I say they are my pick to win it all yet I see no love for this team. Stanford is overtaking Oregon in Recruiting and Coaching... Stanford is on the upswing still and Oregon is downsliding. Some ppl think they shouldnt even be a top 5 team but they play Tough both sides of the ball. I really think they make a statement this year. Still thinking of that ND bad call.
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I picked Stanford to win the Pac 12 this season, but they have a tougher schedule than Oregon does. They do get Oregon at home, but must ply Arizona State and go to a revenge minded USC. Oregon misses those two teams. If Stanford wants to play in the NC game, they probably are going to have to go undefeated. Louisville seems to have th best chance of running the table, and Ohio State's chances of running the table are also good. If Stanford ends up with one loss, they will fall behind any one loss SEC team in the polls. A very tough task ahead for them. It will be tougher next season.Comment -
With all due respect KD, Stanford is a good team, but they are still light years away from Alabama.
And recruiting fell off for the Cardinal last year, Rivals had their class ranked 63rd.
Right now there is Alabama, and then a bunch of nice teams all packed together.Comment -
I took stanford over 9.5 wins (+110)Comment -
Alabama is NOT that great of a team. If it was not for an NCAA penalty handed down to Ohio State, Alabama would not have played in the title game last season. Stanford and Oregon would be very competitive against Alabama in a neutral field set up. 'Bama has a very soft schedule this season, and they will need it to get back to the NC game.Comment -
So you think it should have been Ohio State vs Notre Dame? Obviously, if anyone didn't belong there it was Notre Dame, not Bama. Now their schedule is lighter than normal this year but it's still the SEC and they still have to go TO a&m and take care of LSU at home and will have to have beat the top SEC E team at a neutral location (likely either Georgia or S.Carolina). Not by any means an easy schedule. If they make it through with only 1 loss I think they've already proved they should be there instead of some Undefeated team that played no one (looking at you Louisville)
Moral of the story... I can't wait for there to be a playoff so we don't have to worry about it, as muchComment -
I don't know how you can really say the Cardinal are getting no love when they're entering the season at 4th in the Coaches Poll.
I do love this team though. Strong, tough play at the line of scrimmage and a stingy defense is going to make them a tough opponent for everyone. There are some questions surrounding their offense though and it's a situation where they're going to have to prove the doubters wrong. I think 10-11 wins is likely for them, but it's too soon to say how that will translate to post-season success against tough opponents from outside the PAC12.Comment -
I hate to point it out to you Big, but, that "12-0" Ohio State mark---- did not include a Big 10 Championship game.
But for the sake of argument, I conceded the Buckeyes a 13th win.
That still doesn't mean Ohio State would have made it in, especially with the 63rd ranked SOS.
Ohio State was every bit the paper tiger Notre Dame was.
The difference was Notre Dame actually beat some decent teams in Stanford and Oklahoma. Ohio State's best win was at home against Michigan, 26-21. Ohio State needed OT to beat Purdue, and won at Michigan State 17-16.
Notre Dame held Michigan and Michigan State to 3 FGs total. Ohio State gave up 37 points to those 2 teams.Comment -
stanford is a smaller university. always going to be issues with the depth of their recruiting classes. and almost all non big "football state" "state universities" eventually go thru rough patches... stanford's academic standards don't help in a sport where you need 35-40 guys contributing each year.
stanford was terrible until willingham got there, was bad after he left and now has been good with harbaugh/shaw.
oregon isn't near bullet proof either. unbelievable success recently and nike backing them helps alot. the nike factor especially. i'm also told portland is #1 hippest city in america (yes, i know oregon u is in eugene)... oregon is now the school seemingly of choice outside california and west of texas..... not that important, but one of the reasons washington huskies football has declined.
i would easily take oregon over stanford the next 3-5 years (including this year or not) in a prop bet.Comment -
I really appreciate all your points of view. Gotta keep this in-depth previews going guys....Good-Sh!tComment -
I'll say this.
I like that we can debate with a group of 4-9 guys without all the bitchy, name calling.
Some good exchange of information on this board.Comment -
Totally agree here. More so on the Stanford comment. Either one of these teams would have been a way better match up last year than ND. Last NC last year was horrendous. Would love to see Stanford vs Bama. Two super Defenses with power run game on offense. Maybe someday ill see Stanford vs BamaComment -
with all due respect, i see oregon -4 at stanford. might be out of date, but it's a road game for godd sakes....
i see oregon's over/under wins at 11, stanford's at 9.5
i see oregon ahead of stanford in the coach's poll...
sagarin and phil steele each had oregon 9 points (9 points) ahead of stanford at the end of the year.
steele's projections have oregon at 3rd best projected point and yardage differential, stanford at 22nd and 30th (admittedly a tougher schedule but no way it makes up this differental)
anyway, i'd be happy to do an escrowed bet on oregon/stanford game, division title, final power rating, final record... anything, one year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years.
could you tell me why you like stanford so much? harbaugh/luck were what made them great and now we're a year later.
yes, stanford beat oregon, but washington/ND beat stanford... and 7 other teams kept it close.
i don't see the stanford powerhouse argument at all............. small academically elite school that shone due to harbaugh/luck. has excellent recruiting classes but nowhere near the depth to hang with big football state schools over time.
oregon is very lucky to have nike's support. otherwise it would be another non-football state school, like it was years....... a little concerning they have a new coach but they still have QB and Thomas with more touches this year.Comment -
two last things:
oregon played one game last year that was decided by a TD or less (granted, a loss to stanford).... oregon played 10 games decided by a TD or less................. 10 vs. 1 ?!?!
i see oregon at 7 to 1, stanford at 21 to 1 to win the national title.....
i think they both may have trouble but stanford would have been completely trounced by alabama, similar to ND.... oregon might have scored a fair bit, but i'm thinking they would have got trounced too.Comment -
Stanford had the #63 recruiting class in the nation this year. Oregon had the #22 ranked recruiting class in the nation.
