Very interesting news that the Pac12 has added Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, and Fresno State, to boost numbers to 6 teams. One has to imagine that there is another move coming, as the conference needs to get up to 8 teams to survive, and it is unlikely these 4 would have abandoned the MWC if there was not a plan to get the Pac12 up to at least 8 teams.

This seems like a really good move for the Pac12, OSU and WSU. They get to take some of the best programs in the MWC (and some of the better TV markets) and get to leave behind some of the programs that drag down quality and ratings. Very curious to see what the next move might be for the conference. UNLV would see a good fit for TV market purposes. Perhaps Air Force. Maybe they decide to ignore geography and grab UConn.

Perhaps this ends up as a landing spot for Stanford, Cal, and SMU if the ACC goes belly up and the BIG continues to decline Stanford and Cal... I know that Stanford and Cal probably could have worked with OSU and WSU to build this exact conference last year, instead of leaving for the ACC, but the ACC was obviously more prestigious and more relevant. But if the ACC is not there one day, and if the BIG is not an option, then this might ultimately be Stanford's home.

Unfortunately, no video clips this week. I was not able to record the ESPN+ broadcast and the youtube replay is a grind without the ability to use a remote to rewind and fast forward.
Just going to post the offense right now. As I said the watchback on youtube has been a grind.

ARROW UP - OFFENSE

0 REUBEN - Played throughout, essentially getting Harris' snaps from G1. Played pretty well after not seeing the field in G1 - caught all 3 targets and opened the scoring on Saturday.
2 BROWN - First college snaps went pretty damn well. Placement on throws were like extended handoffs. I would be shocked, frustrated and disappointed if he was not given at least a 1H scripted series at Syracuse.
5 DAVIS JR - First college snaps also went pretty damn well. Not sure how many snaps he will get moving forward as Ford and Irvin are better backs and there just isn't really a different dimension he adds. Maybe his own little package of a handful of snaps.
8 LAMSON - The guy has a specific and important, albeit minimal role. That will always keep him on this list even though Brown is clearly QB2.
13 AYOMANOR - WR1 was quiet.
14 DANIELS - Pretty solid game. I just wish he could climb a pocket, or at least hang in there a little longer, before always taking off.
20 FORD - RB1A - Looked good catching the ball.
24 BACHMEIER - Starter and 3rd in snaps of the group. ZERO targets.
26 IRVIN - 2 BIG catches down the sideline.
55 PALE - Starter at RG went the whole way. Looked much better in pass pro vs step down in class.
58 HOUSE - Starter at LT - Interesting watch. Love that he chooses against knee braces. The towel hanging in the back made me laugh. Not your prototypical length for the position. I liked the guy in pass pro. The sack that was given to him was 100% NOT his fault as there was miscommunication between Maikkula and Leyer which caused a free runner inside. He was clueless in the run game. Gets pulled off the field in the Lamson package.
69 MAIKKULA - Starter at OC. Played there 2 series and then some snaps at LG. Did not play after halftime. I have no idea what the staff was doing here. There has to be a backstory. This is not a good player right now.
76 LEYRER - Starter at LG and played the majority. Kind of a tweener between a OG and OT. This OL, man. I dunno.
78 BAKLENKO - Starter at RT and played thru 3 quarters. Just not very physical but he is still young.
84 CISSE - Started and caught all 8 of his targets, kind of. Big drop for a TD but wiped off with a penalty.
86 ROUSH - TE1 had 3 catches and a TD.
88 BLACKBURN - TE2 second straight game with a handful of snaps for the frosh.

