Preseason Preview: Stanford
ASU hasn’t faced Stanford in the last two years and during that span the Cardinal recorded an impressive 22-5 record, and in 2017 are poised once again to be one of the best teams in the league. Our Joe Healey examines this conference opponent which represents the Sun Devils’ first Pac-12 road game of the season.
Head Coach: David Shaw (Seventh year, 64-17)
The 2011, 2012 and 2015 Pac-12 Conference Coach of the Year, Shaw picked up where his former boss Jim Harbaugh left off by elevating Stanford to a level of conference and national glory it had never before experienced.
In his six years in charge of the Cardinal, Shaw has posted five double-digit win seasons, two of which included 11 wins and two consisted of 12 victories. In five of the six seasons, Stanford finished in the nation’s top-12 according to the Associated Press.
2016 Review: 10-3 (6-3 in Pac-12 Conference, 3rd in the Pac-12 North)
Rated No. 8 in the Preseason AP Poll, the 2016 season started where the successful 2015 campaign left off for the Cardinal with three wins to open the year – two of which were in league play against USC and UCLA. After that, however, Stanford was brought screeching back to earth with a 44-6 defeat to Washington that both humbled the Cardinal and legitimized the early season hype for the Huskies.
The struggles continued into the month of October as Stanford then lost two of the next three games with losses to Washington State and Colorado with a win against Notre Dame in between. The loss to Washington State bumped Stanford out of the AP top-25 for the first time in over a year.
The Oct. 22 loss to Colorado would prove to be the final defeat for Stanford in 2016 as the Cardinal ripped off five wins to end the regular season by taking down Arizona, Oregon State, Oregon, California and Rice.
Stanford’s 2016 season ended with a Hyundai Sun Bowl win over North Carolina, giving the Cardinal a 10-3 final record, its sixth double-figure win total in seven years and a No. 12 final poll ranking.
Key Number from 2016: 6,191
The combined all-purpose yardage total for Christian McCaffrey over the 2015 and 2016 seasons that now must be replaced, including a NCAA record 3,864 in 2015. McCaffrey again was the national leader in the statistic for 2016, averaging 211.55 all-purpose yards per game.
Program Overview:
A prominent member of the Pacific Coast Conference, Athletic Association of Western Universities and the Pacific-8 Conference in the days before becoming conference foes with Arizona State in the Pac-10 (and now Pac-12) Conference, Stanford has a storied gridiron history.
A participant in the inaugural Rose Bowl game on New Year’s Day of 1902, the Cardinal have played 15 times in the postseason in Pasadena, third most behind USC (34) and Michigan (20).
Stanford boasts the 1970 Heisman Trophy winner in Jim Plunkett, while more recently Toby Gerhart, Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey have finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting.
There have been ups and downs with the program in recent decades – from 1979 through 1990, Stanford only had one season with more than six wins – but the Cardinal went on to a 10-win effort in 1992 and a Rose Bowl appearance following the 1999 season.
After Tyrone Willingham, head coach from 1995-2001, left for Notre Dame, Stanford football hit a major low with five straight losing seasons under two head coaches, including a 1-11 finish in 2006 in the last of just two seasons under Walt Harris.
In 2007, Stanford hired up-and-coming head coach and former star college and pro quarterback Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh’s first two seasons were very mild improvements with four and five wins, respectively – though in his debut season Stanford shocked second-ranked USC – but as Harbaugh’s recruits, scheme and philosophy took over, the rise became meteoric. In 2009, the Cardinal posted an 8-5 record and earned its first bowl berth since 2001 and the next year Stanford finished 12-1 with an Orange Bowl win and a No. 4 final ranking.
From that point, Harbaugh became the San Francisco 49ers head coach but the Cardinal maintained a sense of continuity by promoting Offensive Coordinator David Shaw to lead the program.
Shaw would not only continue the high level of performance Harbaugh achieved, but surpass it to create the greatest era in Stanford football history.
