SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Stanford Cardinal (Pac-12 #4; North #2) |
 #21 |
2014 Results |
AP #27 USA #30 | Strength:#20 Success:#27 Overall:#25 |
| Record: 8-5 | Bowl: Beat Maryland 45-21 (Foster Farms) |
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| 2015 Outlook |
Picks: AP #21 | USA #21 | Lindy's #26 | Athlon #24 | Steele #8 | ESPN #16 |
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| Record: 8-4 | Bowl odds: 95% Playoff odds: 3% | ||
Stanford has about 8 wins on their schedule, but two tossup games—against Notre Dame and UCLA—could turn a good season great. If they can beat USC and Oregon then the season will really be special.
| Offense 9 ret. starters |
2014 Scoring Offense: #85 (raw) #72 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2015 Projected Scoring Offense: #58 (adjusted) |
We see incremental improvements in both the running and passing game, bringing the offense back up to par for the FBS.
| Passing Game |
2014 Passing Rank: #67 (raw) #87 (adjusted) | 2014 Sacks Allowed (raw): #47 |
| 2015 Projected Passing Rank: #70 (adjusted) |
2015 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #36 |
Kevin Hogan (2,792 yards, 19 TDs, 8 int) heads into his senior year looking for his best stats yet. Though he loses top receiver Ty Montgomery (604 yards) the next 7 targets down the line are back including Devon Cajuste (557 yards) and TE Austin Hooper (499 as a freshman).
| Rushing | 2014 Rushing Rank: #72 (raw) #56 (adjusted) | 2015 Projected Rushing Rank: #42 (adj.) |
Remound Wright led the team with 601 yards and 11 touchdowns but the committee was in full effect as three other backs had 300+ yards. Two return including #4 Christian McCaffrey (300 yards) who may get the starting job and of course Barry Sanders Jr (#3 with 315) the guy everyone in the nation wants to see have a breakout year. The offensive line returns four starters; they lose first-round draft pick Andreus Peat but Kyle Murphy, Joshua Garnett, Graham Shuler, and Johnny Caspers are all back. With a great line and talented backfield plus a running quarterback (Kevin Hogan netted 295 last year) production should be up.
| 2014 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #7 Pass Defense per-game: #4 Per-attempt: #2 | ||
| Defense 4 ret. starters |
'14 Scoring Defense: #1 (raw) #1 (adjusted) | '14 sacks: #4 | '14 picks: #75 |
| '15 Projected Scoring Defense: #4 (adjusted) |
'15 sacks: #9 | '15 picks: #103 | |
Last year we predicted Stanford's defense would fall to #2 but when the dust settled they were #1 for a 2nd straight year. This time around, with just four starters back, it's going to be tough to hold onto the top spot. All three starters are gone from the defensive line including Henry Anderson (8.5 sacks) but they bring in grad transfer Brennan Scarlett from Cal. At linebacker top tackler Blake Martinez (102 tackles) and Kevin Anderson (5.5 sacks) are back while two starters depart including James Vaughters (6.5 sacks). Reserve Peter Kalambayi (6.5 sacks) will take a starting job as a sophomore. The secondary loses two starters as well from Stanford's lockdown pass defense. There are a lot of losses so staying #1 doesn't look feasible, but it should be a short drop.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: The Cardinal lose both punter Ben Rhyne (39.8 average) and Jordan Williamson (15 of 22 FGs).
- Return Game: Ty Montgomery was Stanford's return ace, with 2 touchdowns on punts (19.8 average) last year and 25.2 yards per kickoff return. Alas, he departs.
- Turnovers projection: The defense loses most of their pass breakups from last year which points to fewer interceptions; they only had 12 last year so it can't drop too far.
Coaching Hot Seat Ranking: #86 (COOL)
David Shaw has kept the ball rolling since Jim Harbaugh's departure and the only thing that keeps him out of the "Cold" quadrant is that last year's 8 win season was the first lower than 11 wins since 2009. It's still much higher than long-term expectations at Stanford which run around 5 1/2 wins per year.
Recruiting 2015 Recruiting Rank: #27 2014 Recruiting Rank: #27
Shaw continues to recruit at a high level, especially for Stanford historically, with another borderline top 25 class.
2014 Recap
It was clear early on that the Stanford offense wasn't up to the task of competing for the Pac-12 crown. They could hold USC to 13 points, but only scored 10 themselves. They shut out Army, but only scored 35 points. They beat Washington 20-13, then lost to Notre Dame 17-14 and already their national title hopes were gone. The defense was good enough to beat the bad Pac-12 teams but the offense wasn't strong enough to score more than 10, 16, or 17 against the good ones. Finally, though, they put things together against UCLA for their best performance of the season—on the road, even, beating the Bruins 31-10 to finish 7-5 in the regular season, and a 45-21 spanking of Maryland gave them an 8th win.
Last year's prediction: Like everyone else we put Stanford just outside the top ten (at #11). We projected an 8-4 record which nearly came true. The game-by-game chart was a mess—we picked Stanford to beat USC, Notre Dame, and Utah, and lose to Washington and UCLA. So they were 7-5, and in picking their games, so were we.
2015 Outlook
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Stanford 2015 schedule & forecast |
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| 9/5 | Sat | @ | Northwestern | 77% | W | |||
| 9/12 | Sat | vs. | Central Florida | 96% | W | |||
| 9/19 | Sat | @ | *USC | 26% | L | |||
| 9/25 | Fri | @ | *Oregon State | 93% | W | |||
| 10/3 | Sat | vs. | *Arizona | 62% | W | |||
| 10/15 | Thu | vs. | *UCLA | 52% | W | |||
| 10/24 | Sat | vs. | *Washington | 92% | W | |||
| 10/31 | Sat | @ | *Washington State | 75% | W | |||
| 11/7 | Sat | @ | *Colorado | 71% | W | |||
| 11/14 | Sat | vs. | *Oregon | 33% | L | |||
| 11/21 | Sat | vs. | *California | 62% | W | |||
| 11/28 | Sat | vs. | Notre Dame | 53% | W | |||
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Straight up: 10-2 Cume: 8-4 Bowl eligible: 95%
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Stanford has the usual big hurdles to clear if they want to have a great season as well as a couple of key close games but overall, they should be very solid and matching last year's 8 wins should be a minimum goal.
Kicking off with a road game vs. Northwestern should help them prepare for the rest of the season; Central Florida at home is more of a breather before going to USC for their first major roadblock. They should rebound vs. Oregon State and probably even beat Arizona at home and should be around 4-1 at this point.
UCLA is the first of the games that separate a good season from a great one. They get the Bruins at home and we call it basically a pick'em. The Cardinal should beat Washington, Washington State, and Colorado before facing Oregon, another probable loss though Stanford has managed some close wins lately in the series.
Cal will be tough but we pick a win at home for Stanford. Then they host Notre Dame and that should be a close one, too. The cumulative estimate yields an 8-4 finish but again, that should be a minimum goal; if they take care of business they'll have 8 wins with 10-2 being a couple of coin flips away.
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