BOULDER, Colo. — On a couple of Stanford plays Saturday, smash-mouth football gave way to trickery, including a touchdown pass by Christian McCaffrey. Otherwise, it was business as usual for the Cardinal on a beautiful day in the Rockies.

No. 9 Stanford scored two touchdowns in the final two minutes of the first half and closed in on the Pac-12 North title with a 42-10 rout of Colorado.

Flexing their usual muscle power, the Cardinal more than tripled the Buffaloes in rushing yards, 275-83. McCaffrey had his seventh straight 100-yard day, with 147 on his return to his home state.

The Cardinal (8-1, 7-0 Pac-12) were positioned to clinch the division title with a Cal victory over Oregon on Saturday night.

“We don’t talk about anything but winning our conference,” head coach David Shaw said, although at this point, Stanford fans and the media are probably more focused on a possible appearance in the national semifinals. “We don’t talk about this other stuff. Our conference is tough enough to keep our full-time attention.”

In keeping with their big-play capability this year, the Cardinal had a 43-yard touchdown pass from Kevin Hogan to Michael Rector. Two other touchdowns, though, were something new — right out of the trick bag.

With the offense (and the Buffs’ defense) bunched on a 4th-and-2 play at the Colorado 6-yard line and Stanford leading 14-7, Hogan faked a handoff to Remound Wright and passed to wide-open tight end Dalton Schultz in the end zone.

Early in the fourth quarter, with his team up by 25 points, Shaw called for a halfback pass. McCaffrey took a pitch from Hogan and, as the Buffs descended on him, threw to tight end Austin Hooper, who completed a 28-yard touchdown.

In the huddle, McCaffrey said, Hogan told him, “Don’t throw it if it’s not wide open.” Hooper then nudged him and said, “Throw the ball.” Meaning, let it fly, and he would go and get it.

McCaffrey was Stanford’s first non-quarterback to throw a touchdown pass since Toby Gerhart against Notre Dame in 2009.

Shaw defended the call, saying the game still wasn’t over. “We still needed to score,” he said. “We knew that (Colorado’s) offense had kept the ball away from everybody they had played. So until the game was completely out of reach, we were going to be in attack mode.”

Colorado had run a Pac-12-record 114 plays the previous Saturday in a 35-31 loss at UCLA. This time, the Buffs (4-6, 1-5) had just 53. Stanford had a 472-231 advantage in total yardage.

Quarterback Sefo Liufau couldn’t get much going against Stanford, despite a couple of nice runs. Throwing erratically, he was 10-for-18 for 125 yards.

After the Schultz touchdown made the lead 21-7 with 1:51 left in the half, Liufau badly overthrew Nelson Spruce, and safety Dallas Lloyd picked off the pass at the Stanford 43.

That left the Cardinal a little more than a minute, plenty of time to score again before halftime. Hooper made a leaping catch for 25 yards to the 1-yard line. With the ball inches from the goal line, Hogan faked a handoff to Wright, then tried to hit him in the end zone, but he was covered.

“I didn’t like the look,” Hogan said. “I didn’t want to force it. I just leaked out the back side and got in.”

Good thing for Stanford that he did, on the last play of the half, Shaw said. Otherwise, the drive would have been pointless. “I trust his decision making,” he said. “I trust his legs now that he’s feeling good” after recovering from a sprained ankle.

The most spectacular run of the day, though, was freshman Bryce Love’s 47-yard bolt for a touchdown in the third quarter.

“I came around the edge and thought about pressing outside,” Love said. “I cut back, and it was wide open. It was good blocking.”

Shaw said Love “gets zero to 60 pretty much as fast as anybody I’ve been around.”

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald

Pac-12 standings

North

Conf All Stanford 7-0 8-1 Washington St. 4-2 6-3 Oregon-n 3-2 5-3 Cal-n 2-3 5-3 Washington-n 2-3 4-4 Oregon State 0-6 2-7

South

Conf All Utah-n 4-1 7-1 UCLA 4-2 7-2 USC-n 3-2 5-3 Arizona-n 2-4 5-4 Arizona State 2-4 4-5 Colorado 1-5 4-6