Prior to Shaw’s arrival, Stanford had registered four 10-win seasons (including the one orchestrated by Harbaugh the year before Shaw took over) and never had the Cardinal posted consecutive double-digit win campaigns. Shaw’s first three seasons consisted of 11, 12 and 11 wins in 2011-13 to immediately become the first coach to guide Stanford to multiple 10-win seasons.
In 2014, Stanford hit a relative lull to an 8-5 campaign that cause some to question whether the success was due to the previous presence of Harbaugh’s athletes, but that theory was effectively squashed the next year as Stanford finished 12-2 with a Rose Bowl win. Last year, Stanford ended the year with a 10-3 record, giving Shaw five 10-win seasons in his six overall years leading the Cardinal.
Under Shaw, Stanford has had five top-12 finishes in the final polls – including three inside the top seven – and three Rose Bowl appearances with two wins. Shaw also has guided Stanford to four of its five highest single-season win totals in program history.
Series Record vs. ASU (Most Recent Meeting): ASU 17, Stanford 13 (ASU 26, Stanford 10 on Oct. 18, 2014 in Tempe)
One of two teams ASU had never met prior to joining the Pac-10 Conference in 1978, the Sun Devils and Cardinal have developed quite a back-and-forth series.
After a pair of losses to the Cardinal the first two years, ASU ripped off five straight wins from 1981-85. ASU gained a firm advantage in the final decade of the 20th century as the Sun Devils won three straight in 1989 and 1993-94, then after a loss in 1995 the Devils again won three consecutive meetings from 1996-98.
The tide would turn in favor of the Cardinal as the 21st century arrived as Stanford won five out of seven games from 1999-2005. ASU then won three consecutive games from 2006-08, but dropped four straight in 2009-10 and in 2013 (twice) before getting back in the win column in 2014 prior to the recent two-year hiatus from the series.
Current Series Streak: ASU, 1
Though the two teams have not met the past two seasons, ASU claimed a win in 2014 after losing four straight dating back through the 2009 season – including a pair of losses in 2013.
Key Departures: DB Dallas Lloyd, RB Christian McCaffrey, WR Michael Rector, DL Solomon Thomas, K Conrad Ukropina
The most dynamic all-purpose athlete in college football the past two seasons, McCaffrey made a massive impact in just two years as a high level contributor as a sophomore and junior.
McCaffrey exploded onto the college football scene as a sophomore in 2015 as he was named the Associated Press Player of the Year, a Consensus All-American and was the Heisman Trophy runner-up after setting the NCAA single-season all-purpose yardage record with 3,864. He followed that by earning Second-Team All-America honors as a junior in 2016.
Like McCaffrey, star defender Solomon Thomas left Stanford early – though Thomas did so as a redshirt sophomore with two years of eligibility remaining – and like his former Cardinal teammate, the decision paid off marvelously.
A Second-Team All-American, First-Team All-Pac-12 selection and the conference’s Morris Trophy winner on defense, Thomas was Stanford’s leader with 62 tackles including 15.0 for loss with 8.0 sacks. As a redshirt freshman in 2015, Thomas was an Honorable Mention All-Pac-12 selection.
Though Thomas claimed most of the accolades on defense, Dallas Lloyd enjoyed an excellent senior season in which he ranked second on the team in tackles (61) and tied for second in the Pac-12 Conference with five interceptions.
Rector was one of Stanford’s most reliable wide receivers over the course of his career, catching 32 passes for 367 yards and three touchdowns as a senior and 34 passes for 559 yards and seven scores as a junior.
Ukropina was one of the most accurate performers in the Pac-12 Conference during his two years as the team’s primary placekicker. As a senior, he connected on 22-of-27 attempts and the previous season he made 18-of-20 field goals.
Players Selected in the 2017 NFL Draft: Solomon Thomas (third overall to Chicago), Christian McCaffrey (eighth overall to Carolina).
Though the Cardinal had its fewest overall players picked since 2008-09 when no Stanford products were drafted, the two that were chosen grabbed headlines as Stanford produced two of the top eight overall selections in the 2017 NFL Draft. In the past 25 NFL Drafts, only one Stanford product was taken higher than both Thomas and McCaffrey in 2012 first overall pick Andrew Luck.
