Head Coach: Frank Reich is entering his interim season as the head coach of the Cardinal. This was a strange situation as head coach Troy Taylor was fired and GM Andrew Luck brought in Reich as the interim coach. Reich has experience as a head coach in the NFL but can he get enough out of this team to get the job full time?
Program Outlook: Stanford is a program with extreme ups and downs the last couple decades. They were near the bottom of the Pac-10 when Jim Harbaugh took over and brought them to power, then David Shaw maintained it for a while after but things steadily dropped off. Now Stanford is in a strange conference and it’s really uncertain where the program goes from here. Can the Cardinal find any sort of direction in a tumultuous season?
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Stanford ranks 26th in the country returning 63% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. This is surprising considering the Cardinal’s tumultuous offseason. Key players starts with QB Elijah Brown, he played a little bit last year and has good potential he’s a beacon of hope for this team and TE Sam Roush is a reliable target who will help the young QB out. Micah Ford and Chris Davis have the potential to be a solid RB duo and Eastern Washington transfer Tuna Altahir is a fascinating portal prospect. The defense is experienced for what it’s worth, most of their starters are back and their safeties Collin Wright, Scotty Edwards and Mitch Sinclair are good back there. The defense is still a question mark though, teams mostly did whatever they wanted to last year and the safeties were left to clean up the mess. One of the few strengths was the pass rush from David Bailey but he took that to Texas Tech when the coaching change occurred. The offense needs to figure out their receivers with their top weapons gone and the offensive line was overwhelmed most of the year, it couldn’t pass protect and the backs were running into a wall most of the time.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Stanford’s schedule is not without opportunities for wins but the downside is there isn’t a surefire win here either. Stanford opens week 0 at Hawaii who is sorting out some pieces themselves, that one may be their best opportunity for a win. San Jose State beat Stanford last year and might be even better, I’m glad these regional foes play each other and Stanford has really tough games at BYU, plus at home against Notre Dame. Their ACC draw is ok, there’s some winnable games and Stanford showed they were capable of random upsets last year.
Final Thoughts: Stanford was already in a difficult spot as a program and the late coaching change only amplifies that issue. Simply put, Stanford is just looking for any sort of positive momentum this season. On a bright note, it also means they’re free of expectations truly a team with nothing to lose. If there’s a difference Frank Reich can try to make, it’s a focus on key downs, Stanford was awful on 3rd downs on both sides of the ball and cutting down on turnovers, they gave up 22 of them last year, that’s too many.
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