Everyone concerned that the narrow victories over ASU and ND means we are stuck with Shaw for at least another year are over-reacting. The story of the season is still TBD. If we win 3 more games and make a bowl game, Shaw's job is secure. If we lose out and lose badly in most of the remaining games, the ND and ASU wins will be in the distant rear view mirror. It is how the season finishes that matters most. It could go either way. The defense has surprised us with much progress. We are all expecting a reversion vs DTR but who knows, maybe the offense will start scoring more TDs instead of field goals. The next 5 weeks will tell.

1. The plight of being a Stanford fan with a brain these days is seeing heart and head rent by a deeply unfortunate tug of war. We all love Stanford football and experiencing the first consecutive wins in exactly 400 days is a joyous occasion. I'm very happy for the players. Yet these two lucky, ugly wins against mediocre or worse teams and the very winnable games against Washington State, BYU, and Cal produce a very high likelihood there will be a clear narrative of improvement for the powers-that-be to hang complacency on if they want to, which they probably will. There's something poignant, albeit depressing, about this. Shaw has faced the hardest schedule in America thus far this season and now gets to rack up some wins against teams who beating doesn't suggest anything impressive, especially not the way Shaw beats them. Meanwhile, the fans with brains who know there's no truly competitive future with Shaw at the helm get put on the rack for questioning the Great Man.

2. This win was an extremely ugly win between bad teams. Somebody had to win but both teams played like the dregs of Power Five football they are. Both teams were penalized far above the national average (Stanford in the bottom 33rd percentile for penalty yards and Arizona State in the bottom 6th percentile). A game with two defenses that rank in the bottom 13th percentile of points per drive defenses nationally somehow managed to have nine punts and less than 30 total points (the median scoring offense, our non-world beating former offensive coordinator's Rice team, scores 30 a game alone). Each team had a fumble and an interception. Neither team grades in PFF's top 80 grades for pass rush and yet both teams gave up four sacks. U-G-L-Y. But I'm a Stanford fan and would rather my team win ugly than lose. We should make no mistake, though, in thinking this is a sign of progress for Stanford football. We eeked out an ugly victory at home against another bad team. Hence the pull between heart and head.

3. I will have none of it if Shaw tries to talk this up as a team win. It most definitely was not. We got outgained by over a yard per play and had almost identical points per drive against a bad team at home. We won for two reasons and two reasons only: Josh Karty and our edge defenders. I said last week we've become a kicker team. This is the second week in a row in which Karty led the C-House chant. That is deeply awesome for him but embarrassing for everybody else. He accounted for every single one of our points. That's never how you draw it up. But I can't say we won only because of him as the defense executed a bend but don't break game and saved the offense's bacon for the second week in a row. Both watching last night and dissecting play-by-play and PFF grades this morning it is crystal clear that Cooper, Herron and Keneley won this game along with Karty.

4. To be precise, we bent but didn't break for the last 40 minutes of the game. We were breaking badly in the first 20 minutes but then buckled down. I wouldn't be surprised if it tracked essentially exactly with the play when Ernest Cooper IV made his collegiate debut. What a revelation. You can just see the explosiveness. He and Bailey are a different breed than the rest of our players. I can't believe I'm saying this but there isn't a team in America that has better true freshmen edge players, and we haven't even seen Tafiti yet. Cooper only played 18 snaps and in that time had a stop on a reception for two yards with a hard stick (talk about making your presence known immediately in your college career), a tackle for loss on 2nd and 4, a sack on 1st and 10, and a tackle for loss on 1st and 10. He was the reason Arizona State had to punt twice, including a key fourth quarter drive, and made them work for yardage on a drive that ended in a missed field goal. What a debut. But it wasn't just him, the edge defenders were the best I've seen a Stanford front seven position group in I don't know how long. It may even be the best in 6+ years. Herron had a key sack (now #47 in America and #5 in the Pac-12 in sacks per game) and two key QB hurries. Keneley's big plays were the reason for the punt to start the fourth quarter. Even DiCosmo had 3-4 really good plays. I said during the week that Arizona State has an atrocious offensive line and it was time for Herron to hunt, and while the pitiful opponent had a lot to do with our pass rush, guys had to show up and for there to be pass rush aside from Herron is encouraging.

