PALO ALTO — The obvious takeaway from Friday night’s season opener at Stanford Stadium is that Heisman Trophy contender Christian McCaffrey is more than capable of living up to the hype.

The 6-foot, 200-pound running back began his junior campaign with 126 yards on 22 carries and a pair of touchdowns, including the knockout punch with 2:12 left — a 41-yard scamper out of a jumbo formation to cap the scoring in a 26-13 victory over visiting Kansas State.

“That last play, especially, I was just sitting there in awe, of course,” Stanford quarterback Ryan Burns said. “He’s a heck of a player, heck of a guy, heck of a leader. Came up to me during the game and just gave me some words, a great guy to be around.”

McCaffrey also led the No. 8 Cardinal with seven catches and amassed 210 all-purpose yards. But it was nearly much more, considering a 97-yard punt return to the house that would’ve broken a school record set in 1986 was negated because of a block in the back.

The ridiculous play in which he spun out a wave of would-be tacklers and slithered his way to the end zone drew both praise and second guessing.

“You know, Chris is not above criticism,” Shaw said. “There is a reason why there are no 97-yard punt returns, because you should not catch the ball on the 3-yard line. He knows that. But it’s hard. Sometimes the ball gets high and you think, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have a chance to do it now.’ But what he did after he caught it, ‘Wow!’ That’s the best punt return that doesn’t count I’ve ever seen. But he’s a special young man, and sometimes they’re so special that they override their own mistakes.

“So we’ll try not to catch those anymore. But if you do catch those, make seven guys miss and score a touchdown.”

Pinned at its own 2-yard line after the penalty, the Cardinal embarked on a 10-play, 98-yard drive that culminated with a 40-yard touchdown off play action into the waiting arms of wide receiver Michael Rector, a fifth-year senior who finished with four catches for 73 yards.

That was the highlight of a first half in which Burns went 9 of 9 for 124 yards in his debut as the successor to Kevin Hogan, the winningest quarterback in program history.

“I think he did awesome,” McCaffrey said. “I think he handled himself great. He made some awesome reads and made some awesome checks, but we expect that out of him.”

So, was the redshirt junior nervous before taking the first snap?

“It was kind of weird,” said Burns, who extended separate drives four times with third-down completions in the first quarter. “It still hadn’t hit me when I was on the field. The first few plays though, I got a little grass in my pants and started walking. But it was almost like an out-of-body experience. But I got used to it pretty quick. It was cool, though.”

True to his word, Shaw inserted backup Keller Chryst in the second quarter for limited duty. The Palo Alto High graduate completed his first and only attempt, an 11-yard hookup with McCaffrey.

But the more memorable play came after a handoff on the same drive, as McCaffrey cut through the gut of the defense, stopped on a dime and sprinted out wide for a 35-yard touchdown to make it 17-0 with 7:47 left in the half.

Paving the way was Chryst, who pushed a defensive back to the ground to allow McCaffrey a clear path into the end zone.

“Keller has put out more pancake blocks for me than I think anyone — no offense to (fullback Daniel) Marx,” McCaffrey said with a laugh. “No, that’s not true. But anytime you’ve got a quarterback running down the field trying to pancake people, you know you’ve got a special team and a special bond. So he’s an unbelievable guy that comes to work every day with his hard hat on ready to get after it.”

McCaffrey and Burns were trending on Twitter during the first half, but after going into the locker room up 17-3, the offense sputtered.

Before the game-clinching TD by McCaffrey, the offense had amassed just 30 yards in the second half, including an atrocious third quarter in which Stanford managed only six snaps for 11 yards and botched a handoff on a read-option play. The fumble was almost returned to pay dirt by the Wildcats.

“Not clean, not pretty in the second half,” Shaw said. “But we played hard and we showed heart at the end.”

Burns added: “Personally, I think we slowed down a little too much, got too comfortable.”

The struggles to move the ball forced Shaw to call an audible and deviate from the game plan, as he kept Chryst on the bench during the third and fourth quarters.

“He’ll continue to get worked in, but the second half turned in a way we didn’t anticipate,” Shaw said. “Wanted him to get in that series in the third quarter, but we sputtered so much, I didn’t want to throw a new quarterback into the mix there. But he’ll continue to play. He’ll play again against USC and he’ll continue to play as long as we see prudent.”

On the bright side, Kansas State was unable to capitalize on the Cardinal’s inability to run out the clock. It helped that Stanford won the turnover battle after safety Dallas Lloyd and cornerback Quenton Meeks both came down with interceptions, the former playing center field on a woefully underthrown pass and Meeks spying into the backfield for his pick.

“The guy ran a double move from the slot, which you really don’t see very often,” Meeks said. “But I was in great position, so as soon as he made his second move I just looked to the quarterback immediately. When a guy runs a double move, you just expect the ball to come out — and it did. And when the ball is in the air, I have the mentality of a receiver, ‘It’s mine.’ “

A big factor for the secondary’s ballhawking tendencies was the effort of the front seven.

Late in the fourth quarter, the game turned into a party in the backfield, with defensive tackle Jordan Watkins recording his second sack for a safety and outside linebacker Peter Kalambayi ending the last gasp with another QB takedown with 36 seconds left, leaving him with team-high 2½ sacks for the game.

Depth in the trenches and linebacker core played a key role for Stanford, which racked up eight sacks.

“It allows you to get some hits on the quarterback late in the game because your guys are fresher,” Shaw said. “We saw Solomon Thomas running in the fourth quarter after the quarterback full speed. He can only do that if we rest him and work the other guys in. Same thing with the outside linebackers. … Peter Kalambayi has enough speed left to finish and get a sack.”

As far as special teams, kicker Conrad Ukropina booted a 50-yard field goal to make it 3-0 after the opening drive.

Punter Jake Bailey had quite the night, with three punts in the second half that pinned Kansas State inside its own 10-yard line — including back-to-back kicks that were downed at the 1- and 2-yard line by wide receiver Trenton Irwin, the latter resulting in the safety that made it 19-7 with 4:11 left.

But the Wildcats kept things interesting by recovering the ensuing onside kick, then executing a 15-yard fade on fourth down to get within 19-13.

Clearly, Shaw was frustrated by the mental error on the first onside attempt.

“They’re down by two scores and it’s after the safety, they can’t afford to kick it deep,” Shaw said. “We knew it was going to come short. We didn’t put the hands team out there because we didn’t think we needed to put the hands team out there. But we were not aggressive to the football.”

No such mistake the second time around, as a Kansas State player touched the ball before it went 10 yards, then McCaffrey put the game out of reach.

Next up is a bye week, before Pac-12 action begins Sept. 17 by hosting No. 20 USC.

“The only thing we can do now is look in the windshield and focus on the mistakes and learn from our mistakes and getting better from there,” McCaffrey said.

Email Vytas Mazeika at vmazeika@dailynewsgroup.com; follow him at Twitter.com/dailynewsvytas.