This game was an excellent demonstration of winning through field position: using high-efficiency plays to keep moving forward, pinning the opponent deep to play defense, then getting the ball back with shorter and shorter fields. Here’s a chart with both teams’ starting field position for each drive. Oregon began 13-15 yards closer every time:
- Stanford average - 19.7 yard line
- Oregon average - 32.4 yard line
- Stanford had 5 of 11 drives start at their 12-yd line or worse, Oregon had 1 such drive.
- Oregon had 5 of 11 drives start at their 37-yd line or better, Stanford had 0 such drives.