ARROW DOWN - OFFENSE

9 JACKSON - Has been passed by Brown. We knew this was going to happen when Brown enrolled in the spring and got confirmation on Saturday.
15 BUTLER - No snaps in first 2 games
34 HAMPTON - The freshman class has passed him but still an important role eating a schollie for baseball.
57 ROGERS - Benched the first 2 series then played the rest of the way. I'm lost.
67 ANDERSON - No snaps in first 2 games. Not looking great for him right now but staff is clearly still searching for a combination.
71 MCLAUGHLIN - Incumbent starter at RT benched. Came in to protect Brown's front side in the 4Q.
72 UKE - See Anderson.
83 HARRIS - Well that didn't last very long. No snaps until late 4Q

1. A home win! That has to be the headline for a program that gets fewer of those than anybody in the nation. Have to be happy for the players, coaches, and us fans. We need to relish these. I'm relieved Taylor could get that monkey off his back of never having won at Stanford Stadium. Hopefully we can build on it. The bad news is that what we saw on the field reinforces my sense that the program's rebuild is happening at a glacial pace and there's every reason to think it will remain a very uphill battle to get many wins at home or anywhere else. Through two games, I think the eye test, stats, and comparing against preseason models all indicate that we're still a bad team. We have to hope for some marked progress over the course of the season to give confidence this thing is moving in the right direction.

2. On paper, a 34 point win against this level of opponent is ok. A good team would be expected to win by 40+ and a 34 point margin is consistent with the result one would expect from a below-average but not abysmal team, more or less in the range of how we did against TCU. I think two games is too early to draw anything but tentative conclusions but there are glass half full and glass half empty ways to view this that are probably both right: we are showing signs of modest progress compared to the depths we plumbed last year, and it's happening so modestly that it's hard to have confidence in it (that it's actually progress and that it will have staying power). Disturbingly in the case of this game, last night was quite a bit less impressive than the performance of the last Stanford team to face a similar creampuff, the bad 2022 team that dispatched Colgate. While the margins were similar (in fact three points better for this year's squad), a more nuanced comparison is ugly. We gained 1.52 yards per play less against Cal Poly than Shaw's very bad team did against Colgate and we gave up 0.89 yards per play more than we had against Colgate. Just as in last week's game, the defense acquitted itself better than the offense but did not play well as far as major college football teams go. Alarmingly, our defense only did 0.24 yards per play better than non-scholarship University of San Diego did against Cal Poly last week. We gained a big advantage on special teams but with returns, a blocked kick, and a fake punt conversion that we might be hard pressed to replicate against a respectable opponent. In terms of the bread-and-butter of a football team - play up front in the trenches and overall physicality - we made a team that is not even top 200 look far too competitive. Turning it over on downs in the red zone and only having one sack - in garbage time by a bench-warming defensive backup - are especially concerning developments. PFF graded the team dramatically worse than the 2022 team did against Colgate, worse in every category except pass blocking. It's a bad sign to not dominate this level of opponent.

3. The bright spots were a defense that consistently made plays on third down to get off the field and was stifling in run defense, a passing game that showed some non-Ayomanor signs of life, some young and/or inexperienced players who achieved their first successes at the college level, and continued discipline (these last two games have been our least penalized two game stretch since the beginning of the 2022 season in terms of penalties and since mid-2021 in terms of penalty yards) and resilient play. In all cases, these are enabled by playing a pathetic opponent. Still, better to have successes than not. It was palpable in the post-game press conference how much Taylor wants the players to start having these successes so they can build confidence and a sense of momentum, and in the post-game locker room how much Taylor wants the same for April. At the moment it feels fragile and like we are squinting to discern progress in some areas. But there's no substitute for winning and this was a win.

