Amid the cries of triumph from Washington State players making their way to the locker room, one in particular stood out.

“Mazza, baby!”

And it felt so wrong.

This was not a game to be decided by a kicker. It was an old-fashioned shootout between quarterbacks who threw for massive yardage without an interception. It was meant to end in exactly that fashion. But it was a 42-yard field goal by Blake Mazza, a redshirt freshman, that sealed the Cougars’ 41-38 victory at Stanford on Saturday night.

The residue is rather stunning to behold, throughout the Pac-12 Conference. Led by Heisman Trophy candidate Gardner Minshew, the Cougars (7-1, 4-1) own first place in the North Division, with a chance to end all arguments if they can beat Washington in the Apple Cup (Nov. 23) — and that game is in Pullman. If you watched the Cougars obliterate Oregon in that setting last weekend, you’re not doubting them in any sense.

So who is in the driver’s seat for the Pac-12 title game, Washington State and Utah? Not the most appetizing option on the menu, but the Utes have a one-game lead over USC in the South while holding the tiebreaker.

As for the Bay Area scene, it’s remarkable to consider how a 5-3 overall record can be interpreted. That’s Stanford’s fate after Saturday night, and with a 3-2 conference record, it may not be enough for the Cardinal to run the table against Oregon State, Cal and UCLA.

Cal’s Bears are also 5-3, but in a state of ecstasy. Did anyone have coach Justin Wilcox’s team beating 15th-ranked Washington in Berkeley? Behold the 12-10 upset, and although Cal has no lofty conference goals with its 2-3 record, it stands just one victory from bowl eligibility — and for longtime fans of the Bears’ program, that sounds like heaven.

Wilcox, after that unfortunate slip (37-7) against UCLA two weeks ago, is back in the picture among coaches making a significant impact on defense. As it happened, Saturday’s breakthrough came on the evening Stanford coach David Shaw broke from tradition with an all-out passing attack. It almost worked, too.

Minshew will grab the spotlight with his 40-for-50, 438-yard, three-touchdown performance, but Stanford’s K.J. Costello was brilliant all evening, routinely drilling JJ Arcega-Whiteside, Kaden Smith and Trent Irwin with pinpoint bullets, often in traffic. Costello finished the night 34-for-43 for 323 yards and four touchdowns, two to the irrepressible Arcega-Whiteside, as he continues to climb up anyone’s rankings of Pac-12 quarterbacks.

Shaw, who generally starts games with a conservative, up-the-middle running game, wisely abandoned all that. If you fall behind Washington State, you’re not likely to catch up. So there was Costello, throwing nine passes on Stanford’s first, 10-play touchdown drive. In the second quarter, there was a 4th-and-goal play inside the 1-yard line that would have called for a running back in virtually any other Stanford game — but Shaw had Costello flip a touchdown toss to a redshirt freshman, Houston Heimuli, who had never caught a pass for the Cardinal.

None of this was a surprise to WSU coach Mike Leach, who said after the game, “I thought they came out really fresh with the passing game, really sharp. And not only do those guys catch the ball, they drag you. It was impressive. They’ve got a couple of good running backs, too.”

That was evident when Bryce Love broke off a 43-yard run in the first quarter, but that was an aberration. Once again, late in the game, Love came up limping. He was able to play only one down on the Stanford drive that tied the score 38-38 with 1:25 left. Love totaled just 71 yards on six carries on a night that Stanford — in a throwback to the days of John Elway and Jim Plunkett — lived and died by the pass.

Did Leach get a little nervous? “Well, for a while there, it was like doin’ surgery with a chainsaw,” he said.

And in the end, with overtime looming if Mazza doesn’t kick that field goal?

“We had ’em right where we wanted ’em,” he said, drawing laughter.

The official attendance was a gravely disappointing 39,596 — this is Stanford’s Reunion Homecoming weekend — and take our word for it, the aesthetics were far worse. The only tightly packed sections in the eastern half of the stadium were those occupied by Washington State fans tucked away in the northeast corner. After Cal finished off Washington across the bay, Stanford and WSU were playing for first place in the Pac-12’s North Division — and those thousands of empty seats struck the impression of a particularly dull game on the junior-college circuit.

The attendance issue is an ongoing drag, nothing at all new, on both sides of the bay. If you want a vintage collegiate atmosphere, make a point of seeing a game at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium or Washington’s Husky Stadium. Better to focus on the scoreboard, and on a fascinating Saturday night, Cal was most pleased with the view.

Bruce Jenkins is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: bjenkins@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Bruce_Jenkins1