Arizona football dropped its third consecutive game of the season to the Stanford Cardinal this afternoon by a final score of 41-31 on the road in Palo Alto, Calif. The story going into today’s game was centered around the quarterback position and whether senior Khalil Tate or true freshman Grant Gunnell would start for Head Coach Kevin Sumlin.
As much as Tate has slacked these past few weeks, the senior quarterback found his groove, to some degree, against Stanford this afternoon. He threw for 205 yards on 17-for-33 completions with 2 touchdowns and ran for 103 yards on 9 carries, including a 57-yard touchdown run.
As promising as that sounds, Tate’s late-game interceptions were too costly for his numbers alone to lead him to victory. He had a total of two interceptions against the Cardinal, both of which came in the fourth quarter. With the Wildcats being down 38-31 in the fourth, Stanford defensive back Paulson Adebo intercepted Tate and allowed Stanford’s special teams to increase the lead to ten points and seal the deal with a late-game 21-yard field goal.
On the other side, Stanford quarterback KJ Costello returned to the lineup after being out since Sept. 21 with a thumb injury. The senior took advantage of a weak Arizona defense and threw for 312 yards and three touchdowns on the game, including 223 yards in the first half alone.
Arizona running back JJ Taylor made history this afternoon by being just the eighth player in program history to rush for over 3,000 career yards. Taylor ran for 107 yards on 16 carries on the afternoon, averaging just shy of 7 yards per carry.
With the Wildcats’ loss this afternoon, the team moves to 4-4 on the season and 2-3 in conference play with only four games remaining. The Wildcats are yet to take on Oregon State, Oregon, Utah and Arizona State this season. Arizona needs to split the remaining games at the very least in order to be eligible for a Bowl game this season.
Arizona football is back in action next Saturday, Nov. 2 at 1:30 p.m. MST against the Oregon State Beavers for UA’s Homecoming game.
Follow Amit Syal on Twitter.
