Nearly every team loses a game at some point, but the best teams find a way to minimize the damage. Stanford looked awful against the Ducks and not entirely better against Cal, but a win is a win. And in a weekend when four teams ranked ahead of Stanford fell to lesser foes, it can’t be stressed enough how important that is.

 

Every Cardinal fan had dreams of a national title (dreams that may have some hint of a chance of a glimmer of a hope…but not much) and an undefeated season seemed possible. But with the way things are going in college football, a one-loss season is pretty darn good. Heck, a one-loss season is always good. There is still a lot to play for, and Stanford checked off item No. 1 on its checklist: keep the Axe.

 

Other notable numbers:

 

10: The Big Game win gives Stanford back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time ever. The recent run of success has given people insane expectations, but the fact is that Stanford hasn’t been this good in a long, long time (and may or may not be this good in the future). It’s worth a step back every once in a while to put things in perspective before delving into each specific play.

 

2: As stated above, Saturday was not an aesthetically pleasing game, and it wasn’t much prettier on the stat sheet. Players were slipping all over the field, and a pair of impressive Stanford streaks fell to the wayside as well.

 

Coming into Saturday’s game, the Cardinal was the only team in the nation to score on every red zone trip of the season. After 57 straight successful trips to start off the year, Stanford finally came up empty inside the 20 when Jordan Williamson shanked a 33-yard field goal in the final minute of the first half.

 

Stanford also came into the game perfect on fourth-down conversions. The Cardinal’s 11-for-11 record on do-or-die downs led the nation until Stepfan Taylor was thrown for a loss on fourth-and-2 from the Cal 31-yard line.

 

Losing two streaks is unfortunate. The positive side? Stanford is still awfully good in both areas. Even with the missed field goal, the Cardinal is still the best red zone team in the nation. Every other team has at least two empty red zone trips, and Stanford’s 374 red zone points are more than any other team. What’s even more impressive is the Cardinal’s balance. Of the team’s 61 scores inside the 20-yard line, 13 are field goals and the touchdowns are split in half—24 through the air and 24 on the ground. As far as fourth downs, the now 11-for-12 mark is good for second in the nation, trailing only the 6-for-6 of Stanford’s next opponent, Notre Dame.

 

13: The Cardinal has had a much tougher time in its past four games than its first seven. Stanford has outscored its past four opponents by just 13 points (3.25 points per game) after outscoring its first seven by 252 points (36 points per game). One reason for the drop-off…

 

38: Stanford has scored 38 points or fewer in regulation in each of its past four games, for an average of 33.3 points per game. This isn’t awful, but it’s not nearly at the level of the Cardinal’s offense in the first seven games, when the team scored at least 44 points in every game but one for an average of 48.6 points per game. On a possibly related note, Zach Ertz hasn’t played an offensive snap in the past four games. That’s not a coincidence. A lot is due to the competition, but injuries to Ertz, Chris Owusu, Levine Toilolo, Cameron Fleming and Williamson haven’t helped either. Of course, it’s not all the offense’s fault…

 

142: Stanford’s defense has struggled much more than its offense. In this same four-game stretch, the Cardinal allowed 142 points for an average of 35.5 points per game. Stanford didn’t allow 35 points in a single game before this stretch. In fact, the Cardinal hadn’t even allowed more than 21, ranking fourth in the nation by allowing just 12.6 points per game through the first seven contests.

 

Of course, these struggles make sense. Apart from the aforementioned injuries (and others), the last four games represent a significant increase in difficulty. If you look at the Sagarin rankings, you’ll see that Stanford’s three toughest opponents so far this season (Oregon, USC and Cal) all played the Cardinal in the last four weeks. Of course, if you look at the Sagarin rankings for more than five seconds, your brain might explode. (Let’s just say that any system where the 10 toughest strengths of schedule are assigned to all 10 teams from one conference has some issues. Especially when one of those 10 is a team whose non-conference schedule consists of Texas State, New Mexico and Nevada. I could—and very well might—write an entire column about how awful these rankings are. So for now let’s just stick with David Shaw’s assessment: “Bottom line, the BCS is flawed.” But I digress.)

 

6: Now all this talk of a drop-off might be getting you down. But here’s the important part. Before this four-game stretch, Stanford was ranked No. 6 in the BCS standings. Now? No. 6. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

 

Barring an absurd Oregon State upset win this weekend, Stanford’s final game of the year will be this Saturday against Notre Dame. A win would give the Cardinal an almost certain berth in the Fiesta Bowl. If Stanford sneaks up to the top four in the BCS standings, it will be a certainty. Not too shabby.

 

42-21: Speaking of not too shabby, there was another rivalry football game Saturday on Stanford’s campus. The Stanford Daily took on The Daily Californian in the annual Ink Bowl, a no-holds-barred flag football game for Bay Area collegiate journalism supremacy. And for the third straight year, Stanford finished victorious, riding a Tim Tebow-esque performance from quarterback/sports editor Miles Bennett-Smith to a 42-21 win. The all-important Exacto Knife remains on the Farm.

 

And yes, you just read a column where the first Stanford quarterback named was not Andrew Luck. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!