When the clock struck zero and Oregon fans began to flood the field in celebration of a 52-31 win, Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh remained just outside the visitor’s locker room. His steely gaze directed at the field, he waited for one last player to make his way to the locker room.
When the player approached him, Harbaugh gave him a light pat on the back, and with that, both trotted off the field.
Emerging minutes later for post game interviews, Harbaugh was brief with his comments.
A word to describe the Oregon offense?
“Impressive,” Harbaugh said.
Trying to stop it?
“It’s very difficult,” he said.
If Harbaugh’s statement’s didn’t exactly tell a compelling story, the numbers sure did.
Oregon totaled 626 total yards, including 388 on the ground. LaMichael James rushed for a career high 257 yards, and quarterback Darron Thomas added a career high of his own with 117.
After trailing 31-24 at halftime, the Oregon offense simply exploded in the second half, while the Stanford offense began to stall.
“Things didn’t quite go our way in the second half,” Harbaugh said. “We didn’t handle some situations that could have put points on the board for us.”
For linebacker Shayne Skov, who finished the game with nine tackles, the explanation was simple.
“Defensively, we just didn’t play a good game,” Skov said. “And they had a great offensive game … we made a lot of mistakes, and they played great offensively.”
For star quarterback Andrew Luck, the second half was similarly frustrating. After picking apart the Oregon defense in the early part of the game, Luck found himself under heavier pressure as the game went on, and threw two costly interceptions.
When asked whether an improved Oregon pass rush affected him, Luck was skeptical.
“Part of football is getting hit,” Luck said. “I don’t think anybody plays and expects to keep their uniform clean, per se, any time they go out on the field. So I try not to let it faze me.”
Faced with a third and goal early in the fourth quarter, with the Cardinal down by 14, Luck made what might have been his most costly mistake of the game. The sophomore fumbled the snap, losing four crucial yards while recovering the ball. An incompletion followed on fourth and goal, and a golden opportunity was missed.
“That was my fault,” Luck said. “I pulled out too early and took the negative play.”
The Cardinal may have looked rattled at certain moments in the game, but Harbaugh felt it had little to do with the crowd and atmosphere.
“The guys, they really left the peripheral things out like the crowd and the noise and the big-game hype, and just focused on what they had to do,” Harbaugh said. “For the most part, I thought they did a great job of that.”
To that end, Harbaugh felt proud of his team.
“I’m proud of my guys,” Harbaugh said. “Very proud of them, and we’ll keep our heads up, and we’ll come back next week, wasn’t our day today.”
Still, that is not to say the loss didn’t sting. Stanford had a chance to establish itself as the team to beat in the Pacific-10 Conference, and the players will not soon forget an opportunity they let slip away.
“Very disappointing,” Luck said.
No more words were needed.
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