2010 NCAA Football Preview: Stanford
Stanford is not your typical football college. Generally whenever most people think of Stanford they picture a very difficult admissions process due to the high academic standards that the university maintains. That has begun to change in recent years.
Students and alumni are happy that the school has finally found enough talented, athletic, intelligent men to dispel the image of Stanford as being a "geek school" with too much brain and not enough athletic ability.
Until 2009, the Stanford Cardinals Football team had not had a winning football season since the 9-3 2001 season when Tyrone Willingham was still in charge. When he left for the green pastures of Notre Dame things seemed to go downhill.
Hiring Jim Harbaugh was the first step in the turnaround for the Cardinals. His first season in 2007 was an improvement from Walt Harris’s final one (1-11 in 2006), but 4-8 is still a losing season. The second season brought the school a step closer to respectability with a 5-7 finish. Behind the powerful running of Toby Gerhart in 2009, the team finished 8-5 and played in their first bowl game since 2001.
Gone is the power running of Gerhart. However, the team will likely ride the arm of another Heisman contender, quarterback Andrew Luck.
Offense
The Stanford Cardinals will go as far as Luck will take them in 2010. With a power running game to lean on he did pretty well in his first season throwing for 2575 yards, 13 touchdowns, and only four interceptions. He will have four of his offensive line returning that only allowed him to be sacked six times last season; three of the four could very easily be all-conference players at the end of the season. If Luck improves like expected in his second year as a starter, he could very well end up becoming a Heisman contender this season.
Where the team may have some trouble is in trying to replace one of the best running backs in college football last season. Gerhart was a talent that you can’t replace; you just have to learn to move on. Sophomores Stepfan Taylor and Tyler Gaffney are nowhere near the talent that Gerhart was. Taylor had the most carries last season with 56 for 303 yards and two touchdowns. Taylor has shown that he can get the job done; in high school he ran for over 4000 yards and 54 touchdowns his junior and senior years.
Defense
The defense will have a new architect in charge this season in Vic Fangio as it changes from a 4-3 to a 3-4. Returning to the team will be two talented ends in Thomas Keiser and Chase Thomas; Keiser has had 15 sacks throughout his career and Thomas had four in his first season with the Cardinals in 2009.
A switch to the 3-4 makes sense for a team that has plenty of talent at linebacker. Shayne Skov became a starter a little less than half way through the season. The freshman linebacker seemed to only get better as the season went on. In the seven games he started he had 50 tackles with 12 coming against rival California and another 15 against Oklahoma in the Sun Bowl.
He’ll be joined by someone from the other side of the ball, Owen Marecic who will be converting from fullback to linebacker. He played it during certain goal-line situations in 2009 and has looked good during spring practice. Another prospective starter will be freshman Blake Lueders. The 6’5” 240 pound prospect from Zionsville, Indiana made 128 tackles as a junior in high school and looks to be too athletic not to get on the field.
For the Cardinals to improve off their 8-5 ranking and #21 ranking in the BCS after 2009 they will need to improve their pass defense. Last season the Cardinals ranked 110th against the pass allowing 23 touchdown passes. With the Pac-10 chock full of quality passing teams they will have to do a better job of stopping it if they are going to be competitive again.
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