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Stanford Cardinal @ Arizona State Sun Devils Football Recap

Stanford 17, Arizona State 13

A man who is evidently worthy of a Stanford education is a young running back by the name of Anthony Wilkerson. In one of the best yet most unheralded plays ever seen on a football field, Wilkerson used his supple mind to help his Cardinal finish off the Arizona State Sun Devils on Saturday night in Tempe, Arizona.

Here was the scene at Sun Devil Stadium, as Stanford tried to avoid a trap game before its big Bay Area to-do against hated rival Cal: The Cardinal led by four points with 1:38 left in the fourth quarter, and they faced a second-and-six situation at the ASU 23. Arizona State and head coach Dennis Erickson had just used their third and final timeout. The Sun Devils needed to stop Stanford on the next two plays to have any chance of getting the ball back with enough time left on the clock. As this play developed, Wilkerson had the end zone all to himself. No Sun Devil defender was going to catch him. Wilkerson could have walked across the goal line and given Stanford a 24-13 lead, which on a certain level would have sealed the game. The score would have given the Cardinal a two-possession lead with about 1:30 on the clock, right?

Well, this is where Wilkerson was using his brain. This is where a wiser-than-his-years freshman from Foothill Ranch, California, proved how heady a player he already is in Coach Jim Harbaugh’s system on The Farm.

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Wilkerson intentionally sat down, in bounds, at the 4. He didn’t go out of bounds, but he didn’t score, either. Wilkerson’s act created a situation in which Stanford was able to take a knee on two snaps and get out of Dodge with a close-shave victory, sustaining its tenuous hopes for an at-large BCS bowl bid. Wilkerson truly made the best decision for his team; his move facilitated an easy path to the finish line in the Desert Southwest. Here’s why:

If Wilkerson had scored, the margin would have gone from four to 11 points, but the thing to realize in the midst of that calculation is that Arizona State – with either a touchdown or even a field goal – could have climbed within one possession of the Cardinal and then attempted an onside kick. If ASU had recovered said onside kick under such a hypothetical scenario, the Devils could have threatened the Cardinal in the final 20 seconds. Wilkerson’s genius lay in the fact that he prevented ASU from being able to initiate such a chain of events. Two kneel-downs from victory formation are the surest route to a conference win, and Wilkerson allowed that happy sight to unfold for his team.

Give Anthony Wilkerson a Stanford diploma right now. Call it a degree in game management, graduate school level.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer