STANFORD – Through seven weeks, Stanford has established a clear pattern. The Cardinal is competitive against unranked and FCS teams, with four games decided by an average of six points. But in three games against ranked teams, the closest margin has been 35 points.
That doesn’t bode well for the Cardinal (2-5) with No. 5 Washington next up Saturday at Stanford Stadium (4 p.m., FS1). Also still to come are No. 11 Oregon State and No. 14 Notre Dame.
“Our guys know we play a tough schedule,” Stanford coach Troy Taylor said. “That’s what makes it so rewarding if you do play well and you win a game. But yeah, we’ll lick our wounds and we will be ready to compete and get back after it. We’re excited to have an opportunity to play against one of the top teams in the country.”
Stanford lost 42-7 Saturday night against No. 23 UCLA (5-2), the closest it has come to a ranked opponent this season. The Cardinal lost 56-10 at No. 24 USC and 42-6 at home to No. 8 Oregon. That computes to 140-23.
It might seem obvious that mediocre teams struggle against top competition, but that wasn’t the case in other games around the country on Saturday.
Five Top 10 teams played unranked opponents, and four were one-score games, including Washington’s 15-7 win over Arizona State, No. 6 Oklahoma beating UCF 31-29, No. 8 Texas defeating Houston 31-24, and 1-5 Virginia upsetting No. 10 UNC 31-27.
But Stanford fell behind 35-0 on Saturday.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” quarterback Ashton Daniels said. “But at the same time if we want to be great, we have to take accountability and be ready to move on to next week.”
Here were the takeaways from the last scheduled game between teams that have played every year since World War II.
SLOW START
After falling behind 29-0 at halftime against last week against Colorado, Stanford trailed 21-0 at halftime against UCLA.
“Our margin for victory is thin,” Taylor said. “We got to start out faster. We just have to. We can’t put ourselves and give up long drives on offense, three-and-out, give them the ball back down. You start to get some momentum on the other side. It becomes difficult.”
Stanford went 3-and-out on its first two possessions while allowing 75- and 60-yard TD drives on defense. Midway through the first quarter, it was 14-0.
PENALTIES
Stanford entered the game in the middle of the Pac-12 with 55 penalty yards a game, but was called for 113 penalty yards Saturday, the most in a game since Sept. 12, 2015 against UCF.
Two penalties – an offensive pass interference and an illegal touching – knocked the Cardinal out of field goal range in the first half.
“Yeah, really frustrating,” Taylor said. “We’re a young team, but still you shouldn’t be making those mistakes. You should know. We got to work on it and continue to drill home how important it is.”
CONVERSIONS
The Cardinal hoped to put together long drives to control possession and tire out UCLA’s fierce defensive line. But Stanford was a combined 1-for-15 on third and fourth downs.
The Cardinal was fifth in the Pac-12 in third-down conversions (44 percent) and was 4-of-10 on fourth down entering the game.
“We didn’t get it done today,” Taylor said. “Starts with me. Got to have a better plan. We weren’t able to sustain on third down, got off the field quickly. That was a big part of (the loss).
Stanford must maintain possession Saturday if it wants to stay competitive against Washington and Heisman hopeful Michael Penix Jr.