http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/sports/ncaafootball/stanford-ucla-ryan-burns.html 2016-09-25 12:27:39 Stanford’s Flawless Finish Masks Its Need for a Quarterback Ryan Burns led a Cardinal comeback against U.C.L.A. on Saturday, but their offense is having some trouble, which could derail their championship hopes. === PASADENA, Calif. — Because an airplane’s flight recorder is so durable that it often survives crashes, a common joke goes, “Why don’t they make the whole plane out of the black box?” A similar line could be used in regard to college football, and it would have applied to No. 7 Stanford’s come-from-behind win over With 2 minutes 5 seconds to play, the relatively inexperienced senior quarterback Ryan Burns and the Cardinal offense took over at their own 30-yard line, trailing by 3 points. Burns led Stanford down the field in 1:41, finding J. J. Arcega-Whiteside on a fade route in the end zone for a 16-13 lead. Five of Burns’s 13 completions, 66 of his 137 passing yards and his only touchdown came on that drive. “That’s the two-minute drill,” he said. “We do that every week. It’s something we’ve become pretty comfortable with.” The result — after a sack-fumble returned for a touchdown on U.C.L.A.’s final play — was a 22-13 Stanford victory, the Cardinal’s ninth straight win in their series with the Bruins. “Ryan Burns did not play a great game,” Stanford Coach David Shaw acknowledged afterward. However, Shaw added, “at the end of the game, he was cool; he was calm; he ran the plays that he knew; he executed.” Burns’s big finish kept the Cardinal (3-0, 2-0 Pacific-12) undefeated ahead of a crucial matchup in Seattle on Friday against No. 9 Washington, their North Division rival. Up until the final minutes, the game had been an indictment of Stanford’s hopes to contend for a Pac-12 championship, and perhaps even a national title, without a strong quarterback. Last season, Stanford — the alma mater of the quarterback greats Jim Plunkett, John Elway and Andrew Luck — had the senior Kevin Hogan under center and averaged 37.8 points over 14 games. This year, the Cardinal have scored 26 against Kansas State and 27 against Southern California, and until the end of Saturday night’s game, they had to settle for three field goals. Stanford has a star running back in Christian McCaffrey, a junior who finished as the runner-up in last season’s Heisman Trophy voting. But despite his solid game Saturday — 165 all-purpose yards, with 138 of them on the ground — U.C.L.A. was able to head into halftime with a 10-3 lead and take a 13-9 lead midway through the fourth quarter. The Bruins sophomore Josh Rosen is the hot pocket passer of this young season, even if some metrics have him as the 10th-ranked quarterback in his 12-team conference, as commentators endlessly noted before the game. Although he never looked completely comfortable Saturday, he was also ill served by several unforced drops by his receivers. He completed a serviceable 18 of 27 passes for 248 yards and a touchdown. Elsewhere in college football, the favorites largely held serve, with a lot less drama. No. 1 Alabama routed Kent State, the alma mater of Crimson Tide Coach Nick Saban, by 48-0, and No. 3 Louisville and No. 4 Michigan also cruised to big wins. No. 5 Clemson beat Georgia Tech on Thursday night, 26-7, holding the Yellow Jackets’ wacky option attack to 124 yards of offense. Saturday’s early surprise was No. 11 Wisconsin’s dominant, 30-6 win at No. 8 Michigan State. But for some observers, the day’s most significant result was No. 14 Tennessee’s 38-28 victory over No. 19 Florida, a result that snapped the Volunteers’ 11-game losing streak in their annual series and followed a couple of shaky Tennessee wins this season. The game featured an exciting comeback — the Volunteers trailed the Gators by 21-3 at halftime — and gave credence to the narrative that Tennessee, which has not won nine games in a regular season since 2007, is back. “The crowd was into it,” Coach Butch Jones said, Another Southeastern Conference game — the all-Tigers matchup between No. 18 Louisiana State and Auburn — could not have ended more bizarrely. With L.S.U. at Auburn’s 15-yard line and trailing by 18-13, quarterback Danny Etling rolled right and found wide receiver D. J. Chark for what appeared to be a winning score. But on review, L.S.U., which had had an 8-yard gain on the previous play negated by a penalty, was ruled to have snapped the ball after the clock had expired. Game over; Auburn wins. It was a parody of the kind of impressive but ultimately self-destructive highlights that have defined L.S.U.’s past several seasons under Les Miles, and there is a good chance it will mark the beginning of the end of Miles’s tenure. The early College Football Playoff math is inconclusive, although the top contenders need not fear that Notre Dame will crash the four-team bracket and lock out at least a second of the five power conferences: The Fighting Irish lost at home to Duke, 38-35, dropping to 1-3 for the first time since 2010. “It looks like it’s hard to play — like you’re pulling teeth,” Coach Brian Kelly said in frustration after the game. “You’re playing football for Notre Dame.” Oh, Rudy, where art thou?