Stanford doesn’t always win, but when it does, it wins by making defensive stands.

The No. 7 Cardinal (10-2, 7-2 Pac-12) edged Notre Dame 27-20 (8-4) on Senior Night, as fifth-year senior inside linebacker Shayne Skov and the Cardinal defense held Irish quarterback Tommy Rees and company to 22 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter. Stanford will now look to defend its Pac-12 title and earn a second consecutive Rose Bowl berth when it travels to Tempe, Ariz., to battle No. 11 Arizona State in the Pac-12 Championship Game on Dec. 7.

Not only did the victory allow Stanford to pick up its fourth consecutive 10-win season — prior to 2009, the Cardinal only had three such seasons in its history — but it also marked the first time in the program’s history that Stanford has beaten five consecutive ranked teams at home.

Senior running back Tyler Gaffney finished his last game at Stanford Stadium with 189 rushing yards — a career high that gave Gaffney his eighth 100-yard game of the season — while junior cornerback Wayne Lyons picked off Rees twice on the last two Irish drives to seal the game and extend the Cardinal’s home win streak to 16. The Cardinal seniors finished their college careers with just only one home loss, the 53-30 loss to Oregon in 2011.

“I can’t say enough about our seniors,” said head coach David Shaw. “[They] put this program among the elite. You have to say it now: We are among the elite, to have this many 10-win seasons in a row.”

The Irish struck first with a 21-yard field goal from Kyle Brindza, but junior quarterback Kevin Hogan found a wide-open Devon Cajuste in the end zone for a 16-yard touchdown and Gaffney punched it in from 1-yard out early in the second quarter to give the Cardinal a 14-3 lead. Hauling in three receptions for 75 yards and a touchdown on the night, Cajuste played a major role in the Cardinal passing game for the first time since he suffered a knee injury against UCLA in October.

Hogan, However, could not repeat his career-best performance in last weekend’s Big Game, at least not from start to finish. The junior went 12 of 18 for 158 yards and two interceptions and overthrew open targets — one of his misfires in the second quarter resulted in an interception that shifted the game’s momentum away from the Cardinal. Still, Stanford’s defense executed its bend-but-don’t-break approach well enough to hold the Irish to a short field goal late in the first half to bring the score to 14-6 at halftime.

“[Notre Dame] is really good up front,” Shaw said. “We knew we had to keep pounding. We knew we had to keep fighting. We knew they were going to come back.”

The Irish came back all right.

Stanford opened the second half with a seven-play, 76-yard touchdown drive capped by senior running back Anthony Wilkerson’s 20-yard scamper on third-and-9, but Rees answered on the next drive with a 4-yard touchdown pass to TJ Jones. Though the Irish running game sputtered — Stanford outgained Notre Dame 261 yards to 64 on the ground — its offensive line held its ground against the Cardinal’s pass rush.

After the Cardinal had to settle for a 27-yard Jordan Williamson field goal, Rees threw his second touchdown of the night on the ensuing possession with a 14-yard pass to wideout DaVaris Daniels to bring the Irish within three at 24-21.

“I think [Rees] is a little underrated,” said senior safety Ed Reynolds, who recorded seven tackles on the night. “He’s a very good quarterback, smart quarterback…it was kind of a chess match there. He’s a great competitor, and he can make all the throws.”

Williamson tacked on one more field goal to set up Stanford’s fourth-quarter defensive stand. The Cardinal offense didn’t do its defensive counterpart any favors when Hogan was picked off by cornerback Bennett Jackson at the Irish 21, but Lyons made his two interceptions to quash the Irish comeback. Lyons’ big plays served as a fitting redemption for his mistake earlier in the third quarter, when he bit on a head fake that allowed Rees to find a wide-open Daniels for the 14-yard touchdown.

“Sometimes you have to have a short memory because [after] any small movement or small mess-up, big plays happen,” Lyons said. “Sometimes you have to let those things happen and bounce back from them.”

The Cardinal will now turn its attention to Arizona State, which blew out Arizona 58-21 Saturday night to clinch home-field advantage for the Pac-12 Championship Game.

“We had ups and downs, we had bumps and bruises,” Shaw said. “We lost some guys, we had some guys step up. We lost a couple games. But when you look up, we’re where we wanted to be, a 10-win team in the Pac-12 Championship Game, and it’s going to be a heck of a game next week.”

The Sun Devils fell to Stanford 42-28 in their third game of the season and also lost to Notre Dame 37-34, but have won seven straight games since then. Under head coach Todd Graham, who was named the Pac-12 coach of the year on Monday, Arizona State has yet to drop a game at home this season thanks to an explosive offense that has averaged 49 points per game at Sun Devil Stadium.

Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelly played his way into a spot on the all-Pac-12 second team with 3,337 passing yards and 27 touchdowns. Kelly’s arsenal of weapons includes wide receiver Jaelen Strong, who comes into Saturday’s game with seven 100-yard receiving games on the year. Arizona State will be without its top running back, Marion Grice, an injury that may limit its running game. The Cardinal defense held the Sun Devils to just 50 yards on the ground back in September.

Stanford successfully contained star defensive tackle Will Sutton the first time around, but the fifth-year senior played much better in the back-half of the season — eight out of his 10.5 tackles for loss came in the last six game — to earn Pac-12 defensive player of the year honors. Against Utah in early November, the versatile Sutton even recorded an interception.

“[The Pac-12 Championship Game] means everything,” Gaffney said. “Being able to play with these guys day in, day out is why I came back.”

Stanford and Arizona State battle for Pac-12 supremacy in Tempe on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:45 p.m. PST.

Contact George Chen at gchen15 ‘at’ stanford.edu.