When the calendar turned to November this season, the "defense wins championships" cliche seemed to be flying out the window at Stanford. The Cardinal were profusely leaking oil on that side of the ball. Oregon and Notre Dame scorched the earth against Stanford, averaging over 10 yards per play for most of both games.
By that metric, those were the two worst Cardinal defensive performances of the Jim Harbaugh-David Shaw era. It appeared that Shaw's offense would have to carry the entire load for Stanford to secure a Pac-12 championship.
But a moment of truth came last Saturday in the Pac-12 Championship Game.