5. Big picture, by far the thing to be excited about in Stanford football is watching our front seven grow the rest of this season and the next couple of years. It's not just the edge guys but also Moi being great for a true freshman (ups and downs in this game but to bat a pass leading to an interception and to get two half tackles for loss is big-time for a true freshman). We may be seeing evidence for growth not just in the edge pass rush but in run defense, which has been on an upward trajectory over the last three weeks to newfound mediocrity. We shouldn't overstate this as yesterday's performance, even aided by four sacks, was more yards per carry than Oklahoma State, Utah, and USC gave up against Arizona State (but better than Northern Arizona, Eastern Michigan, and Washington), but along with pass rush it's a sign of some life. The front seven is eventually going to be really good if coaching doesn't hold it back.

6. I usually cover special teams later but it would be a crime to bury Karty! Tying an all-time Stanford single game record is of course a big deal. He's automatic. What a weapon, as Shaw says. Karty is now one of only three kickers in America with 12+ attempts and no misses. PFF hasn't updated the kicking grades yet but even before the game they had Karty the #6 kicker. In addition to the front seven maybe the other thing to watch for Stanford the rest of the season is a Groza Award campaign for Karty. I don't know if I'd vote for Karty ahead of NC State's Christopher Dunn but when you're talking about whether your guy is first, second, or third best in America that's where you want to be. Elsewhere on special teams, Sanborn had net punts of 44 (to the 15), 36 (to the 8), and 49 (to the 32). Some meat left on the bone but a nice game. Barrow had a nice return but is not yet a weapon (fifth of six qualifying Pac-12 returners). I do think he's better at it than Farrell and am happy about the switch. Kyu Kelly almost caused disaster with the muffed punt he caused, the type of play that could have cost the game (honestly one of several plays overall in which that could describe Kelly's day, although he also had multiple big-time plays).

Test drive them for 2023 for free!

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I'm working to confirm things on my end, but there are reports that 2022 3-star running back Arlen Harris is transferring out of the program. I did receive a heads up last week that he's been in Missouri and away from the program. From what I was told, he was homesick from day one. Being away from his family was just really hard for him. So, I'm actually not surprised by this. But once again, I'll let you all know once I get things officially confirmed.

Here's an early 2023 MLB draft list that has Troy at #20 and Bowser, Graham and Bruno in the top 200.
Doesn't really mean anything, but fun to look at.

MLB 2023

Just watched replay on ESPN.

Wanted to check out Troy Taylor's Offense. Seems to be running the spread/zone read most HS and colleges run these days, just probably better.
But what really intrigued me is Kodi Whitfield is is his Safeties coach, and Kent Baer, yes Kent Baer, is Montanas DC., running a 3-3-5.

Yikes. We have a Gould problem.

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Interesting Stanford mention just now by SVP on SportsCenter

SVP during a Mills highlight says "Steve where'd he go to college?" ... "Stanford!"

Then SVP says "would be nice if the folks supported Stanford after they get a win on Saturday... different story for a different day"

That turnout was pretty sad.. that stadium was dead empty. Frankly feels like we're barely hanging onto being a P5 program these days if Im being totally honest..

we all talked about the number/and how USC brought in all those portal entries (well into the 20's, forgot exact number)

So after picking up the Roster/Depth Chart handed out yesterday, checked today to see how ASU exploited it...

36 (THIRTY SIX) in-transfers into ASU on that roster... with 12 that came in from JC's (which we all knew ASU always went after, so nothing new/surprising there). But 24 from other 4 year colleges, among them, from well established Div 1 programs:
Hawaii (2)
Oklahoma
Baylor
Penn St
Vanderbilt
Florida
Colorado St
Oregon
San Diego St
Maryland
LSU
Kansas St
Iowa St
Miami (FL)
Missouri
Utah
Auburn
Alabama

Of course not all stars, many likely looking to earn more playing time at their new destination than they saw at their old, but nonetheless they were able to fill a good number of key slots (including QB Jones from Florida), and also add needed depth to advantage. An opportunity (beyond our grad-xfer DB Fields #24) simply not open for Stanford.

I do believe the portal provides a far greater disadvantage to Stanford than NIL will ever.

Read that here.

Kami Miner was named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week.


Elia Rubin was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Week.


Fourth time Rubin has picked up this award. First time for Miner. Miner was Pac-12 Freshman of the Week four times last year, so Rubin has tied her mark.

I’ve arrived at Maples Pavilion. Stanford took the opening set 25-15 against USC. Dominating start for the Cardinal.

