Yays, Nays and OKs for 3-9 Stanford football

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 30, 2023

In my quick-and-dirty 2023 Stanford football preview, I predicted that the Cardinal might compile a 4-8 record, “with Hawaii, Sacramento State, Colorado and Cal being the four likeliest victims and Arizona and Washington State the most vulnerable clubs among the middling-strength opponents.”

I turned out to be overly optimistic. The Farm gridders finished with their third straight 3-9 season, matching their 2-7 Pac-12 Conference record in 2021 and besting their 1-8 league mark in 2022. The Cardinal’s victims were Hawaii, Colorado and WSU. The team played Sac State close but ultimately sustained an embarrassing 30-23 home loss to the Football Championship Subdivision squad in the Stanford Stadium opener. Later in the year, Cal overcame Stanford on the Farm in an ultimately successful Bears effort to qualify for a bowl game. (Indeed, the Cardinal lost all seven of its home games, in what my research suggests is the worst home showing in any season of Stanford football.)

Some of my predictions held up fairly well. To wit:

In week two, the team will travel to Los Angeles to play conference-title contenders USC and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, who could lead the most prolific offense on the West Coast if not the nation. In week three, Stanford faces Sacramento State. A home game against an FCS foe would normally be an automatic win, but the Cardinal is in a fragile state, and the Hornets will be highly motivated to snatch a win from their former head coach. The week four home game against Arizona, which went 5-7 last year, is also winnable but even more of a challenge than Sacramento State. On Sept. 30, the Cardinal finishes its home stand against Oregon, which could face USC in the conference title game.

USC had the nation’s fourth-most-prolific scoring offense. The Cardinal was in a fragile state, and the Hornets were indeed motivated to beat Stanford’s new head coach, former Sac State leader Troy Taylor. Stanford was highly competitive in a 21-20 loss to Arizona, which went on to finish third in the league with a 9-3 record, including six straight wins to close out the regular season. (The Wildcats benefited from changing quarterbacks — a move they made at Stanford after their original starter was injured.) Oregon will play in the league title game, although they will face Washington, not USC.

Audric Estime and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish trample Stanford, 56-23

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 29, 2023

Notre Dame’s Audric Estime rushed for 238 yards and four scores as the visiting Fighting Irish stomped Stanford, 56-23.

The Irish used a three-touchdown second quarter and 381 rushing yards on the night to fend off their briefly feisty Cardinal hosts. Stanford had a 13-7 lead at the end of the first quarter and held a 16-14 lead for about five minutes in the second period after senior kicker Joshua Karty hit a season-long 56-yard field goal. But the visitors in white jerseys, gold helmets and gold pants scored 48 points in a row to turn what had been a relatively close game into an embarrassing rout.

Notre Dame overcame four turnovers to improve to 9-3. In doing so, they consigned Stanford to a third-straight 3-9 season record in head coach Troy Taylor’s first season on the Farm — a season in which the Cardinal lost all seven games it played at Stanford Stadium.

Yays, Nays and OKs for 3-8 Stanford football

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 22, 2023

Is the glass half full or half empty?

That’s the question a lot of Stanford football fans might be asking themselves as the program concludes another losing season. This is the fourth sub-.500 campaign in five years, with the only exception being 2020’s weird Covid-19 edition.

Stanford is obviously not a good outfit this year. But should fans be encouraged about the future?

My best answer to this question is that we won’t know the answer until a few weeks — or perhaps a few months — into the 2024 next season. But there are certainly some tea leaves that we can examine for clues.

If you’re looking for reasons to hope, you can point to developing receivers such as Elic Ayomanor, Tiger Bachmeier and tight end Sam Roush; apparently strong recruiting by head coach Troy Taylor and his staff; Taylor’s willingness to utilize the player transfer portal in a way that former head coach David Shaw either could not or would not; and the fact that the 2023 roster was depleted by numerous departing players as well as mounting injuries.

Mendoza and Ott throw and run Cal to a 27-15 win at Stanford Stadium in the final Big Game of the Pac-12 era

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 21, 2023

Fernando Mendoza passed for 294 yards and three touchdowns and Jaydn Ott ran for 166 yards and a score to lead the Cal football team to a 27-15 Big Game win over Stanford on the Farm on Saturday.

The Golden Bears offense converted four of five fourth downs while the Cal defense held the Cardinal to just five third-down conversions on 16 opportunities. The outcome marked the first time the Bears have won Big Game three or more times in a row since they racked up a five-game streak from 2002 through 2006.

Cal bumped its record to 5-6 (3-5 Pac-12) and can qualify for a postseason berth by beating UCLA in the Rose Bowl next weekend. The Cardinal dropped to 3-8 (2-7) in their last-ever Pac-12 football contest but still can avoid a three-season streak of 3-9 finishes by defeating visiting Notre Dame next weekend in the team’s 2023 finale.

Yays, Nays and OKs for 3-7 Stanford football

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 18, 2023

When the 2023 Stanford football team plays well, it’s respectable. But when it plays badly, it plays very very badly.

Oregon State beat the Cardinal by 45 points on Saturday, the Farm gridders’ worst margin of defeat since USC’s 56-10 pasting of Stanford in September. It stings that the club acquitted itself so poorly in the final year of the Pac-12 as we know it.

Yays

• Mitch Leigber, safety. The junior recorded a career- and team-high nine tackles while making his sixth career start and first start at safety. The Laguna Hills, Calif., native had started at running back four times in 2022 and at nickel back against Washington State in the previous game.

