SportsRatings 2012 College Football Pre-season Top 124
| Stanford Cardinal (Pac-12 #3; North #2) |
 #11 |
2011 Results |
Record: 11-2 | Strength:#5 Success:#13 Overall:#6 |
| AP #7 USA #7 | Bowl: Lost to OK St. 41-38 OT (Fiesta) |
||
| 2012 Outlook |
Record: 9-3 | Picks: Lindy's #21; Athlon #21; Steele #14 |
|
| AP #21 USA #18 |
Bowl: Alamo (Eligibility odds: 99.7%) |
Stanford carries on without Andrew Luck, like they carried on without Toby Gerhart a few years earlier.
| Offense 6 RS |
'11 Scoring Offense: #7 (raw) #6 (adjusted for competition) |
| '12 Projected Scoring Offense: #15 (adjusted) |
The obvious loss on offense is Andrew Luck, and without him the pass game will suffer but Stanford was every bit as much a running team last year.
| Passing Game |
'11 Passing Rank: #22 (raw) #18 (adjusted) | '11 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #9 |
| '12 Projected Passing Rank: #54 (adjusted) |
'12 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #12 |
Andrew Luck didn't win the Heisman or the national championship in his senior year but he had another good season that was apparently worthy of the #1 pick in the NFL draft. Luck passed for 3,517 yards and threw 37 touchdowns with 10 interceptions, completing 71% of his attempts. The drop-off to new starter Josh Nunes (7 passing yards in 2010, none in 2011) is going to be huge. Worse, last year's top three receivers are gone, too; Griff Whalen led with 749 and tight end Coby Fleener had 667 and 10 TDs. Ty Montgomery (350 yards) is back with three others who had over 250 yards, so there will be options, and the offensive line has provided great protection (11 sacks last year). But the passing game will likely go from great to strictly average this year.
| Rushing | '11 Rushing Rank: #18 (raw) #18 (adjusted) | '11 Projected Rushing Rank: #20 (adj.) |
Stanford was a rushing powerhouse behind Stepfan Taylor's 1,330 yards and 10 touchdowns and Tyler Gaffney's 449. Taylor is back but Gaffney announced he is quitting to play baseball. Two others had around 250 yards each and one is back, while QB Luck only added 150 last year. The offensive line returns senior Sam Schwatzendruber and sophomores David Yankey and Cameron Fleming. Without Gaffney the ground game might not make gains this year but should still be one of the best with Taylor topping 1,500 this season.
| '11 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #10 Pass Defense per-game: #11 Per-attempt: #36 | ||
| Defense 7 RS |
'11 Scoring Defense: #32 (raw) #7 (adjusted) | '11 sacks: #5 | '11 picks: #117 |
| '12 Projected Scoring Defense: #4 (adjusted) |
'12 sacks: #5 | '12 picks: #109 | |
Stanford gave up a lot of points last year, but they played high-scoring teams in the Pac-12 and met the #2 and #3 raw scoring offenses in Oklahoma State and Oregon. Corrected for their schedule they had the #7 defense in the country, and this year's model will be better.
The team was #5 in our pass rush ratings and had 39 sacks, with linebackers Chase Thomas (8.5 sacks, 9 tackles for loss) and Trent Murphy (6.5 sacks) leading the way. They're back along with two other starters, Jarek Lancaster (#1 tackler) and A.J. Tarpley, and 2010 starter Shayne Skov (7.5 sacks in '10, 1.5 last year) back full-time (minus 1-game suspension) as well. With all those guys plus two starters on the 3-4 defensive line, the pass rush should be just as effective if not moreso and the rushing defense still top ten. The secondary will be weaker, however, as only one starter returns, with Michael Thomas (had 3 of the team's 7 interceptions) among those gone.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Jordan Williamson is back after making 13 of 19 field goals last year while Eric Whitaker made 4 of 5 but left the team. David Green departs after averaging 41.7 per punt; Daniel Zychlinski (41.8 average in 2010) will take over.
- Return Game: Ty Montgomery (25.2 average, 1 touchdown) and Drew Terrell (12.0 average) will again field kickoffs and punts for the Cardinal.
- Turnovers projection: Despite losing most of the secondary Stanford's D should have more than last year's 7 interceptions. But that gain will probably be dwarfed by the additional picks thrown by the less experience QB stable, and the effect of Stanford's fumble margin not matching last year's +8.
Coaching/Recruiting 2012 Recruiting Rank: #7 2011 Recruiting Rank: #25
Stanford cashed in on back-to-back great seasons with an incredible recruiting class. Any doubts that David Shaw could command the cachet that Jim Harbaugh did have to be put to rest. This is the top class in the Pac-12, featuring three of the very top offensive line recruits in the country, insuring that Stanford O-line continues to be state of the art (they currently start 3 sophomores—imagine the line in 2014!). They also got a running back recruit by the name of Barry Sanders, Jr.
2011 Recap
Looking back at Stanford's early schedule in 2011, we see a team that didn't play a
winning opponent for the first half of its season. Is that why things
got so hard in the 2nd half? Though they beat Washington 65-21 in one of their best performances, the
very next game almost derailed their season as they needed triple
overtime to beat USC 56-48. Then in game 10, Oregon socked it to them and they
stumbled to the end of the season with a too-close game against Cal (31-28) and
a not-quite-dominant performance against Notre Dame, both at home. They fought Oklahoma State toe-to-toe in the Fiesta Bowl but came up just short in overtime, 41-38.
2012 Outlook
|
Stanford 2012 schedule & forecast |
||||||||
| 8/31 | Fri | vs. | San Jose State | 98% | W | |||
| 9/8 | Sat | vs. | Duke | 96% | W | |||
| 9/15 | Sat | vs. | *USC | 29% | L | |||
| 9/27 | Thu | @ | *Washington | 76% | W | |||
| 10/6 | Sat | vs. | *Arizona | 93% | W | |||
| 10/13 | Sat | @ | Notre Dame | 46% | L | |||
| 10/20 | Sat | @ | *California | 72% | W | |||
| 10/27 | Sat | vs. | *Washington State | 94% | W | |||
| 11/3 | Sat | @ | *Colorado | 96% | W | |||
| 11/10 | Sat | vs. | *Oregon State | 88% | W | |||
| 11/17 | Sat | @ | *Oregon | 34% | L | |||
| 11/24 | Sat | @ | *UCLA | 78% | W | |||
|
Straight up: 9-3 Cume: 9-3 undefeated: 1%
|
||||||||
Stanford's schedule is once again hot and cold, with very easy games interrupted by some of the toughest opponents in the nation.
San Jose State and Duke precede USC in September. Arizona is right before Notre Dame on the road. And following Washington State, Colorado, and Oregon State they face Oregon. With those three tough teams on the schedule it's not hard to see why we pick them to be 9-3. And with the preceding six teams, it's not hard to see why it's 99.7% likely for Stanford to reach bowl eligibility. Yet they have just a 1% chance of going undefeated due to the tough teams.
The Notre Dame game is the one the Cardinal have the best chance in, and USC is at home. Oregon has had their number the last two years, beating them 52-31 and 53-20, so that has to be the one circled on the Cardinal schedule. But the Trojans and the Irish have Stanford circled for beating them three years running each.
A third-place finish in the Pac-12 would mean a trip to the Alamo Bowl (as we're pretty sure the top two go to BCS bowls) where they'd face a Big Twelve opponent, perhaps West Virginia.
More Previews • Full coverage of all 124 FBS teams
SportsRatings 2012 College Football Pre-season Top 124
Comments