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Bryce Love re-injures ankle as No. 8 Notre Dame pulls away from No. 7 Stanford

nick bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

The Pac-12’s playoff hopes took another hit on Saturday as the conference’s most recognizable player limped to the locker room.

Stanford running back Bryce Love appeared to re-injure his left ankle in the second half of the No. 7 Cardinal’s 38-17 loss at No. 8 Notre Dame on Saturday night. Love’s ankle — which hobbled him throughout a fantastic 2017 campaign — turned outward on a run play and he never returned to the game.

Love left the game with Stanford trailing by just seven. Things got worse from there. Notre Dame scored on the next possession. QB KJ Costello threw an interception on Stanford’s ensuing time with the ball and Notre Dame scored on the very next play as QB Ian Book threw back to a wide-open TE Alize Mack to turn the game into a rout. What was a 24-17 game with Love in it was suddenly a 21-point spread.

While Stanford and the Pac-12 are left wondering how the playoff is in reach, Notre Dame is suddenly a contender for the four-team playoff. The Irish are 5-0 through September and the switch from Brandon Wimbush to Book at QB is a big reason why.

Ian Book has another big game

Book offers much more as a passer and that’s added another dimension to the offense. Dexter Williams did too. The running back returned from a four-game suspension on Saturday night and scored a touchdown on his first touch of the season.

Book finished the game 23-32 for 264 yards and four touchdowns. He’s thrown six touchdown passes across his first two starts of the season. He was a surprise starter against Wake Forest in Week 4 and promptly threw for three touchdowns and ran for three in Notre Dame’s blowout win over the Demon Deacons. With the way he’s playing right now there’s no way he’s ceding the starting job back to Wimbush anytime soon.

The Pac-12 no longer has any undefeated teams

The Irish defense wasn’t too bad either. Save for a first-quarter touchdown run by Love, the Irish performed well against the run and held Stanford to under three yards a carry overall. Costello’s best weapon was once again the jump ball to his big receivers. But it wasn’t terribly effective.

If Love is out for a while then Stanford may be in some trouble. The Cardinal assumed the role of Pac-12 playoff favorite simply by being the conference’s only undefeated team after Week 4. That isn’t to say Stanford got that by default; the Cardinal showed guts in a comeback against Oregon last week and easily disposed of USC.

But as we’ve said many times before: no two-loss team has ever made the College Football Playoff. Stanford still has a game with Washington remaining on the schedule along with seven other conference games. It’s hard to bank on either of those teams going undefeated the rest of the way.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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