4. The most interesting thing going on in Stanford football right now is the first game for Elijah Brown and what I expect to be a lot of talk about when he should supplant Daniels as QB1. Brown was always destined to be a big topic of conversation this year as the highest-regarded QB on the roster (both in recruiting rankings and evidently Taylor's judgment based on body language and statements from off-season interviews). That's going to go into over-drive now that Brown has had an essentially flawless debut. I am not going to give a game ball to somebody who only played 15 snaps, all in garbage time against mostly backups (including notably the guys he exploited on the big passes to Irvin and Cisse), but I don't want people to misinterpret my game ball: Brown clearly looked better at processing and being able to spearhead a passing-oriented offense than Daniels. Statistically, Daniels was #54 of 126 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week (a big improvement on last week but against miserable competition and still only good enough to get his season ranking to #122 of 139 QBs nationally) and if Brown had had enough snaps to qualify he would have been #4 in the nation in Total QBR this week. While I think the garbage time/Cal Poly/healthy number of backups on the Mustang fourth quarter defense caveats loom large in necessitating some humility in how much we make of Brown's debut, you can't do much better than he did in terms of efficiency. Fans - and probably some of his teammates - will want to see more. I am confident that will happen but it's a big source of intrigue how Taylor does it in the coming weeks. A bye coming off a great debut is tailor-made for being integrated into a bigger role - perhaps taking a first half series against Syracuse. On the other hand, road games against Syracuse and Clemson are dramatically more challenging scenarios than the training wheels Brown got to play with yesterday. At this point I think Brown may or may not play against Syracuse, depending on how Daniels does in the first few drives. It will be interesting to see how Taylor addresses this in press availabilities.

5. It's hard to imagine this offense turning a corner until it can figure something out in establishing the run game with something other than QB runs. We once again had more QB rushes than RB rushes (15 to 14 this time). None of the starting OL or Rogers graded well in run blocking. The nightmare start to Ford's career continued, adding a fumble to go with his 1.1 yards per carry through the first two games of his career (though at least he's getting some success in the passing game). Overall against Cal Poly we did massively worse in rushing than we did against Colgate (2.32 yards per carry worse) and significantly worse (0.46 yards per carry) than USD did against Cal Poly last week, and that's with our stats being padded by Davis' garbage time successes. (Davis was exciting to see after so little from running backs for so long but it was garbage time against largely backups for an already-bad FCS team, so we can't really know what we have there.) I hope that we can figure something out in the run game but we may be in for another year of jury rigging an offense built around QB runs and whatever passing game we can muster without a real running threat. Hope not, but this level of play up front by our OL against Cal Poly is sobering. It does not inspire confidence for me that we mix OL combinations so liberally and took the desperate move of benching our most established OL (though Rogers then played most of the game). Unclear to me what the plan is for building cohesion and confidence on the line. Best I can tell it's a somewhat wishful hope that Pale, Baklenko, Maikkula, and House have the goods to be long-term mainstays and we are getting them reps to progress along the learning curve. By the way, House had some struggles and I didn't love seeing him give up a sack against an FCS opponent but it was the only one we gave up in the game and Cal Poly had four last week against USD. Pass protection worked better in this one than run blocking. Elsewhere on the offense, it's surprising that through two games Ayomanor and Cisse are nearly even in targets. Cisse is doing more than I thought he would, which is encouraging and appears to indicate a bigger role in our offense than Bachmeier, which I am sure will surprise many, but I feel like we need to find the big dog more. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Cisse (4), Ayomanor (2, also drew a pass interference), Lamson (2), Daniels (2), Reuben (2), Ford (2), Roush (2), Irvin (2), Davis (2), Sinclair, Harris]

Read that here.

ARROW UP - DEFENSE

0 BERNADEL - Nice, clean game.
2 STEPHENSON/ 18 SUMLIN/ 28 RICHARDSON/ 51 MATTINGLY - Frosh got in late for first action.

