The terms of Stanford’s rematch with San Diego State were very simple. Rocky Long’s team was not going to let Bryce Love beat them. As they did last season, the Aztecs were happy to bet that committing extra guys to stop the run would force Stanford to pass, and that the Cardinal either wouldn’t or couldn’t beat them through the air, just as they couldn’t last season in Mission Valley.

They were wrong.

Head Coach David Shaw, Offensive Coordinator Tavita Pritchard, and Quarterback KJ Costello got together with wide receiver JJ Arcega-Whiteside at halftime and decided, in Shaw’s words, to “not be stubborn” by forcing Love into a wall of Aztecs but rather to let Costello and Arcega-Whiteside answer the challenge of San Diego State’s single coverage on the outside. Those two didn’t just answered the challenge, they made the first big definitive statement of 2018: Stop Bryce Love at Your Own Peril.

The Aztecs can hardly be blamed for the tactic they employed Friday night, and prior to Trenton Irwin’s spectacular forced fumble of Costello’s interception late in the second half, the plan was working. But everything snapped together once the Cardinal was granted Irwin’s reprieve. Costello checked down to Love for 11 yards, and then found Arcega-Whiteside 38 yards up the right side for six points that improbably gave the Cardinal a halftime lead in a game where the Aztecs had outplayed Stanford on both sides of the ball.

Long made no qualms about the agenda. “Well, whenever you take a chance to slow a running back down you isolate your DBs in one-on-one situations. So they happened to have a couple of really good receivers out there that if you scheme it up so they have a hard time running the ball, you gotta have some DBs make plays.”

Stanford couldn’t call Long on his gambit last year, when the Cardinal passing game went 10-21 for 80 yards and threw two interceptions. This season, Costello torched the Aztec secondary to the tune of 15-23 for 332 yards and four touchdown passes. Arcega-Whiteside ended up with three of those touchdowns while Colby Parkinson caught the fourth.

Much has been made about Costello’s strides this offseason, especially when he missed all of spring practice. After one game, he’s far from a finished product, but he’s unquestionably improved. He completed 67% of his passes and averaged 10.4 yards per attempt, both significant upticks from last season. Maybe just as important as delivering the win, the passing game put onto film a very stern warning to future opponents. Commit to stopping Bryce Love at your own peril. “I mean, we all understand what running back we got in the backfield. We all understand tonight San Diego State came out respecting him like crazy. There were times there were nine, ten guys coming downhill ready to lay hat but at the end of the day we are really focused this year on taking what the defense gives us. We feel like we've got all kinds of different dimensions to the offense and at the end of the day we've to settle in and see what's going on and from there things will start flowing,” Costello said afterwards.

There were plenty of shaky moments in this game, most of them in the beginning, but to borrow Costello’s favorite phrase, at the end of the day Stanford got a win it didn’t get last year and in a way it hasn’t always been able to get. Stanford blew out San Diego State on a night when the Cardinal ran the ball for 50 yards. Net.

I was asked during the KZSU pregame show whether all the talent on offense would change the way Stanford approaches that side of the ball. I said I doubted it. After all, David Shaw still coaches this team. Also, they still have Bryce Love. What tonight proved is that in games where Stanford has to throw the ball, it can. JJ Arcega-Whiteside is no secret, just as he wasn’t to Long coming into the game. “He (Arcega-Whiteside) made those plays at the end of last year, too. All you have to do is watch the last five games of the season and he did that...He's just as fast as we are. And he's bigger than we are.”

The significance of Stanford’s path to victory was not lost on Coach Shaw either. “We talked about it during the course of the game as much as we wanted it to be as balanced as we could be and establish the run we also needed a game like this. We needed a game to put on film. Told the guys we can't talk anymore. It's about playing. And we needed a game to where if someone is going to play with all those guys in the box show what we can do outside. We have all the confidence in the world about our quarterback and our receiving corps and our tight ends. We think it's one of the best groups in the nation. Part of it got shown tonight. And people tried to take JJ away, great, Trenton is going to have a great game. You saw Colby Parkinson make plays, and Kaden Smith made some plays tonight. Got a great group of receivers that are still coming along. That's the goal to be as balanced as possible. If someone wants to take away a part of our game, great. We shift our focus and we find a way to take advantage of that.”

On a night when San Diego State tried to stump the Cardinal with an old question, this version of Stanford showed that it’s got a 6’3” 225-pound answer on the outside and a quarterback with no qualms about betting on that answer time and again. Tonight we got a glimpse of Stanford’s challenge to opposing defenses. In the words of Costello:

“Pick your poison.”

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R.J. Abeytia has been contributing to The Bootleg since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Abeytia and follow The Bootleg @TheBootleg for up to the moment Cardinal news and analysis.

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