It goes without saying that we are big underdogs against Stanford.  If somebody said we had a 10% chance of winning, most of us would laugh and say that's too high.  I don't know if that's too high or not, but I've watched enough football to be able to think about the narrative of the game, and to try to picture a path to victory.  It looks like this.

First, the offense.  

1)  Behaut's big day.  Depending on the actual game, we won't win unless he throws 20-25 times and had 250 yards in the air.  No INTs.  2 TD's minimum. 

2) Run the ball effectively to control the clock.  This goes without saying.  If we don't get 200 yards or more on the ground, we're going to be in trouble.  We also need a long TD run by Jet Ski or Coleman.

Second, the defense.

1) Defensive line dominates the Cardinal.  We need them to stop the run, and put pressure on Luck.  As Luck isn't going to throw INTs, the d-line and linebackers will need to create a turnover or, more likely, two. 

2) The secondary doesn't make any mistakes.  In this strength vs. injury match up, we need our secondary to play solid.  No mistakes, no big plays. 

Special teams.

1)  No missed FG's or PAT's, no long punt returns.  If we can get a long return of our own, we might not need to get a TO on Standford.

Finally, we'll need a little bit of Luck (not Andrew).  We'll see how the week off affects Stanford.  Teams frequently start slow, and make some unforced errors, after a week off.  This, and the fact that Stanford may be a bit overconfident, will hopefully give us some chances early.  We probably need to go into halftime with a lead, and get a 4th quarter TD or TO to pull this one out.  Will it happen?  Probably not...but I'm willing to bet that if it does happen, it'll look an awful lot like this.