UCLA gave it the old college try, but too much black, too much Luck, and too much private school had the Bruins looking at a insurmountable deficit. The game was closer than the 45-19 final score will make it look, but only because Stanford took their time firing on all cylinders.
Leland Stanford Junior University is in the odd position of being both front runners in the Pac12 and living up to the hype. Odd in that just a year ago, Oregon occupied that role. Odd in that for the last decade of Pac football, it has been USC and a sack of potatoes.
Now Stanford are well out in front, and much of that has to do with the return of their starting QB Andrew Luck. Luck had a bit of an off day, only throwing for 227 yards at a 23/27 clip. Stanford’s Stepfan Taylor ran for 112 yards.
Stanford took over eight minutes on their first scoring drive, and then scored twice in the last three quarters of the game. UCLA made some drives to make it interesting, but never got closer than 10 points.