Stanford Football: 5 takeaways from 2017 Cardinal regular season

4. Stanford special teams were far more dominant after losing McCaffrey

While much of the storyline around the loss of Christian McCaffrey this year centered on how it would impact the offense, his loss could have also been disastrous for special teams. But in reality it allowed the team to become even more dynamic on special teams, as they didn’t become too dependent on one do-everything talent.

Cameron Scarlett, in addition to spelling Bryce Love in the backfield, took the lead on kickoff returns. Scarlett returned 34 kicks for 884 yards, averaging 26 yards per return. (McCaffrey averaged 26.4 yards per return over his three seasons.) Only five other teams in the FBS averaged more yards per return as a team than Stanford thanks to the emergence of Scarlett. In the other direction, the coverage unit allowed 17.3 yards per kickoff.

On punt returns, the coaching staff took more of a committee approach with Jay Tyler and Trenton Irwin putting up identical stat lines of nine punt returns for 70 yards. It wasn’t quite as dynamic, but the Cardinal were still a top-50 unit both when they returned punts and when they punted the ball. Thanks to the strong leg of punter Jake Bailey, Stanford ranked fifth nationally in net punting.

When they lined up to kick the ball, they could rely on placekicker Jet Toner. The sophomore was tabbed to replace Cardinal legend Conrad Ukropina, the most accurate kicker in school history. Toner went 20-of-24 on his field goal attempts, not quite Ukropina levels of success. But he was also a perfect 50-of-50 on his extra point attempts, finishing the regular season as the team leader in points scored, eight ahead of Bryce Love at 110 points.