Stanford is not even close to having the team speed or the athletes needed to compete with the top teams. They are by far the most overrated team in the country.Comment -
KD, I think there is something to that.
Rivals had Stanford's class #63, Steele's composite recruiting rankings had Stanford's class in the mid-40's.
Stanford signed 2 4-star kids last year.
Alabama singed 6 5-star kids, and 11-4-star kids.
Alabama signed almost 3 times as many 5-star kids as Stanford signed 4 star kids.
Stop and think about that for a second.
Recruiting has significantly fallen under Shaw. It is nowhere near the level that Harbaugh had it.
This year is more of the same. A big time recruit in QB Keller Chryst, and the rest 3 star talent.Comment -
didn't realize stanford recruiting had taken such a hit.... i know they had a great class of OLine for entry fall 2012.
small schools, most of which have pretty good or very tough academic standards, have a hard time staying as an elite team (northwestern, stanford, nd, miami fl)............. did some checking for USC. quite a big school. and even they had a huge rough period.
helps to be a giant "football state" university........... oregon has the nike connection, otherwise they'd have issues too.Comment -
Recruiting is always going to be an issue for a school that values a high level in academics and only has a student body of ~20,000. At the same time though, you can structure a winning football team in many different ways and the Harbaugh brand (emphasizing overall work ethic, toughness, and creativity over individual playmakers) allows them to do more with less. Playing smarter football.
When evaluating their recruiting rankings, you can't really hold them to the same standard as a big school with weaker academics and call them failures for not keeping pace.Comment -
good comments........... as for the first part, won't the harbaugh influence wane over time. and luck was the best nfl qb draft since elway (30 years??)..... i don't think anyone is slagging stanford. it's more like OP expects stanford to remain a football powerhouse (debatable they are that today). and a few of us are just pointing out small, academic tough schools have major issues.
stanford is a little bigger than i thought student wise.. i see 16K, but more than half are graduate students.Comment -
They did have an outstanding class in 2012, but that was clearly an outlier. Moreover, the top talent they brought in were primarily on the offensive and defensive lines - which is a very good thing - but they just simply don't have the athletes to compete at the highest level of college football.
David Shaw is an outstanding coach, and Stanford will continue to be competitive because of the huge advantage they enjoy at the point of attack in the PAC 12, but what happens when they have to play a team that is equal to or better than them in the trenches, and that team also has elite athletes???Comment -
Perhaps. However David Shaw has proven himself capable of maintaining the standards that Harbaugh installed and there was continuity in the transition. I think I'd be more inclined to expect Stanford to thrive as long as Shaw is there. Also, Stanford has been the #1 fund-raising school in the US for the last 8 years, bringing in over 1 billion dollars in 2012. As a component of that funding, donations earmarked for SU athletics have risen by over 50%.
On top of that, the changes that Harbaugh made and the emergence of Andrew Luck really changed the fan culture at the school. Fans expect the team to win now, and that support should continue for the foreseeable future. It's tough to speak about them with the same certainty that you can for teams like Ohio State or Alabama, but they're not a house of cards either.Comment -
Ahhh, Stanford and fan support.
There were 31K fans at Stanford for the Pac-12 Championship game. 31K fans.
They play in a 50K seat stadium, and even with all this winning, Stanford managed to sell out exactly 1 game last year, USC.
They did manage 47K against Oregon State, but nonetheless, they are limited.Comment -
i go to SF quite often, and i specifically down on the peninsula pretty convenient to stanford ............ seems like there is zero observable buzz for stanford in the bay area. the newspapers of course cover it, but you never see any stanford stuff or hear anyone chatting about it. very strange, i guess cause it's a small private university not really in central san fran...
cal mindshare is a bit higher, much higher if you adjust for how good the teams are.... big state schoolComment -
i'd add. very beautiful campus. but not much student buzz. compared to washington (a city university but with its own really defined area) and oregon (eugene is great), very very little excitement............ i see espn did a feature on bars/restaurants in each pac 12 town. i'm going to try to check out one or both of the top palo alta/menlo recommendations..... eugene oregon too, but you can just sit in the giant starbucks at 13th/alden (alder?) and see waves and waves of attractive, good natured girls.Comment -
I agree that Notre Dame should not have been there, but if Ohio State is not on probation, they play Notre Dame because those two teams were undefeated. That is the way it will be this season also. The computers give an undefeated team a huge advantage over a one loss team. So this season, any AQ team that goes undefeated automatically goes to Pasadena unless there are more than two. Yes that means an undefeated Louisville over ANY one loss team from ANY Conference. If not, the NCAA destroys itself and you may as well go to a "Division 4" set up.Comment -
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Stanford and what they've accomplished, and I pretty much always root for them. Until Harbaugh arrived, they were one of the worst teams in college football. I also love their philosophy, which is let's slug it out for 60 minutes and see who's standing at the end. They ahve won a lot of football games that way. But if they have to line up against teams like LSU. Florida, Georgia or Alabama, they simply would not be able to match up. Stanford would have been beaten just as bad, if not worse, than Notre Dame had they played Alabama in the national championship game.Comment -
That's my point too Jimmy.
Stanford and Notre Dame are almost mirror images of each other.
ND has an advantage along the DL (with Nix and Tuitt), and Stanford has better LBs (Skov and Murphy).
Stanford lost their career rusher leader in Taylor, and those 2 TEs created matchup problems all over the field.Comment