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4 MANLEY - He is what he is - not great but one of the best we have so...
5 GREEN - Starting out there in the 3-headed safety nickel package. Bit like a large mouth bass who hadn't eaten in a month on the double pass for CP TD.
6 WRIGHT - I thought both he and Manley should have shown better in this game. I come away from a lot of games feeling that way. Wright is a good player, I just feel like there is more.
8 SINCLAIR - Good game from both starters at ILB.
11 TAFITI - Still in there early subbing for Bailey but snaps were way down. Good news was he did not miss any tackles. Bad news was he did not get close to the ball for any tackles.
14 AYBAR - Cmon man, force a fumble. Get to the QB. We need MORE.
21 EDWARDS - Off to a quiet start.
23 BAILEY - No problem with this player thru 2 games. He may not like football much but he's giving a good effort.
32 LEIGBER - Liabilty in the passing game but makes up for some of it against the run.
35 ROSE - Saw some early action subbing for Sinclair and Bernadel. Looked fine in a couple dozen snaps.
40 PHILLIPS - Started but did not finish. Blew up a run play early and got his arm caught on the carrier. Did not look good. If he and Patterson are both out some time that would not be great but this is the deepest position group on the roster.
44 COOPER - Looked lost against the run. But... why not sub him in for Aybar on passing downs and get the best of both players???
45 STAPLES - Obvious beneficiary of the unit down 2 guys but he got an early 2Q snap and then 10 more later. Not bad.
75 BM-O Looked much better in G2
94 FRANKLIN - Starter didn't find himself around the ball much but held his ground.
97 ROWELL - I like this guy! Can move, he's strong and has a huge motor. Has a chance.
98 BUCKEY - Back end of the DL rotation

ARROW DOWN - DEFENSE

17 FRAUSTO RAMOS - Was very active in garbage time.
30 DUBRE - ST player has not seen a snap on D
31 MORRIS - Got some nickel snaps late. He and JF-R are both on the list for not being able to crack the #1 nickel package.
61 MAYBERRY - No snaps

Read that here.

Outside Rubin with 13 kills, seven digs and three blocks; Kurt with 11 kills; Opposite Harvey with 10 kills. Stanford set a block record of 10.

LIzzie Andrew had five kill; Koko Kirsch made her first appearance.

No. 5 Stanford men’s soccer had a huge 3-2 win at No. 2 Clemson on Friday to open ACC play. Highlights are here…

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When I first saw our current schedule I was disappointed that the bye came so early. Wanted it to be later so players could heal from the bumps and bruises.

Now I'm not so sure that this isn't a good time because the staff can look at game film and figure out where we needed the team to be coached up. We seem to have enough depth to handle a few injuries (quantity wise, not quality wise).

OL needs all the coaching up that's available.

Play calling critiques?

For one thing, it’s much more suitable to criticize the adults, who are paid professionals, as opposed to the . . . oh wait . . . um . . .

Regardless, I sure would like to hear some rationale for the 1H decisions near the goal line. In particular, the fourth and goal (from the 4 yard line) decision. The game was tied 7-7 and the game was far removed from the comfortable W it turned out to be. I’m actually fine with having a “we're gonna go for it on fourth down" mind on third down and calling a running play accordingly. Hell, the lack of such basic foresight was one major critique (of many) of the Program Slayer. Now, one can quibble with the telegraphed Lamson keeper as too predictable, but still, not a bad way to get a couple yards (at least), setting you up well on fourth down. But it gets absolutely stuffed. So right then you gotta kick a FG, don’t you? And if you decide to still go for it, who thinks running the same play again is a good idea? I guess TT did (it was stuffed again).

Good lord that was a terrible sequence.

Combine that call with the TCU decision in Q4 to go for it on fourth and forever, and I think TT has moments where he loses his mind (kinda like Shanahan has shown on occasion). IDK, maybe TT thinks going for everything is the only way Stanford can win games. And I’m a bit concerned that scoring two fourth down TDs so far this season is reinforcing this attitude as a sound philosophy. It is not. Time and place for everything; awareness of particular game situation is critical; cookie-cutter approach does not (and should not) apply to all opponents.

Anyway, these play calling flags can get lost in what turned out to be an easy W; however, this is something that seems likely to recur. Maybe if a team is desperate it doesn’t matter; but I’d like to think Stanford isn’t/wasn’t already desperate in 2024.

P.S. Really hope the speculation that McLaughlin is getting benched - despite superior relative play - in favor of building for next year is not true. If true (and I have no clue on that), that's coaching malfeasance, and a sure way to fracture the locker room.