‪OSU‬ Beavers engineer 62-17 rout of Stanford

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 17, 2023

Damien Martinez ran for four touchdowns to lead the 12th-ranked Oregon State football team to a 62-17 stomping of Stanford on Saturday night in Reser Stadium in Corvallis.

Stanford surrendered more than 60 points for the first time since Arizona State recorded a 65-24 victory in 2002. The Cardinal defense let up 598 yards, the most since Cal rolled up 636 yards in the 2021 Big Game. But the unit was hardly the only one to have a letdown in the Pacific Northwest last weekend. The offense committed four turnovers, with quarterback Ashton Daniels throwing three interceptions and quarterback Justin Lamson adding another.

‪OSU‬ moved to 8-2 (5-2 in the Pac-12) to set up a showdown tomorrow afternoon with 10-0 Washington on Senior Day in the last football game that Reser Stadium will host in the current configuration of the Pac-12. The Cardinal fell to 3-7 (2-6) and were eliminated from bowl eligibility.

The Beavers held a 34-10 lead at the half. Any hope of Stanford pulling off another Colorado-style comeback died in the third quarter, as each of the Cardinal’s first two possessions ended with a pick.

Yays, Nays and OKs for 3-6 Stanford football

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 8, 2023

With the dissolution of the Pac-12 Conference, old rivals are scattering to the winds. USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will play in the Big 10 beginning in 2024. The Arizona schools, Colorado and Utah are headed for the Big 12. Stanford and Cal have joined the Atlantic Coast Conference. Only two teams seem set to continue next year under the Pac-12 (or Pac-X) banner: Oregon State and Washington State, which occupy the league’s smallest media markets and have arguably had the least success in football.

Stanford’s Pac-12 football farewell tour has been something of a horror show, largely defined by a 46-point loss to USC and losses of 36 and 35 points to Oregon and UCLA, respectively. True, there was a narrow one-point home loss to Arizona and a competitive nine-point home defeat against Washington. But through two months, the Cardinal’s only circuit victory had come over one of the league’s two most recent additions, Colorado. Given the disastrous defeat to lower-division opponent Sacramento State — a game virtually everyone had circled as a sure win for the Cardinal ahead of the season — the results added up to a dreadful record.

That changed at least somewhat on a wet, cool November night on the Palouse. Stanford’s 10-7 win snapped WSU’s six-game series winning streak. The victory also maintained a path to bowl eligibility for the 3-6 Cardinal, who could get to six wins by sweeping Oregon State on the road and Cal and Notre Dame at home.

Gritty defense and just enough offense lead Stanford to gutsy 10-7 win at Washington State

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 7, 2023

The Stanford football team fought through offensive struggles to secure a 10-7 road win over Washington State on a cool and rainy night on the Palouse on Saturday.

In a game in which both teams combined for just 462 yards of total offense, the Cardinal got the better of the Cougars by capitalizing on a Cam Ward interception with a game-tying Justin Lamson touchdown run in the third quarter. Later, after Stanford quarterback Ashton Daniels threw an interception, the Cardinal defense held the hosts to an unsuccessful field-goal try from 43 yards. Stanford responded with a 31-yard Joshua Karty field goal that proved to be the winning points in a hard-fought 10-7 victory.

The Cardinal upped its record to 3-6 overall (2-5 Pac-12) and retain an outside shot at bowl eligibility, which will require a sweep of the team’s three remaining games. Meanwhile, WSU’s free fall continues, as the Cougars (4-5, 1-5) have not recorded a victory since Sept. 23.

Yays, Nays and OKs for 2-6 Stanford football

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 4, 2023

Am I crazy, or was Saturday night’s 42-33 loss to No. 5 Washington the most encouraging Stanford football loss in years?

Looking back over recent campaigns, the Cardinal register is riddled with two types of defeats: Losses of two or more scores, usually but not exclusively to good or great teams, and close losses, typically to mediocre or bad teams and almost never to good teams.

Technically, the defeat at the hands of the Huskies was a two-score loss. The thing is, it’s the team’s best result against a ranked team since the Card pulled off its infamous 31-24 overtime upset of No. 3 Oregon in 2021. That game, of course, was followed by seven straight losses, among them a 28-10 loss at No. 22 Arizona State and a 45-14 home loss to Notre Dame.

Stanford shows spirit but comes up short in 42-33 loss to Washington

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 2, 2023

In a game full of scoring, the outcome of No. 5 Washington’s game at Stanford on Saturday night came down to a fourth-quarter trick play dialed up by Troy Taylor, the Cardinal football head coach and offensive play caller.

On fourth down and two, the Cardinal needed to reach the home 30-yard line to keep its offense on the field and preserve a chance to erase a 35-33 deficit with three minutes and 23 seconds in the fourth quarter. Operating under center in a tight formation, sophomore quarterback Ashton Daniels took the snap and pitched the ball to Tiger Bachmeier, who was standing behind him and to his left. The freshman receiver ran several steps to the right and planted his feet while facing an oncoming defender.

Little-used receiver Jayson Raines had set the edge on the right side of the line. As soon as the ball was snapped, ignoring and ignored by pass rushers, Raines began running a curl route toward the right sideline. Now, approaching the home 35-yard line, the junior turned back toward Bachmeier, who had thrown a weak pass. Raines reached down to corral the ball, but it dribbled off of his hands and onto the turf for an incompletion and a turnover on downs.