Also, the 2017 NFL Draft marked the fourth time Stanford had two players chose in the top-10, joining duos from 1972 (Greg Sampson, No. 6 and Jeff Siemon, No. 10), 1978 (James Lofton, No. 6 and Gordon King, No. 10) and 1992 (Bob Whitfield, No. 8 and Tommy Vardell, No. 9)
Top Returners: LB Joey Alfieri, WR JJ Arcega-Whiteside, WR Trenton Irwin, RB Bryce Love, DT Harrison Phillips
Though McCaffrey has left Stanford and takes with him virtually all the individual acclaim the Cardinal offense received the past two seasons, talent still exists in the backfield in playmaking junior Bryce Love. As the primary reserve to McCaffrey the past two seasons, Love has a career average of 7.2 yards per carry and rushed for 779 yards in 2016. As the expected featured back, Love has a great chance at a 1,000-yard season in 2017.
Though the quarterback position was unspectacular in 2016, a pair of trusty receivers return in JJ Arcega-Whiteside and Trenton Irwin. Irwin was the team leader with 37 receptions for 442 yards with one touchdown, while Arcega-Whiteside had a team-best five touchdowns and ranked second behind Irwin with 379 yards on 24 catches.
On defense, Joey Alfieri is Stanford’s second-leading returning tackler from 2016 (51), which included 10.5 for loss with 5.0 sacks as well as two interceptions and nine quarterback hurries. Harrison Phillips Is Stanford’s returning leader in sacks (6.5) and had 9.5 tackles for loss among his 46 total tackles in 2016.
2017 Signing Class Ranking: 14th nationally, third in Pac-12 Conference
Ranked 19th nationally but hindered by the low signee total of 14, Stanford’s average star ranking of 3.93 ranked third in the nation for 2017 behind only Alabama and Ohio State (both 4.1). According to Rivals, Stanford tied California and Clemson for the fewest signees in the FBS, therefore if analyzing quality over quantity this may very well be the top signing class in the Pac-12 Conference.
As a whole, Stanford’s class included three five-star signees and seven four star recruits among the 14 overall additions. In all, nine signees were rated in the Rivals 250 for 2017.
Stanford’s three five-star acquisitions came in the form of a quarterback and two offensive tackles – positions that typically are not conducive to true freshman contributions. However, Stanford has never shied from playing true freshmen along the offensive line and the returning talent at quarterback does little to remind Cardinal fans of the likes of Andrew Luck or even Kevin Hogan.
Top Signees: OT Walker Little, OT Foster Sarrell, QB Davis Mills, TE Colby Parkinson, WR Osiris St. Brown
Presumably the quarterback of the future for Stanford, Davis Mills was rated the number one pro-style quarterback, the No. 10 overall recruit and the top prospect in the state of Georgia. Mills committed to Stanford almost a year before Signing Day and despite an impressive offer sheet, he did not take official visits to any competing schools.
Likely to make life easier for Mills in the future is Stanford’s incredible pair of offensive tackle signees, which consists of two of the top three tackle prospects for the 2017 class.
The No. 7 overall recruit in the country, the second-best offensive tackle and the number two ranked prospect in the state of Texas, five-star Walker Little leads a stellar offensive line class for the Cardinal. Little also took official visits to Florida State and Georgia.
Foster Sarrell, the No. 14 overall prospect in the nation, the third-best offensive tackle and top player in the state of Washington joins Little as five-star offensive line signees for Stanford. Sarrell also reportedly took an official visit to Nebraska.
Few teams in the country over the past decade have had the level of tight end production as Stanford, and the Cardinal look to continue that legacy by signing four-star Colby Parkinson of Westlake Village, Calif. Parkinson was rated the second-best tight end recruit and the No. 69 overall prospect for the 2017 cycle. Parkinson also took an official visit to Duke.
One of six players signed by Stanford ranked in the nation’s top-150 overall prospects, four-star receiver Osiris St. Brown comes to The Farm after being rated the No. 144 overall recruit and No. 21 wide receiver prospect for this year’s class. St. Brown committed to Stanford shortly before his senior season began and did not take any additional official visits.