Read that here.

Read that here.

I find myself checking WNBA box scores this season, and that's a first for me. Has Stanford ever had so many quality starters in the WNBA?

• Nneka Ogwumike is one of the league's best players and a pillar in the professional women's basketball community. She's up in Seattle and isn't slowing down.
• Alanna Smith worked through intense competition for a couple of years to earn a stable spot in the WNBA, and now she's one of the best versatile bigs in the league. She and Brink are among the best shot blockers. A quick reminder: Smith produced one of the greatest individual seasons in 2018, ranking in the top 10 for total points, ppg, and blocks and No. 12 for three-pointers made in a season. She made 40% of her 3FGA and added almost nine rebounds a game.
• Cameron Brink is one of the brightest new stars in the league, and LA is the perfect city for her. She's a marketing dream. Her production is up and down game-to-game, but she's doing well overall.
• Karlie Samuelson is a great WNBA starter, and I'm so impressed with how she worked her butt off to go from role player through three seasons at Stanford to averaging 11 ppg for the Washington Mystics this season. She broke through last season with 23 starts for the Sparks. She's had a lot of success playing overseas.
• Haley Jones is a starter for Atlanta but is struggling a bit.

Lexie Hull and Kiana Williams are clinging to roster spots. Williams' grip is by far the weakest between the two. She excelled in Turkey's league last season, but sticking on a WNBA roster is an unfair challenge. Hull hasn't played much so far this season. She has struggled to be a consistent scorer, but Indiana kept her for the fourth season of her rookie contract because of everything else she can do. Still, it's difficult for me to imagine she's with Indiana next season if she can't significantly increase her scoring.

I wish things were different between Stanford and DiJonai Carrington because she's a great professional player. She took a step back last season, but she's excelling this season.

In overseas news, Ashten Prechtel and Nadia Fingall are doing very well. Prechtel was an All-Star in France, and Fingall was the Spanish league finals MVP. I wish we could get a do-over with Prechtel's senior season at Stanford without Betts on the roster.

Read that here.

Read that here.

I think you can read it without a subscription - used a "gift" link. A lot about his tenure at Stanford in it.

With a game coming up against an FCS opponent, there has been talk about Cal Poly's chances. Personally I don't think it's hubris to say Cal Poly has no chance. But I thought I'd see what the data show. Here are all the FCS teams to beat a power conference team this century ranked by Sagarin ranking with the FBS team they beat listed parenthetically:

17) 2013 North Dakota State (#23 Kansas State)
32) 2014 North Dakota State (#105 Iowa State)
37) 2011 North Dakota State (#88 Minnesota)
44) 2016 North Dakota State (#41 Iowa)
44) 2007 Appalachian State (#21 Michigan)
49) 2009 William & Mary (#73 Virginia)
50) 2004 New Hampshire (#94 Rutgers)
54) 2016 Eastern Washington (#34 Washington State)
60) 2009 Richmond (#78 Duke)
62) 2007 Northern Iowa (#92 Iowa State)
71) 2007 North Dakota State (#123 Minnesota)
79) 2013 Eastern Washington (#29 Oregon State)
82) 2002 Villanova (#158 Rutgers)
89) 2006 New Hampshire (#93 Northwestern)
91) 2021 Montana (#74 Washington)
93) 2015 South Dakota State (#160 Kansas)
93) 2013 Northern Iowa (#72 Iowa State)
93) 2004 Maine (#114 Mississippi State)
94) 2010 North Dakota State (#119 Kansas)
95) 2016 Northern Iowa (#71 Iowa State)
97) 2012 Youngstown State (#59 Pitt)
97) 2010 James Madison (#13 Virginia Tech)
101) 2006 Southern Illinois (#84 Indiana)
108) 2015 Portland State (#53 Washington State)
109) 2015 The Citadel (#65 South Carolina)
110) 2016 Illinois State (#35 Northwestern)
117) 2006 Montana State (#94 Colorado)
118) 2010 Jacksonville State (#84 Ole Miss)
120) 2016 Richmond (#107 Virginia)
123) 2022 Southern Illinois (#103 Northwestern)
124) 2018 Nicholls State (#93 Kansas)
124) 2005 UC Davis (#42 Stanford)
128) 2023 Sacramento State (#101 Stanford)
131) 2021 East Tennessee State (#142 Vanderbilt)
131) 2006 Richmond (#153 Duke)
145) 2011 Sacramento State (#87 Oregon State)
148) 2013 Georgia Southern (#53 Florida)
152) 2012 Sacramento State (#156 Colorado)
164) 2021 Jacksonville State (#63 Florida State)
171) 2010 South Dakota (#93 Minnesota)
172) 2021 Northern Arizona (#118 Arizona)
172) 2019 The Citadel (#107 Georgia Tech)
177) 2011 Richmond (#113 Duke)
182) 2017 Liberty (#97 Baylor)

