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▼ eighth, 3.09 per game) and rushing defense (third, 89.5 yards allowed per game). That toughness on defense starts with experience and talent up front. The team lost fifth-year defensive end Ben Gardner to a torn pectoral in late October, but still starts six players in the front seven listed as a senior or fifth-year senior. None has had a greater impact this season than outside linebacker Trent Murphy. The fifth-year senior leads the nation with 13 sacks, while his 19 tackles for loss rank fourth in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The 6-6, 261-pound pass rusher is garnering national attention after being somewhat overshadowed by his former All-American counterpart Chase Thomas a year ago. Click here to listen to BGI's stanford preview podcast "When you look at the numbers, Murphy actually had a better year than Thomas did," Gemmell said. "He's been outstanding this year. He's such an athletic guy for his size." Along with his gaudy sack totals, Murphy has also been athletic enough to intercept two screen pass attempts flung over his head in the past two years and returned both of them for touchdowns. He is one of several future NFL Draft picks starting on defense this year in Palo Alto, Calif. Behind Murphy, inside linebackers Shayne Skov and A.J. Tarpley lead the team with 85 and 73 tackles, respectively. Senior free safety Ed Reynolds is next in line with 66 stops to go along with an interception and three passes broken up. That group has helped to keep Cardinal opponents to 18.9 points per game in a pass-happy, high-scoring Pac-12 conference. They aren't solely responsible, though. Stanford's old-school offensive approach holds on to the football and Junior quarterback Kevin Hogan has thrown for 2,052 yards and 18 scores in Stanford's first 11 contests, and he is the team's third-leading rusher with 258 yards. photo courtesy stanford helps keep its defense fresh. Shaw's offense ran the ball on 63.8 percent of its plays during the first 11 games of the season. The Cardinal often lines up two or three tight ends in tight spaces with loaded backfields and blast its way to first downs with very little guesswork. Senior Tyler Gaffney stepped in for ✦ Page 2 graduated running back Stepfan Taylor as the workhorse for the Stanford running game this season. Gaffney (251 carries for 1,296 yards and 16 touchdowns) has more than three and a half times as many carries as the team's next-leading ball carrier. During a four-game stretch starting in mid-October, Gaffney scored 80 percent of Stanford's touchdowns and picked up nearly half of its yards from scrimmage. The San Diego native took a year off from football to pursue a professional baseball career last fall. When he returned to the team in February, he gave an offense that was light on playmakers the punch it needed. "His body was already tuned to being a professional athlete," Gemmell said. "And when you combine that frame with the type of offense that Stanford wants to run — which is straight ahead, try and stop us — he was an absolutely perfect fit." A heavy dose of Gaffney has allowed junior quarterback Kevin Hogan to slowly mature during his first full season as the starter. Hogan has averaged only 21.9 pass attempts per game, but he has completed 60.6 percent of his throws for 2,052 yards with 18 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Five of those touchdowns came last Saturday in a 63-13 blowout win over traditional rival Cal. Hogan's ability as a rusher and scrambler is also a major asset for Stanford's offense. With 258 rushing yards on 59 attempts, he is the Cardinal's third-leading rusher. The veteran Stanford team isn't exactly where it hoped to be when welcoming Notre Dame to Palo Alto, Calif., for its regular-season finale. A chance at a national title once again slipped away. But a win over the Irish would give Stanford its fourth consecutive season with at least 10 wins, a major accomplishment for a program that has been seen as anything but a football factory for most of its history. ✦