Stanford ran 20 more plays and had six more first downs than SMU on Saturday in Dallas. But a series of mistakes ensured the Cardinal wouldn’t come close to breaking a nine-game road losing streak.
Stanford committed 10 penalties, allowed six sacks, had a minus-2 turnover margin and was scoreless in two trips inside the 5-yard line in a 34-10 loss to the Mustangs.
Stanford was competitive against a team that made the College Football Playoff last season and is 10-0 in regular-season conference games since joining the ACC. But it still lost by three scores.
“I’m mad, you know? I mean, the whole team’s mad,” interim coach Frank Reich said. “I know we’re a good team, but we just can’t make that many mistakes.”
Coming off an open week, the Cardinal (2-4, 1-2) forced a three-and-out on defense to start the game, but Liam Thorpe fumbled the ensuing punt return to give possession back to the Mustangs (4-2, 2-0). Stanford then allowed three sacks on its opening drive and committed back-to-back holding calls on its second drive.
“That’s not us,” receiver CJ Williams said. “I mean, we’re smarter than that. We’re high-level football players, and we were recruited here for that reason. That’s just sloppy stuff. That’s bad football on us at the end of the day. So we need to fix that.”
Later in the half, Stanford went on an 18-play drive that took almost 10 minutes, but was stopped on fourth-and-goal from the 1.
When SMU seemed content to go into halftime up 10-0, it scored on an 87-yard touchdown run with 35 seconds left in the second quarter.
Stanford responded with its lone touchdown, a 14-yard pass from Ben Gulbranson to Williams with two seconds left in the half. But SMU QB Kevin Jennings threw a 42-yard touchdown on its first possession of the third quarter to increase the margin to 17 again.
Down 24-10 midway through the fourth quarter, Stanford had one last chance to stay in the game. But a Gulbranson touchdown pass was called back when left guard Ziron Brown was called for hands to the face. Later, on first-and-goal from the 5, Gulbranson forced a throw to top target Sam Roush in the flat, resulting in his first interception in four games, which was returned 96 yards for a score.
“I thought Ben did a nice job out there today,” Reich said. “I put him in a bad position on that last interception. I really take responsibility for that. It was just a play that I had a conviction on, that I thought was going to look good and work down there, and it didn’t. Not only did it not look good, but they had the thing wired. So that’s on me.”
Coming off a 400-yard passing day in Stanford’s previous game against San Jose State, Gulbranson finished 22 of 40 for 278 yards.
Williams caught seven passes for 109 yards and is the first Stanford receiver since Troy Walters in 1999 to have three straight 100-yard receiving games.
“We played with them, and I feel like we outperformed them position by position by position,” Williams said. “We just shot ourselves in the foot, turned over the ball when we didn’t need to. And so the message going into the week is, how can we improve ourselves? How can we hold each other accountable? How can I get better? Because I need to do that. Everybody in the room needs to do that.”
After its fourth road loss this season – all in different time zones – Stanford returns to Stanford Stadium Saturday night to host Florida State. The Seminoles opened the season with a win against Alabama but are 0-3 in the ACC.
Scary situation
Junior cornerback Aaron Morris was immobilized and left the field in an ambulance in the first quarter after he tackled SMU receiver Jordan Hudson. Morris, though, was released from the hospital and rejoined the team before the game ended.
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