#13 Stanford Cardinal at #2 Oregon Ducks Preview

Saturday night at 8:00 PM ET on ABC, the #13 Stanford Cardinal travel to Eugene, Oregon to take on the #2 Oregon Ducks. Both teams are atop of the PAC-12 North, and although the Ducks look to have the division on lock, Stanford is still looking to pull the upset. Not only could Stanford shut down the Ducks' hope to play for a National Championship, but they could also shut down Kenjon Barner's campaign for the Heisman Trophy.

Kenjon Barner is looking to add to his Heisman Trophy
campaign tonight against the Stanford Cardinal.

Kenjon Barner has rushed for 1,360 yards this season, and scored 19 rushing touchdowns. He is definitely a Heisman hopeful, and looks to add on to his impressive stats tonight inside Autzen Stadium. Oregon's rushing game is ranked third in the nation, averaging 325.1 yards per game. Many of those yards are because of Kenjon.

Freshman quarterback Marcus Mariota will also look to be apart of the Ducks beating Stanford and improving their record to 11-0 this season. Mariota has been rather impressive this season with 2,164 yards thrown and 28 touchdowns. He has worked for these stats, but he has two key receivers that have made it a little bit easier for him. De'Anthony Thomas and Josh Huff are those two receivers. Thomas has 378 receiving yards and four touchdowns while Huff has 355 yards and seven touchdowns.

Freshman QB Kevin Hogan wants to lead Stanford to
an upset over #2 ranked Oregon.

Stanford is led by freshman quarterback who just worked his way up to starting QB (Kevin Hogan). Although he hasn't started that many games for Stanford, he has been rather impressive, throwing 447 yards, six touchdowns and two interceptions. For a freshman, he isn't doing too bad. However, playing against another starting freshman QB in Marcus Mariota, is no small task.

Stanford's senior running back, Stepfan Taylor has a little over 1,000 yards rushing and nine rushing touchdowns. Taylor will look to have a dominant day in leading Stanford to pulling the upset in Eugene.

The key to this game for Stanford is going to be shutting down Oregon's running game. Definitely a tough task, if they can shut down Kenjon Barner, and maybe make freshman quarterback Marcus Mariota to make a couple of mistakes, the Stanford Cardinal could definitely pull this upset. However Oregon's offense has been insane, being able to score almost at will. Stanford is up for a tough task tonight at 8:00, but in college football you never say never.

- Matt Lytle

@mattlytle