The #18 Stanford Cardinal (3-1) have a home test on Saturday night to look forward to when the unranked Arizona Wildcats (3-1) come to town. While some are expecting this to be a close in-conference battle, we're pretty dang confident that Stanford is going to win this one going away -- so confident that we're willing to GUARANTEE a Cardinal win. Here's three reasons why.
1. Christian McCaffrey
If you pound the run against the Wildcats, they'll eventually give up chunks of yardage on the ground. UCLA took that tact in their 56-30 thrashing of Arizona in the desert, rushing 47 times for 213 yards. While that's only 4.5 yards per carry, it was still enough on a consistent basis to set up freshman sensation Josh Rosen for throws on manageable 2nd and 3rd downs. Sophomore Cardinal RB Christian McCaffrey is the perfect back to enact that same plan, and that'll open up some key one-on-one opportunities on the outside for our #2 entrant to exploit.
2. Kevin Hogan
The Stanford QB has flipped a complete 180 since the team's opening week debacle at Northwestern, tossing seven touchdowns against just one pick and torching USC's defense at a 78.3 percent completion rate. This is the Kevin Hogan Stanford fans have been clamoring for. It's also the Kevin Hogan that will torch an Arizona secondary that has shown itself to be soft when forced to back up and play straight coverage.
3. Home-Field Advantage
Unlike UCLA, Stanford gets the luxury of hosting the Wildcats in Palo Alto. We expect a raucous crowd at Stanford Stadium ready and willing to jump on every Zona mistake with a cascade of noise. Arizona looked visibly shaken by UCLA's onslaught at home last week. We don't expect them to recover during this pivotal Pac-12 road game.
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