STANFORD \u2014 Ben Gulbranson threw three interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown, and was eventually pulled late in the third quarter as Pittsburgh beat Stanford 35-20 Saturday afternoon at Stanford Stadium.<\/p>\n
Pitt (7-2, 5-1 ACC) has won five in a row and has averaged more than 40 points a game since freshman Mason Hentschel took over as the starting quarterback.<\/p>\n
Expecting a shootout, Stanford went for it on fourth-and-1 from its own 37 on the opening drive. Cole Tabb was stuffed for a 2-yard loss, and Pitt scored four plays later to go up 7-0.<\/p>\n
Stanford (3-6, 2-4), which had won four straight at home dating back to last season, still took a first-quarter lead.<\/p>\n
Jashiah Galvan forced a fumble by Heintschel that was recovered by Ernest Cooper at the Pitt 36, and a Pitt defender tipped a Gulbranson pass into the arms of receiver CJ Williams, who scored a 35-yard TD to make it 10-7.<\/p>\n
That play worked out for Stanford, but it was a sign of things to come. Gulbranson was intercepted in the second quarter throwing into double coverage, and then on the next possession after forcing a pass to Roush.<\/p>\n
Finally, Pitt went up 35-13 midway through the third quarter when Shawn Lee Jr. stepped in front of an out route by Caden High and scored on a 30-yard interception return.<\/p>\n
Gulbranson hasn\u2019t looked good since injuring his knee two weeks ago. He was 17 of 30 passing for 228 yards after going 9 of 21 for 50 yards and two interceptions last week at Miami.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t helped by a complete lack of a running game. Stanford running backs had 18 carries for 28 yards until the final minutes. Backup Elijah Brown replaced Gulbranson with one minute left in the third quarter and threw a touchdown pass to Williams with 18 seconds left.<\/p>\n
The Cardinal plays its last road game next Saturday against North Carolina before finishing up at home against Cal and Notre Dame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STANFORD \u2014 Ben Gulbranson threw three interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown, and was eventually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6525,4172,6743,2300,6524,241,73,75,74,6527,6528,726,14931,14930],"class_list":["post-22070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay","tag-sports","tag-stanford","tag-stanford-cardinal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}