Zach Charbonnet put up over 250 yards of offense, the Bruin defense harassed Stanford’s quarterback all night long, and No. 12 UCLA rolled to a 38-13 win over Stanford Saturday night at the Rose Bowl.

With the victory, the Bruins moved to 7-1 on the year and 4-1 in Pac-12 play. Stanford fell to 3-5 and 1-5 in league play.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Zach Charbonnet continues his dominance

The UCLA running back entered Saturday’s contest as the Pac-12’s leading rusher. That’s not changing anytime soon. With 198 yards and three touchdowns on just 21 carries, Charbonnet topped 100 yards for the sixth time in seven appearances this year and ran for at least 151 yards for the third straight game.

Charbonnet has 964 rushing yards with four regular-season games still to play. He’s on pace to record a second straight 1,000-yard rushing season, and he’s doing it with remarkable efficiency. On Saturday, he averaged 9.4 yards a carry. He had runs of 14, 11, 11, 23, 13, 16, 17, and 37 yards.

And, oh, by the way, he also led the Bruins with five receptions for another 61 yards.

Charbonnet did this.

And then he did this.

And then he did this.

He looked like the random 5-star junior running back from the Midwestern high school team who already benches four plates going against future engineering majors. He looked like a grown man amongst toddlers. He looked like he was playing a different sport from the one Stanford’s defense was trying to play.

Charbonnet was incredible.

He had 69 total yards on the Bruins’ first drive of the game. After linebacker Darius Muasau picked off Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee on the first play of Stanford’s second possession, Charbonnet went 23 yards for a touchdown that made it 14-3 10 minutes into the game.

Given the way Charbonnet was running and the way the Cardinal has been scoring (or not scoring), it felt like the Cardinal was already well out of it at that point.

And that’s exactly what happened. UCLA went up 24-3, and then 38-6.

Charbonnet has 128 carries in seven games this season. Entering Saturday’s action, 25 FBS running backs already had more. UCLA’s star — fresh and finding his groove — is on track for a potentially noisy November.

Stanford’s defense

Stanford stopped UCLA three times on 10 drives. The Bruins scored five touchdowns. They kicked a field goal after a 13-play, 73-yard drive. They missed a field goal after a 12-play, 52-yard drive.

They punted three times.

Two of those three came after the Bruins flipped field position and resulted in zero damage done by the Stanford offense.

The third and final drive was UCLA’s final possession of the game. It ran two minutes off the clock in three plays. UCLA wasn’t trying to score. But, hey, let’s give the Cardinal the three-and-out.

UCLA topped 500 yards of total offense and did it while breaking off 7.1 yards a play. The Bruins were 5-for-5 on fourth down. They were 6-for-7 converting in short-yardage rushing situations.

Freshman edge rusher David Bailey had an encouraging game, all things considered.

The rest of this defense is in disarray.

Stanford was coming off back-to-back wins, both of which featured just 14 points allowed. It looked like the Cardinal had momentum. Turns out the offenses were just bad.

The defense has given up at least 475 yards and at least 7 yards a play against the group of USC, Washington, Oregon, and UCLA. Against a backup quarterback at Oregon State, it gave up 442 yards and 6.5 yards a play. Against effective offenses, the defense has gotten run over. Stanford doesn’t tackle well, doesn’t execute the fundamentals well, and didn’t look like it wanted any part of Charbonnet.

Add in the complete inability to protect the quarterback, and it’s no wonder Stanford has been overmatched in each game it’s played against the top of the conference.

A strong response

Chip Kelly was probably pleased, but not surprised to see his veteran team respond the way it did to last week’s loss to Oregon on the road. Led by senior Dorian Thompson-Robinson, this veteran-laden group came out strong and took care of business against a lesser opponent.

The Bruins suffered their first loss of the season a week ago in Eugene. Would that linger? Would the disappointment lead to misfires this week? It was fair to question whether this was an emotional letdown kind of a spot.

It absolutely was not. The Bruins showed their mettle.

And with the win they remain right in the thick of the Pac-12 title hunt.