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Season opens on Nov. 7, 3 weeks away. What do folks think of our prospects? It looks to me that we have a strong roster this year. It not only includes some really good talent, but this is the first roster under JH that I have seen that is well balanced. We have talent and good size in the post, and if reports are true that our guys are stronger, another plus. We have very capable guys at the wings and guards with solid 3 pt shooting. Plus we have depth. But most of all, I like that we have a nice balance of bigs and smaller guys. Our biggest weakness might be that we don't have any elite quickness. That will hurt us agst. the top teams with that kind of quickness, but overall we should be able to overcome that. We may need to use a healthy amount of zone.

Bigger concern is our schedule which looks pretty daunting. We play Wisconsin away early and they always have a good team. San Diego St. and Texas are both ranked preseason and Texas particularly good. The tourney in Orlando opens with Ole Miss and has other good teams there. Then we draw Ucla real early and then have to go to ASU on the road. Loyola and Chicago St. are far from gimmes. Not sure about the quality of the P12 opponents, but I noticed that 4 of our last 6 games are on the road - the LA and Oregon schools. So that makes for a tough finish when trying to obtain post season.

I'm more excited about this MBB season because I think that this is the best roster JH has had in his tenure. He previously has had some excellent talent but this is more of an overall team than I've seen and they should have chemistry. OTOH, it is also a challenging schedule. Seeing how our guys will handle that will be fun.

I wasn't paying any attention to the Stanford Band's halftime show. Just saw the banner they had displayed, "Stanford Hates Fun". Anyone catch what that was all about? Not expecting anyone to care. Just curious.

Read that here.

Read that here.

have deserted us.

We just won two games by scoring exactly one touchdown. We hardly ever reached the red zone (maybe three times?) Our defense was superb in both games, beyond what could rationally have been expected after the first four games.

But the damage these two wins are likely to mean for the longterm health of the program…well.

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Read that here.

Read that here.

Given a busy period of work, I am about a month behind on my usual tracking of high school action for Stanford's football commits. This is far too much work to do every week, but I'll see what's possible periodically in the season. What I've seen from the last month (not including last night's games, to be covered in next update):

The early season game I had circled was Oaks Christian (Luke Baklenko) vs. Sierra Canyon (Cameron Brandt). Alas, the game was remarkably uninteresting and lacked insight for us. Oaks Christian won comfortably, very few individual highlights were posted by either team, Baklenko played left tackle and Brandt was on the other side of the line, Baklenko looked fine in the clips I saw, and Brandt had a relatively quiet game (four tackles, no other stats). Of most interest was a Chase Farrell 57 yard touchdown and incoming PWO specialist Aidan Flintoft uncorking a 68 yard punt, making a 32 yard field goal, and making his extra points. Didn't learn anything from this one unfortunately. Nor did Baklenko have occasion to square off the next week against Nebraska LB commit Hayden Moore of Regis Jesuit, though Moore's highlights show some good plays for Baklenko and some in which Baklenko couldn't stay engaged on his blocker. On the season for Oaks Christian, Baklenko is credited with two pancake blocks and Flintoft is averaging 39 yards per punt and has made both of his field goal attempts. On the season for Sierra Canyon, there's a reason I said the Oaks Christian game was relatively quiet for Brandt: Brandt has a tackle for loss in each of the other three games, a sack in two of them, and two forced fumbles in one of them (one of the forced fumbles within the one yard line at the last possible moment before the back was going to punch in a touchdown). Of most interest was the Mission Viejo game, as they have numerous major college football players on offense. In that game, Brandt had a sack and was occasionally double-teamed, as is often the case, but far from every play in this one as it looks like he had a good battle with 2024 OT prospect Mark Schroller. I wonder if our coaches will take a look at Schroller, seemed to do a credible job against Brandt.

