Take a moment to think back to the Pac-12 football landscape of last season, and just marvel for a second at how so much has changed in just three weeks of play.

Right now, we live in a world in which Cal is undefeated with a win on the road over a Power Five conference team. (Granted, it’s Northwestern, but it’s a significant win nonetheless.)

We live in a world in which Brett Hundley gets injured, striking fear into the hearts of UCLA fans all over the country, before backup quarterback Jerry Neuheisel takes the reins of his father’s old team and beats the Texas Longhorns in Jerry World.

We live in a world in which Colorado, the doormat of the conference in 2012, can put up over 500 yards of offense on Arizona State.

We live in a world in which USC can come to Stanford Stadium and beat the Cardinal, and somehow, inexplicably lose to Boston College and give up 425 yards of rushing while they’re at it. (I mean, come on. You had one job USC. One job.)

Just think about how ridiculous any of those points would have sounded at the end of last season. The world that we live in today is absurdly different from the world of just eight months ago.

All of this is my roundabout way of saying that the Pac-12 conference through the first three weeks has been an absolutely wild ride with surprises around every corner. This is why we watch college football, after all; why would we watch the games if everything went according to plan?

For Stanford fans, however, one of the big surprises of this season has been rather unwelcome: the inability for the Cardinal to develop a consistent power running game. After power backs like Toby Gerhart, Stepfan Taylor and Tyler Gaffney left illustrated legacies on The Farm by making the up-the-middle, smashmouth run the heart and soul of the Cardinal offense, the inability to simply plug-and-chug a new running back into the old system has left many — including several of my fellow writers at The Daily — more than slightly concerned.

Even against the relatively weak defensive fronts of UC Davis and Army, the Cardinal power running game struggled for consistency. Issues against the enormous physical beasts that man the USC front seven were expected and downplayed — understandably so. That is, until Boston College —Boston College! — gashed the USC defense for 425 yards on the ground on Saturday.

So yes, I think it is safe to say that Stanford can no longer rely on the power running game as its offensive identity. For one, the new-look offensive line certainly has not been opening up significant holes for the tailbacks. But another big problem is that the tailbacks just are not the big, 220-pound bruisers that make the power running system work so effectively, complete with brute physicality and yards after contact.

While many people have been saying that this is a problem, and that Stanford needs to establish its identity in the power running game quickly, I actually think that this is a good thing for this year’s version of the Cardinal. I just do not think that there is any cause for alarm.

Gaffney, Gerhart and Taylor were tanks. But Remound Wright, Barry Sanders, Kelsey Young, Ricky Seale and Christian McCaffrey just do not come from the same machine shop. They are more of the Humvee type in this analogy: better speed, better mobility, less brute force. (I would even argue that Young and McCaffrey are really tricked-out motorcycles. In the best way possible, of course.)

But why do we need to establish the power running game when the personnel just does not support that system? Why force the issue when it might not even be an issue?

Let’s look at the numbers for a second: McCaffrey, Sanders, Wright and Young have rushed a combined 59 times for 391 yards — an average of 6.6 yards per carry.

Wait, hold on. That’s pretty good.

A lot of the big running plays this season have been to the outside and off-tackle because unlike the bruising backs of years past, this year’s backs have speed and shiftiness that make it much more advantageous to make that the focus of the Cardinal running game. I think David Shaw knows that, and it is just the inertia of the program and the Stanford system that has prevented fans from seeing and appreciating that over the first few weeks of this season.

But think about the other advantages that shifting away from a power run-focused game provides. Last season, the power running game was critical because there was no intermediate passing threat. As such, the success of the passing game hinged almost entirely on deep bombs that were made possible on play action by the presence of a tangible, up-the-middle running threat.

This season, though, that is not as important, because guys like Austin Hooper and Devon Cajuste have come up big in the intermediate passing game. Therefore, it has been possible for Hogan to find and hit his targets downfield even without a successful power run game. Couple that with the inherent dynamic playmaking ability of Ty Montgomery, and where there were tanks before in the Stanford offense, there are now shiny, sleek fighter jets that are itching to be used. What is the point of having such stellar talent if we just leave it sitting around in the hangar?

Kevin Hogan is ready to use his absurdly talented receiving corps more, and this year’s running backs are certainly capable of using their talents to make guys miss, instead of powering through them.

While this makes second-and-short and third-and-short situations much less automatic than last year, I am still confident in Hogan’s ability to find his intermediate receivers to convert those downs without too much of a loss in offensive production overall, because I think this team is talented enough to do that. I certainly have more confidence in that than trying to hand it off to a Patrick Skov or a Daniel Marx and punch it through.

What I am trying to say is, don’t worry about the running game. It will be fine. Let your expectations adjust to the changing tides of the Stanford roster and watch the backs work their magic. I think that without those expectations of old, you will be pleasantly surprised.

After all, doesn’t a surprise make the game of football much more interesting?

With all of the car references in his column about Stanford football, Do-Hyoung Park is clearly looking forward to the moment when he is old enough to drive. To talk with Do about Cardinal football, or to advise him on the rules of the road, please e-mail him at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.