Observations:

I don't know how many FBS vs. FCS games there have been since 2001 but I reckon maybe something like 3,000. In that span I count 169 games in which FCS teams have beaten FBS teams. Again, I don't know exactly what the denominator is but the rate is somewhere in the single digits. Of the FCS wins over FBS teams, 44 of the 169 involved power conference teams losing, the ignominious list above. Again I don't know the denominator but the rate is somewhere in the low single digits. Obviously it is exceedingly rare. Of those 44, 17 shouldn't have even be considered much of upsets if one respects Sagarin. Similarly, about 11 of the FCS upstarts were clearly better than we think Stanford is now. A slightly higher number than that involved FBS teams clearly worse than we think Stanford is now.

Perhaps the real kicker here: 35 of the 44 FCS upstarts actually ended up being FBS level teams in terms of quality. There have really only been a few games in which a non-good FCS team upset a power conference team. And all five of the closest contenders for that rarest of distinctions came against awful power conference teams (i.e., worse than Shaw's 2021 and 2022 teams.) The craziest results in the anything is possible category are games like the 2021 Jacksonville State-Florida State and 2013 Georgia Southern-Florida games. Those games are the ones that most prove the adage anything can happen.

More apropos for us/this game would be those five bottom games. For what it's worth, Cal Poly hasn't had a top 200 team since 2019 when they were #173. It truly would be one of the craziest results in college football history if a team that hasn't been top 200 since 2019 beat a power conference team, even a terrible one. Just does not happen.

Anyway, winning is not a real question and not the measure of anything Saturday. Needs to be a laugher and real evaluations recommence later in September against Syracuse.

Can't hurt but it hasn't worked in the past.

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Utah up 23-3 at halftime over Baylor but Cam Rising left just before with a hand injury.

Watching this game on ABC (because the ABC station in Hartford isn't owned by Mickey, I can see on DTV), and heard Dave Pasch say this:

Oklahoma State's OL averages 24yo and has the most combined starts in College Football history, with over 200, and their QB is 27yo. Then the color guy added that they have older guys at other positions too.

If you consider most High Schoolers are 18 at some point, the entire OL averages being in their SIXTH season of college strength, conditioning and nutrition. I don't know how many are transfers, but this is a bit absurd.

Syracuse up on GT 14-7 in the second quarter. Both teams passing the ball, not much running so far. McCord (Syr) 13-17 for 179 yds and 2 TDs. Emanuel Ross (decommit) has not played.

Watch that here.

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Read and watch that here.

I used to watch CGD religiously every Saturday morning. Today I woke up a little early, and as an afterthought decided to turn it on. Immediately my thoughts turned to, will we still be featured along with all the heavyweights in the opening theme song?? To my great relief, there we were, the “Farm at Stanford”, in the same breath as “roll Tide roll through Alabama.” Who says we’re not relevant?!!

A win is a win. Start today.

Read and watch that here.