Bishop Gorman's early season schedule is, of course, a cornucopia of games to see Zak Yamauchi against some of the top teams in America. Like many players at this early stage of the season he has not posted individual highlights, so I have to piece together from other sources. At the top of the food chain in terms of competition, of course, is Mater Dei. The Mater Dei-Bishop Gorman game this year was a 24-21 instant classic national title game-caliber affair win for Orange County's professional team. The first thing I notice from that game is that Yamauchi came out to midfield as one of the captains for the coin toss. One might wonder why I'm highlighting somebody being a captain for a high school team. Well, this is Bishop Gorman. I am not being facetious when I say that I am not sure our current Gael, Benjamin Hudson, was even one of the top 25 players. Yamauchi for the coin toss made me happy. [Of note for us, Leviticus Su'a and Jordan Onovughe both came out for Mater Dei....this Onovughe has really come out of nowhere.] The second thing I noticed is that Yamauchi is still at left tackle. I had thought he would flip to right tackle as a senior to protect the QB's blind side, but I guess they're going with a phenom sophomore, Douglas Utu, to protect the blind side. Then I turned my attention to performance. There was a sack on Yamauchi's side on a play where the pocket collapsed comprehensively and the QB scrambled right to where Yamauchi and 3-star 2024 LB Ramere Davis were battling (Davis not credited with the sack in the swarm but could have been). There was a really crazy play where Yamauchi blocked inside and a blitzing safety became a free runner, hurrying the throw into an interception, which was returned 58 yards before a Bishop Gorman defender knocked the ball loose and the hustling QB recovered the ball back in the endzone. In general it seemed to me Yamauchi and Davis each won some battles but I'd probably give the edge to Davis. Against St. Louis, Yamauchi's man was kind of sort of involved in a swarm for a sack, but breakdowns on that play mostly occurred elsewhere. Arizona edge commit was lined up against the aforementioned sophomore Utu, so no insight there. I'm still hoping Yamauchi posts highlights from Corner Canyon, Mater Dei, St. Louis, and Hamilton so I can spotlight him at his best and get insights that way rather than piecing from other videos.

JShawn Frausto-Ramos is another player who has played elite competition but hasn't posted individual highlights. Through three games (three dominant wins, preserving the now practically perennial Mater Dei-St. John Bosco "national championship game"), Frausto-Ramos has 2.7 tackles per game, an interception, and a pass defended. The interception is notable because I believe it may be the first turnover he's ever caused (not trying to throw shade, check out my three dimensional analysis to see how I quite like him as a prospect). It came against Texas power Allen and their 4-star QB 2024 Michael Hawkins. That game was so brutal for Hawkins he didn't post highlights despite posting highlights for the subsequent games. The interception was a bit behind and/or over the receiver, who reached back for it and tipped it, allowing Frausto-Ramos, who was playing deeper, to dive/fall to the ground to catch it off the tip (may have had it without a dive if there hadn't been tip?). I can only imagine how sweet it was for Frausto-Ramos to finally get an interception and to do it in a $60 million, 20,000 person stadium as nice as it gets in high school football. Frausto-Ramos wasn't spotless, though, getting beat on a back shoulder pass up the sideline for probably 20-30 yards (tough angle to evaluate). The next week, against Bishop Amat, he had a pass breakup and did not appear to be victimized in any of Bishop Amat's highlights. Up in Portland the next week against Central Catholic, the Braves pitched a shutout and gave up just over 4 yards per pass attempt (75 yards total) so Frausto-Ramos must have done just fine.

Sedrick Irvin's first game went for 11 carries for 39 yards (3.5 yards per carry) and two touchdowns with zero receptions. Even taking out goal-line touchdowns that's about 4 yards a carry, adding fuel to the fire of my discontent that his high school production suggests he sucks. It came against a team Maxpreps pegs #74 in Florida and has zero major college football prospects. There have been two additional games and stats have not been updated for those. The team highlights for the second game did not have any for Irvin (he was in the plays, just standing around on big passing plays or not in the game on the long run). News reports indicate Irvin found the end zone three times against Tampa Jesuit, including two receiving touchdowns (a seven yarder leaking out of the backfield and a 50 yarder, half of that on a seam route and the other half racing to the endzone after exploiting a missing tackle) and a rushing touchdown (a one yard run). The team highlights from the first and third games show Irvin to be a willing and effective pass blocker but by far my favorite thing is that in the Jesuit game there were two plays in which Irvin looked good against Georgia whale LB commit Troy Bowles: a five yard run where Irvin got through the line and Bowles tackled him on the second level, but Irvin's head of steam knocked Bowles on his back (a play where they both kind of looked good) and the 50 yard reception where Irvin beat Bowles to the corner pylon for the touchdown (albeit not a fair fight given where Bowles was coming from after his teammate's missed tackle). Not enough to go on to give an arrow but Irvin is a recruit I'm very skeptical about.

Read that here.

Read that here.

Repping the Old Blues with class….