San José State Spartans at Stanford Cardinal

Stanford rallies from 12-point deficit to beat San Jose State 30-29 in thrilling finish

“We haven’t had the success we wanted in recent years,” Irvin said. “But one thing we knew we are going to do is we're going to fight for four quarters. ... We knew that we had to fight, no matter how long it took. We knew we had to fight to win.”

The Spartans (1-3) went up 26-14 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter on Walker Eget's third touchdown pass of the day.

But Ben Gulbranson drove the Cardinals (2-3) to three straight scores to generate the thrilling win. He threw a 14-yard TD pass to Myles Libman and led Stanford to a 36-yard field goal by Emmet Kenney that made it 29-24.

Stanford then got the ball back for one last drive and Gulbranson converted a fourth-and-10 with a 34-yard pass to Caden High against a pressure look from the Spartans defense.

“They executed it to perfection," interim coach Frank Reich said of his offense. “It worked exactly how we wanted it to work. But Ben just had all the poise in the world. All the poise in the world to sit in there, to trust his guys.”

Gulbranson then threw a 14-yarder to CJ Williams to get the ball to the 1. Irvin ran it in on the next play.

“That's the best 1-yard carry of my life,” Irvin said.

Gulbranson finished 29 for 43 for 444 yards and two touchdowns for the Cardinal.

Eget went 36 for 58 for 473 yards and three TDs but couldn't lead a last-ditch drive and the Spartans fell short of their first road win against Stanford since 2000.

“This is a hard one,” Spartans coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “Our kids battled hard. To come and lose this one, we feel like we had every opportunity to win that game and put the game away. It is disappointing, but we have resilient kids and we’ll find a way to bounce back.”

Stanford drove 81 yards on the opening possession to take the lead on Cole Tabb's 8-yard run. But the Spartans controlled most of the rest of the half and lead 20-14 at the break thanks to TD passes from Eget to Danny Scudero and Kyri Shoels.

The takeaway San Jose State: The Spartans have now lost 34 of their past 35 road games against power conference teams. They looked poised for a big road win against their Bay Area rival but couldn't close it out. San Jose State was hurt by two short missed field goals by Denis Lynch, who missed from 28 yards in the second quarter and 29 in the third quarter.

Stanford: After losing their first two games of the season, the Cardinal have won two of three under Reich and are taking steps in the first year with Andrew Luck as general manager.

“On one hand you know it might take some — takes a minute,” Reich said. “On the other hand, we need to show progress and we’re showing that.”

Up next San Jose State: Hosts New Mexico on Friday night.

Stanford: Visits SMU on Oct. 11.