Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
The Stanford Cardinal displayed some impressive offense on Tuesday night as it dismantled the Maryland Terrapins 45-21 at the Foster Farms Bowl in Santa Clara. The way the Cardinal moved the ball in the air and on the ground was championship-caliber football – at least it appeared as such. Even their special teams were spectacular as they consistently returned the ball for surplus field positioning.
Stanford hasn’t had an easy road this season. The Cardinal suffered two key losses to USC and Notre Dame, which knocked them out of contention for a big bowl game. To make matters even worse, the Cardinal went on to fall to Arizona State, Oregon and Utah, which put a major damper on their conference reputation of being a top-tier team.
Considering all of their shortcomings this season, who would have guessed that Stanford’s offense could be so explosive? Where did that come from?
Perhaps it was just the level of competition that made David Shaw’s team look so dominant offensively. Quite frankly, the Terrapins weren’t the biggest threat the Cardinal has faced – not even close. While their offense was busy getting shut down and defense getting ran over, their basketball team beat Michigan State in double-overtime. Maybe they should just stick to basketball.
Either way, from the looks of Stanford’s well-rounded attack in the air and on the ground, I expect the once Pac-12 powerhouse to stake their claim in the conference early next season and pick up where they left off before they fell from grace.
Oh, and they did it all without star WR Ty Montgomery, who was still out with a shoulder injury.
Mark Boone is a sports writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkBoone99, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.
