Notebook: UCLA – Stanford University Athletics

A THIN RUNNING back depth chart was stretched even more with the news that starter Casey Filkins could be out for the season with an injury. 

With Filkins missing for much of last week’s 15-14 victory over Arizona State, quarterback Tanner McKee threw 57 passes. That was the fifth-most in school history and the most since T.C. Ostrander fired 59 against UCLA in 2007. 

David Shaw, Stanford’s Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football, does not intend for McKee to pass as often against UCLA on Saturday night at the Rose Bowl, even with the backfield shortage.

“That’s not the game we want to play,” Shaw said. “I was still surprised by that number when I saw the stats at the end of the game. We’re not going to get pass-happy around here. We still want to be balanced. We want to run the football.”

The game dictated the number of passes, Shaw said. Many came on run calls, or run-pass options, or from the slow mesh where McKee holds the ball in the carrier’s belly and looks for keys by the defense before determining whether to run or pull the ball back. 

It worked. The Cardinal won its second consecutive game and owns a 3-4 record.

The only other Stanford victory among games in which quarterbacks were in the top five in attempts came in a 23-20 upset of Ohio State in 1982 when John Elway completed 35 of 63 for 407 yards. In perhaps his greatest game in a Stanford uniform, Elway threw a 12-yarder to Emile Harry with 34 seconds left for the winner at the Horseshoe.

 

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Caleb Robinson. Photo by Al Chang/ISIphotos.com.

TAKING STOCK OF the running back position, there are four available running backs listed on the roster. Only three have been at the position: scholarship player Brendon Barrow and walk-ons Caleb Robinson and Danny McFadden. The fourth, sophomore Mitch Leigber, switched from safety this week. 

Barrow, a sophomore from Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, shares the No. 1 spot on the depth chart with Robinson, a junior from Silver Spring, Maryland. 

Robinson had five carries for 26 yards against Arizona State, including a long run of 20. He has 16 carries for 55 yards this season. Barrow has eight carries for 28 yards. 

Of Robinson, “We definitely gained a lot of confidence in him in the spring, which carried over,” center Drake Nugent said. “It was huge for him, and us as a unit to be able to trust him.”

Other options? Shaw said that during practice this week, he would look at a few who played running back in high school, which presumably is how he…