Trojans Coach Clay Helton on Sunday dismissed defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, defensive backs coach Keith Heyward, defensive line coach Chris Wilson and offensive line coach Bob Connelly.
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The Trojans made Stanford pay for not putting the game away early. The Hawkeyes got the other half of the best of the consolation prizes, as Iowa will also head to Pasadena, to meet Stanford in the Rose Bowl (2 PM New Year’s Day, as always). Hogan was more open than the vast swath of seats at Levi’s Stadium, where the announced crowd of 58,476 was closer to 48,476 in attendance.
Stanford put its best foot forward on Saturday and it probably won’t be enough at least as far as the College Football Playoff goes. That gave McCaffrey more room than he needs.
Stanford’s fate, and the conference’s, was probably sealed when the Cardinal couldn’t conclude what looked like the game winning drive at Northwestern, back on the opening Saturday morning of the season; had they scored, with 1 win, they would likely have been in instead of Oklahoma, even given that the Big XII was owed one after previous year.
McCaffrey turned this entire game into a Heisman pose, rolling up 461 all-purpose yards.
“He’s a mismatch nightmare”, Helton said. McCaffrey gashed USC catching the ball.
McCaffrey, the son of three-time Super Bowl champion receiver Ed McCaffrey, tied the mark on a 31-yard punt return prior to his short record-breaking run.
“What doesn’t he do?”
“I think 99 percent of the matchups he has out the back field on the one-on-one, he’s going to win it”, linebacker Su’a Cravens said.
Said more broadly, McCaffrey was unstoppable.
Naturally, this puts the sophomore in the running for the Heisman trophy.
Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey’s incredible season continues. “It’s not even a debate”, Shaw said. Penalties hurt USC, who had 87 penalty yards on 8 penalties.
One thing seems certain: McCaffrey will be on his way to NY next week as a Heisman Trophy finalist.
McCaffrey had 93 rushing yards after the first quarter (USC had 17 yards total) and then threw the touchdown pass to Hogan on a reverse on the first play of the second quarter. We knew that if we wanted to win the game, we were going to have to run the ball efficiently, and those guys were unbelievable.
“Eventually we’ll get there”, he said. “We were too fired up”. Sanders’ record was 3,250.
No. 17 HOUSTON 24, No. 20 TEMPLE 13: In Houston, Greg Ward Jr. ran for 148 yards and two touchdowns and the Cougars won the inaugural American Athletic Conference Championship game.
ST. THOMAS 38, WABASH 7: In St. Paul, Minnesota, Mason Zurek had the only Wabash touchdown – from 4 yards out – but it was after the Little Giants had fallen behind by 38 points in the quarterfinals of the NCAA’s Division III quarterfinals.
The desperate hour came to Stanford around 7 o’clock in Saturday night’s Pacific-12 Conference championship game, and in the moment of crisis, the Cardinal knew who to call.
They included a sack of quarterback Cody Kessler that forced a fumble, which led to a Stanford touchdown.
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“You see that flash of lightning and the kid explodes through the hole”, Shaw said.
