Duke's Ground Game Flattens Stanford in a 35-7 Win
It stayed 0-0 through the first quarter and the first few minutes of the second, and then Duke did not stop. Nate Sheppard ran 32 yards at 10:42, caught a 2-yard touchdown pass from Walker Eget at 5:29, and Duke had a 14-0 lead that Stanford could not do much about. Duke won 35-7, with five touchdowns and no field goals, and the first two of them took just over five minutes of game clock (10:42 to 5:29 left in the second quarter), both with Sheppard's name on them. Stanford's offense spent the day wondering where its yards went, 164 through the air and 73 on the ground.
Stanford did score once. Davis Warren found Caden High from 5 yards with 0:16 left in the half, which made it 14-7 and was the only thing Stanford had. Sheppard scored again from a yard out at 10:41 of the third, Kavon Simmons ran 16 yards at 2:56, and Jayvian Tanelus finished it with a 5-yard run at 8:20 of the fourth. That is 21 unanswered points after Stanford's touchdown, and Stanford did not score at all in the second half.
The ground game decided it. Duke ran 46 times for 269 yards, while Stanford got 22 carries for 73. Duke also won the total-yardage count 471 to 237, and Duke's defense had four sacks. Eget threw an interception and Stanford lost a fumble, so neither side was clean, but only one was ever in the lead.
Duke is 3-0 and Stanford is 1-2. For fantasy, Sheppard was the best play on the board with 34.6 points, and Micah Ford of Stanford was second at 15 points, and nobody else came close to Sheppard.