Last week, the Stanford football team emerged victorious from the most dramatic, nerve-wracking game of the college football season.

Next week, the No. 4 Cardinal will welcome No. 8 Oregon to the Farm for a game that will likely decide who wins the Pac-12 North Division.

This week, Stanford (8-0, 6-0 Pac-12) takes on lowly Oregon State (2-6, 2-3). But when you’re deep in the hunt for the national championship, nobody wearing cardinal and white is going to overlook the Beavers.

They just consider it the eye of the hurricane.

“We know there’s an elephant in the room, you can’t just say, ‘Don’t worry about the rest of the games,’” said sophomore linebacker AJ Tarpley. “We know that [Oregon] is a big game if we can win this game, and so we treat it like every other game. The only way that game will mean something next week is if we take care of business this week, so the only thing on our mind this week is Oregon State.”

Of course, overlooking anyone at this point would be unwise for the Cardinal, but the Beavers have a unique history of defeating highly ranked conference opponents in the last few years. Oregon State has pulled off three major upsets that changed the national title picture in the last five years by beating No. 3 USC, 33-31 in 2006, No. 2 Cal in Berkeley in 2007 and then No. 1 USC, 27-21 in 2008.

In addition to all the history of big-time upsets, quarterback Andrew Luck recalled the Cardinal’s last trip to Corvallis in 2009, a 38-28 Beaver victory, when talking about the challenges of playing in Reser Stadium.

“Definitely no fond memories. They’re a very well coached, tough team, and coupled with a great atmosphere, it’s always tough to go into Corvallis,” Luck said. “They put the beatdown on us last time we were up there, so we’re expecting a fight.”

Another added challenge for the Cardinal will be dealing with the fatigue associated with the overtime win last week in Los Angeles, as well as the emotional highs that come after a big victory.

“It’s onto the next play, onto the next game, we’ve got to take it day by day in order to achieve our goals,” said senior linebacker Chase Thomas. “Last game was real draining emotionally and physically, so we had an easy practice Monday to get everyone’s bodies feeling good and I feel like we’re doing a good job about that.”

Between the lines, the biggest task for Stanford this week will fall to the defense, which was fried for a season-high 48 points against the Trojans. The Cardinal’s primary focus is on stopping the big plays that nearly cost it dearly last week, an issue that was triggered by the defense failing to sack the opposing quarterback for the first time all season.

“[USC] had a good scheme for us, a bunch of three-step drops, and it’s hard to get pressure when they do three-step or slide protection or cut block,” Thomas said. “What it comes down to is doing better on first and second down so we can get into those third-and-longer situations with longer pass drops where it’s harder to protect for a longer time. We’ve got to play better on first and second down defense to unleash some of those play calls that we have called up for this team.”

The task of stopping the Beaver offense should be a little less complicated than stopping the Trojan offense last weekend, especially because Oregon State — like most teams in the country — doesn’t boast a quarterback of Matt Barkley’s caliber. Instead, the Beavers have redshirt freshman Sean Mannion, who has subpar numbers despite throwing more than 40 passes per game.

Mannion is more than capable of drafting an excellent performance — he threw four touchdowns to only one interception in a 44-21 win over Washington State — but he’s also capable of disaster, as evidenced by his one-touchdown, four-interception game against Arizona State in a 35-20 loss.

Thomas said Mannion’s youth, in contrast to Barkley’s experience, made the team “feel a little more confident” that it can bounce back after last week.

“We knew Barkley last week; he’s a talented quarterback, and [Mannion] is a good player too,” Thomas said. “But when you watch the film, you can tell he still makes some of those young-guy mistakes, so we’ve got to take advantage of those mistakes when they’re present.”

On the offensive side of the ball, the Cardinal will have to deal with the loss of redshirt sophomore tight end Zach Ertz, who injured his knee on the opening kickoff last week. The absence of Ertz, who has 308 yards receiving and three touchdowns this season, affects more than a quarter of the playbook, head coach David Shaw explained, especially because it hampers the Cardinal from using three tight ends at one time.

Offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton wasn’t concerned that the loss of Ertz would stunt the nation’s third-highest scoring offense.

“We played the entire game [against USC] without Zach Ertz, and our guys did an amazing job of adjusting with our personnel groupings,” Hamilton said. “I’m confident that [junior tight end] Levine Toilolo, [senior tight end] Coby Fleener and [junior fullback] Ryan Hewitt can cover the slack.”

Hamilton also pointed out that the Cardinal has played without one of its triumvirate of tight ends in several games this season already.

“We’ll make whatever adjustments we have to make; that’s the nature of football,” he said. “Fleener went out against Arizona, and Levine went out against Colorado, so we now had to adjust, we’ll make whatever adjustments are necessary for us to have an opportunity to win.”

In addition to the loss of Ertz, the Cardinal will also be without sophomore offensive tackle Cameron Fleming, who was injured against USC, as well as senior safety Delano Howell, who will likely be out of the lineup for the third week in a row with a hand injury. Senior wide receiver Chris Owusu, who sustained a massive hit to the head last week on the Cardinal’s final drive in regulation, will play.

Now that it is caught deep in the swirl of the national title hunt, the Cardinal knows it can’t afford a letdown in Corvallis, especially when the drama could ratchet up considerably next week.

Shaw said that’s exactly the way he wants it to be.

“We’ve talked all year about building,” he said. “You win a big game, they only get bigger. You can’t win a big game and stop playing. I think our guys understand that.”