Recap: Stanford falls to UNC at Chapel Hill
On Saturday, Stanford football fell to North Carolina on the road by a final score of 20-15. North Carolina quarterback Gio Lopez led the way for the Tarheels, going 18-25 for 203 yards, two touchdowns, and zero interceptions for a 166.6 passer rating while wide receiver Jordan Shipp had five receptions for 83 yards and one touchdown. Stanford redshirt freshman quarterback Elijah Brown got the start for the Cardinal, going 27-39 for 284 yards, one touchdown, and one interception for a 133.7 passer rating. North Carolina improves to 4-5 overall and 2-3 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 3-7 overall and 2-5 in the ACC.
VIDEO: Stanford Football Postgame Press Conference-North Carolina
BOX SCORE: Stanford at UNC-Saturday, November 8th
This was a pretty ugly game in its entirety. It was tied 3-3 at halftime as North Carolina kicker Rece Verhoff made a 27-yard field goal with 5:49 to go in the 1st quarter while Stanford kicker Emmet Kenney made a 38-yard field goal as the final play before halftime. Kenney missed a 41-yard field goal earlier in the 2nd quarter at 6:11, so Stanford could have had the lead at the break had he made that.
The second half was much more interesting. Especially the 4th quarter. In the 3rd quarter, North Carolina found the end zone on the opening drive as Lopez found Davion Gause for a 20-yard touchdown reception to cap off a 12 play, 75-yard drive. That would be the only points scored in the quarter, make it a 10-3 game entering the 4th quarter.
Despite only being down by seven points, given how inert Stanford’s offense had been, it seemed like a much larger lead. Entering the 4th quarter, Stanford had punted the ball four times while also having thrown an interception. The offense just wasn’t able to get going. Brown was under a lot of pressure, rarely getting enough time to make good throws.
To open the 4th quarter, Verhoff drained a 48-yard field goal for the Tarheels to make it 13-3 and then after forcing Stanford to punt on the next drive, North Carolina found the end zone on the next drive as Lopez connected with Shipp for a 55-yard touchdown pass. That made it a 20-3 lead for the Tarheels with 12:04 to go in the game.
To Stanford’s credit, they didn’t give up when they were down 17. On the next drive, Stanford would find the end zone as Cole Tabb rushed for a one-yard touchdown, capping off a nine play, 75-yard drive. A 22-yard pass from Elijah Brown to Caden High and a 19-yard pass from Brown to Micah Ford were the longest plays of the drive. Stanford would go for 2 and not convert, keeping it at 20-9 with 8:28 to go.
After forcing North Carolina to punt, Stanford would score a touchdown on the next drive as a 24-yard touchdown pass from Brown to CJ Williams capped off a nine play, 80-yard drive. Williams had great body control in the left corner of the end zone to keep his feet in bounds and secure the catch. It was a pretty connection between two guys who previously played together at Mater Dei High School. Stanford went for 2 again and didn’t get it. That kept it 20-15 with 1:48 to go.
To the credit of Stanford’s defense, they would force a punt, getting them the ball back with 46 seconds left. The good news for Stanford was down by five, they still had a chance to win the game. The bad news for Stanford was they had so little time left.
In the end, the clock would run out on Stanford as they were unable to find the end zone for a third time. 20-15 would be the final score as North Carolina escaped with the win.
For Stanford, this was a disappointing loss given how long it took their offense to get rolling. Had they been able to find the end zone once in the first three quarters, they very well may have won this game. Instead, they got down 20-3 and ended up playing race against the clock, which normally doesn’t work out.
“I’m not surprised at our guys,” Stanford interim head coach Frank Reich said of the way the game ended. “I mean they have no quit in them. Yeah, I’m just really proud of the team.”
On the positive side, they battled hard and didn’t give up, making it interesting at the end. And then hey, when given time to make his throws, Elijah Brown actually looked pretty good. That touchdown throw to CJ Williams was fantastic. His problem was the offensive line rarely gave him enough time to make such throws as he was sacked nine times.
“I mean, we just struggled to protect early,” Reich said. “So, I gotta look at the tape. I’m proud of the team. I love these guys, man. They fought hard. And Elijah, I’m really happy with how Elijah fought back. I mean, obviously some of the protection stuff he’s just trying to hold on. So, he didn’t flinch, it didn’t faze him, and then in the second half we got it going a little bit and he started getting hot.”
There was a lot of discussion post-game about the decision to go for the 2-point conversion when they were down 20-9. I myself found was confused about the decision, but after asking Reich about it post-game, the logic made more sense.
“When you’re down 17 and you know you need three scores, the thinking is you go for two on the first try,” Reich explained. “You get it and then, if you get it, then the second try you kick one and then when you need a field goal at the end, it’s a field goal to win and not to tie. If you miss the first one, then there’s a good chance hopefully you make the second one and then you’re just back on track. So, it’s kind of a common thing with this day in analytics that if you’re, if you get in that scenario, there’s some good analytical reasons to go for two when you’re in that situation.”
Up next for Stanford is Big Game against Cal on Saturday, November 22nd. Kickoff time is TBA. The game will be played on The Farm.
“We gotta get ready, we gotta go win this game,” Reich said of facing the Golden Bears. “I mean, there’s no. Listen, this is a merciless game. It doesn’t matter. We got a bunch of good guys who are playing their hearts out, for each other, for all the right reasons, and we’re coming up short and we knew, we had some big goals for the year that we needed to get a win today and that didn’t happen. So it tears your heart out.
“But, we got two more to go and there’s no pity parties, right? I mean, we gotta be mentally tough and line back up and learn from this game and get better and fight to the end no matter what every game means. And the reason you do that is that’s all you know how to do. I mean, that’s the right thing to do. You just do the next right thing. We talked a lot about that this year. Just keep doing the next right thing.”
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