This Week in Stanford Football History: @ Miami Week

SFAU and Jim Rutter
Oct 24
5 min read

“Throwback Thursday”

October 20, 2001:

Sure, traveling all the way across the country to Florida to play a top-10 Miami Hurricanes team that was ranked #2 in the country before a loss to Louisville this past weekend may at first seem like a pretty tall task for the ‘25 Cardinal. However, resilient past responses to formidable challenges have proven on several memorable occasions that Stanford Football can be a surprisingly stout road warrior. Arkansas in ’70, Oklahoma in 1980, Texas in 1986, USC in 2007, Oregon in 2013, Colorado in 2023!

24 years ago this week, on October 20, 2001, Stanford headed up to Autzen Stadium in Eugene, OR and, in an ABC-televised game with the immortal broadcaster Keith Jackson calling the action, improbably upset the #5 ranked Oregon Ducks by the score of 49-42. The action-packed affair featured a remarkable fourth-quarter comeback by the Cardinal, which suddenly became a turnover juggernaut, rallied on defense under the leadership of co-captains Tank Williams and Coy Wire, went positively “turbo with Teyo” (Johnson) and capitalized on four rushing touchdowns from junior running back Kerry Carter. Scoring the game’s final 21 points, Stanford impressively ended Oregon's remarkable 23-game home winning streak and handed the dastardly Ducks their lone loss of the 2001 season. Really too bad that we had to deny our fine-feathered friends what could have been a coveted berth in the 2002 National Championship game. Oh well, quack happens!

Pregame odds-makers were favoring the Ducks by a full touchdown, expecting a high scoring game. They got that part of it right. Oregon QB Joey Harington had a ridiculous array of weapons in WRs Keenan Howry and Sammy Parker, Fresno City College transfer RB Maurice “Mo” Morris, RB/KR Ontario Smith, and TE Justin Peelle.

The first quarter action was so fast and furious that we will have to fly through it quickly! Stanford’s basic gameplan was to lean heavily on its outstanding (and huge) offensive line, which was stacked with exceptional talent including Eric Heitman, Zack Quaccia, Greg Schindler, Kirk Chambers, and Kwame Harris, all of whom possessed NFL-caliber size and skill. That plan was working on the first drive as junior fullback Casey Moore got us on the scoreboard on our very first possession to make it 7-0. Good start, but man, were we going to have some serious trouble with lightning-fast wide receiver and return specialist Keenan Howry. He would prove a legitimate threat to take it to the pond every time he touched the ball. After Oregon quickly and efficiently matched our opening score, Card running back Brian Allen provided an immediate pigskin punch-back with a phenomenal 70-yard kick return to well inside the Duck 20. RB Kerry Carter scored the first of his four rushing TDs to make it 14-7, but Duck QB Joey Harrington hit TE Justin Peelle to even things at 14-14 as the Ducks were moving the football, seemingly at will. A diving, lay-out catch in the endzone by Howry gave Oregon their first lead at 21-14. The track meet was on like Donkey Kong, and we were still only in the first quarter!

A tough six-yard slant run by Carter took things to 21-21, but before the bands even stopped playing, it was Howry with another electrifying return that was kept short of the endzone only through an admirable effort from Stanford punter Eric Johnson. The damage was done, however, and Oregon’s Maurice “Mo” Morris stiff-armed his way to a TD to make it 28-21! ABC producers were afraid to cut to a commercial!

After an exchange of missed FGs, Stanford punted and Howry ripped off a 69-yard punt return for TD! Now it was 35-21, mid-way through the third quarter. After an Allen fumble, Oregon drove to the Stanford 30 and was about to put the game out of reach with a deep shot up the middle, but safety Tank Williams (our current assistant coach) picked off Harrington’s pass at the two-yard-line and returned it 40 yards, breathing life back into his temporarily deflated Stanford teammates! At that point the Cardinal had been 0-8 on its last eight third downs and QB Chris Lewis, who had replaced injured starter Randy Fasani, was looking every bit the back-up. But then something clicked. Maybe it was Tyrone’s sartorially-splendid Cardinal red sweater-vest? Anyway, Lewis suddenly caught fire and connected with WR Ryan Wells on a long ball and the Stanford offensive brain trust quickly concluded that our most effective play might be just to toss it up and tell 6’7” 250-pound basketball forward Teyo Johnson to go get it! Johnson, who had arrived on campus as a top-shelf QB prospect, had been buried behind four-star quarterbacking talents Fasani and Lewis, but he had switched positions in order to get on the field as a freshman. Pretty good move as he would become the Pac 10 Conference “Freshman of the Year” as a wide receiver in ‘01!

OK, so it was now 35-28 and for a few short seconds, it looked like the Cardinal was finally catching up to the foulest of frontrunners, that is until backup running back Ontario Smith ripped off a 95-yard touchdown on the ensuing kick-off! Come on, they couldn’t keep torching our kick coverage, could they? Apparently so. Just like that, it was 42-28. and things were looking decidedly sour for The Sheriff’s squad.

But football is a game of bounces and breaks and suddenly we got a big special teams boost when back-up TE Alex Smith blocked an Oregon punt and the Cardinal recovered. Our big opportunity was unfortunately squandered as we turned it over on downs in the red zone following a Lewis incompletion, when his pass was just a tad late to TE Brett Pierce. Fortunately, the Card defense held and the Ducks were forced to kick again. Wouldn’t you know it, Stanford RB Brandon Royster blocked the punt! Lewis then tossed a gorgeous 25-yard rainbow to WR Luke Powell and suddenly it was 42-35. So you’re saying there’s a chance?

Mike Biselli’s surprise onside kick was an absolute masterpiece, and the ball was recovered on the fly by safety Colin Branch with just over seven minutes left in the game. Stanford took advantage of the unfair Teyo size advantage once again and landed inside the 10, tying the game on a one-year run by Carter, his third score of the game. But wait, no, it did NOT tie the game after low snap on the PAT caused Biselli to miss as the attempt was partially blocked. Are you kidding me? It was now 42-41 and the clock was winding down under five minutes. Would we even get the ball back? It did not seem likely as Oregon appeared to be cruising comfortably to a game-icing score when after Harrington was hit as he was throwing and DE Marcus Hoover sucked it up heroically with a tide-turning interception. (Sorry, there had to be a bad vacuum joke in there somewhere!)

Could there really still be a sliver of a chance for the “Cardiac Cardinal”, at sold-out Autzen Stadium, where the #5-ranked Ducks rarely lost and where they were riding a 23-game home winning streak? When Stanford had been down by two touchdowns just minutes before?

With an inspired collective “pre-Bush push” from the entire Cardinal offensive line, Kerry scored his fourth rushing TD. Let the furious fist-pumping begin! The entire stadium had to know what was coming when Lewis tossed up another picture-perfect jump ball to the 6’7” Teyo Johnson, who mercilessly boxed out his Smurf-like Duck defender for a critical two-point conversion, giving the visiting good guys a 49-42 lead! Last-ditch efforts by Harrington were simply not enough against a Stanford defense that smelled feathers in water. Put a fork in ‘em, cause the Ducks…were roasted!

Stanford would finish ninth in the BCS and 11th in the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls. Not too shabby! Carpe Card!