Nick Aliotti has seen his fair share of the Stanford Cardinal.
He saw Toby Gerhart run for 223 yards and three touchdowns in 2009, Zach Ertz catch a 1-yard touchdown in the back corner of the end zone in 2012 and he witnessed Tyler Gaffney and the Stanford offensive line ran all over Oregon in 2013.
Those three are just a few of the Cardinal that have been a thorn in the Ducks’ side. Stanford has won three of the last five matchups against Oregon. This year, Aliotti, now an analyst with Pac-12 Networks, sees a different Cardinal squad.
Aliotti appeared Monday on John Canzano’s radio show, The Bald Faced Truth, to discuss his opinion on the current status of the Stanford team.
“They don’t line up in two backs and smash-mouth you like they used to,” Aliotti said. “They are a totally different offense and this is not the same Stanford team we’re accustomed to seeing on offense. They’re the same on defense, but they’re a completely different offensive team in my opinion.”
Statistically, Aliotti’s comments are right on the money. Stanford, the same team that ran the ball 66 times against Oregon last year, is ranked 93rd in the nation in rushing with an average of 143 yards per game. Senior running back Remound Wright leads the Cardinal with 69 carries this season.
However, like Aliotti mentioned, the stout Stanford defense is still as good as ever. The Cardinal are giving up an average of 12.5 points per game.
For offensive coordinator Scott Frost, the most important thing for the Oregon offense against Stanford is taking advantage of every drive it has.
“I think we only had eight or nine drives against them last year,” Frost said after practice on Monday. “They kept us off the field by controlling the ball and we’re not going to give up that many chances in a game like that. We can’t make mistakes and we turned (the ball) over a bunch last year and we can’t do that.”
Frost also pointed out that Oregon made a mistake psychologically against Stanford last season.
“I think one mistake we might have made last year was putting a little too much focus on this game,” Frost said. “We had the game — in my mind — it was circled from the beginning of the year and I think a lot of the players had it circled at the beginning of the year and we didn’t play our best. I think the key to having success this week is playing well. We haven’t played our best game against them two years in a row.”
Still, even if Stanford was circled by players and coaches in the preseason, the matchup has lost a bit of its media-hyped luster. The Cardinal fell out of the top-25 last week for the first time in 72 weeks and have three losses on the year. That doesn’t mean Oregon is taking them lightly.
“We’ll be very excited to play an excellent program in Stanford,” head coach Mark Helfrich said. “We have a ton of respect for those guys and they’ve gotten the best out of us the last couple of years.”
Follow Joseph Hoyt on Twitter @JoeJHoyt