Stanford's offensive identity has been obvious for a decade: The Cardinal want to establish the run first, and often second, before hitting teams over the top with the pass. Through three games of the 2018 season there are serious doubts about whether the Cardinal can do that this season.

Pick a rushing stat and it's not a good look right now for Stanford. But there's really only one needed to tell the tale -- Stanford has converted only 33.3 percent of its third downs in large part due to the distance needed for a first down. The average was "best" in the season opener against San Diego State (7.9 yards), but it became ridiculous versus USC (12 yards) and difficult to believe against FCS opponent UC Davis (10.6 yards).

"Once again, the tree that I come from, the guys I've worked with love to run the ball on first down. It's not a secret," said head coach David Shaw during the regular Tuesday press conference. "If you can be efficient running the ball on first down it makes everything else easier.

"Starting with San Diego State, they just told us, 'No, you're not going to do it. We're going to put so many guys down it's going to be difficult for you.' So, to be able to mix in some first-down passing to raise our efficiency, we've gotten better each week. But we love to run the ball better on first down than we have. We'd love to be able to be efficient. We're not where we want to be there. I don't think we're really close, but we're improving each week."

On paper, this shouldn't be a problem. Bryce Love, last year's Heisman runner-up, is back and so are six linemen who started games last season.

But Stanford was not able to hit the ground running in the offseason, starting with an injury to star center Jesse Burkett. He was out for the spring practices and all but the last week of camp. He returned to action for 55 snaps against UC Davis and will start Saturday at Autzen.

The left guard competition was affected by injury as well. Brandon Fanaika missed most of training camp after a strong spring and then promising sophomore Foster Sarell suffered an injury against USC that may keep him out for a month.

And now this week starting left guard Devery Hamilton and right tackle A.T. Hall are banged up. They were held out of practice Tuesday to give them more time to heal before the pivotal game at Oregon. Hall was in a walking boot.

Along with the injuries, Stanford is working with first-year offensive line coach/run game coordinator Kevin Carberry. The linemen have praised Carberry's detailed approach to teaching, but whenever you're working with someone new there's an adjustment period to how he wants the game to look. Combine that with the injuries and that offers some explanation for the slow start.

Another reason is that opposing defensive coordinators are worried about Love to the point that San Diego State and USC went to extremes to stop the Cardinal run game. The Aztecs blitzed like mad men out of the confusing 3-3-5 scheme. USC stacked the box with shifting defenders, leaving it a mystery until the snap who was coming or dropping back.

"I told our guys on Monday that it's a sign of respect," Shaw said Sept. 12. "USC ran a front I've never seen before in my over 20 years of coaching football. Their alignment -- standing up a defensive lineman at one A gap, and the rest of the defensive line slipping one way, and the linebackers coming back, and the safeties all over the place -- it's made to confuse us. To try to get us off our game. We have to diagnose what's going on. We have to communicate. We have to make adjustments and go out there and not only try to be efficient but explosive."

Hall said the offensive line was consistently able to get on the same page against USC, but it took time and what the Trojans were doing was still very effective stopping the run game. The Pro Football Focus run blocking grade for that game was a lowly 57.9. Love gained most of his 148 yards on two explosive runs.

"We're struggled handling some of the unscouted looks," Carberry said Tuesday night after practice. "Sometimes we've done Ok. You just have to apply your rules as best you can and go from there. Some cases if it's an unscouted look and we have one more guy than we can block then we have to block him. We got some unscouted looks in the protection game as well but our guys have done a good job of handling it, applying their rules and making it work."

Shaw was hesitant Tuesday to harshly grade the line based on the first two games because of the looks they've faced. Overall he gave the unit a B- for run blocking through three games.

"I'm stubborn enough to keep running it, trying to establish the running," he said. "Also, knowing that we have a running back who, even if they do load the box, if we get a crease he'll take it the distance. It's hard to grade us because we've been rolling a rock uphill to a certain degree.

"I think this past game (vs. UC Davis) the difficulty wasn't what the other two games were, which were really difficult. It was the fact that we were sloppy. In particular, some of the guys we are counting and some guys who came in later in the game -- there were holding penalties that were legitimate holding penalties. They were not ticky-tack. They were not bad calls. They were good calls."

Stanford's poor play versus the Aggies was "bothersome" to Shaw. He said Stanford lost 65 rushing yards due to holding penalties.

"The big thing is cleaning up technique every day," Carberry said. "Clean up pass protection issues and run game issues and go from there. They're all working extremely hard and trying to get better each day."

Even as the linemen work to fix their execution, Shaw has said several times it is on the coaching staff to adjust to the challenge presented by a stacked box. They don't expect that to go away this season unless Stanford forces defensive coordinators to put more attention on the passing game.

It's never been Shaw's way to lead with the passing game. But the numbers through three games make a compelling case to give it a try. The good news for Stanford and its line play is that pass protection has been a plus. Without exception the Cardinal have graded out as better pass blockers than run blockers in each game.

"These guys work hard at it and they take pride in it," Carberry said of pass blocking. "In conjunction with the running back and the quarterback (they're) putting a protection plan together every week ... and executing it every week. The running backs have had some great pressure pick ups -- Bryce, Cam (Scarlett) and Trevor (Speights) have each in their own way stepped up and protected against some big linebackers."

After the UC Davis game, quarterback KJ Costello said part of his job is to help the unit up front stay positive about what they're doing well, like in the passing game. He also challenged Nate Herbig and Jesse Burkett to "start to play with a sense of attitude up there".

"I feel like we're headed in the right direction and when we see it click ... it's going to be fun."

