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Stanford 48, Colorado 0

In most cases, the final score of a game will tell you all you need to know. In games like Saturday afternoon's contest between Stanford and Colorado, it tells you nothing.

A typical college football fan sitting on the couch watching the Alabama-LSU snooze fest or the Oregon-USC shootout on Saturday night saw "#14 Stanford 48 Colorado 0" scroll by on the bottom of the screen and probably thought one thing: "Wow, Colorado must really be awful."

While that may be true, that doesn't tell you the whole story. Not even close. Allow me to tell you the whole story.

Blogging With the Enemy: Colorado Buffaloes

When the Colorado Buffaloes joined the Pac-12 for the 2011 season, they did so after a mediocre Big 12 season that saw them finish 5-7 overall and only 2-6 in conference. Since arriving in the Pac-12, things have gone downhill.

Last year the Buffs managed just two conference wins over Arizona and Utah and finished at 3-10 overall, and it's gotten worse this year. Were it not for a miraculous 4th-quarter comeback against Washington State (the Buffaloes trailed 31-14 before scoring three touchdowns in the final 7:06 to steal a 35-34 win), Colorado would be winless this year, and their losses haven't been close.

For the most part, it's the defense that has been the problem. In their seven defeats they've been outscored by an average of 32 points, and they've let opposing teams break out in spectacular fashion. How spectacular? Take a look:

• Fresno State running back Robbie Rouse racked up 144 yards on just nine carries, and the Bulldogs scored on two plays of more than 90 yards, the first time a team had done this in one game since 2004. Fresno State 69, Colorado 14.
• UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley threw for 281 yards while passing for two touchdowns and running for two more. UCLA 42, Colorado 14.
• Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelly threw for 308 yards and five touchdowns. Arizona State 51, Colorado 17.
• USC quarterback Matt Barkley completed 19 of 20 passes, including six touchdowns. USC 50, Colorado 6.
• The Oregon Ducks scored 56 points in the first half, including two touchdowns each from Kenjon Barner and De'Anthony Thomas. Oregon 70, Colorado 14.

What does all that portend for this week's matchup with the Cardinal? With the recent struggles the Stanford offense has been having, this might be just what the doctor ordered. Most fans were expecting a relaxing win over Washington State last weekend, and when that didn't materialize, even Coach Shaw was forced to consider different options. Kevin Hogan has been promised 15 to 20 plays, and this week seems like the ideal time to open up the Hogan Package.

For more on the Buffs, here's some deeper insight from Jon Woods of the Ralphie Report. (You can view my side of the Q&A over at his site, and you can also read a few quick hitters from me over at Pacific Takes.) Anyway, here you go...

Will Hogan Be the Hero?

After the Washington loss, back when concerns over Josh Nunes and the Stanford offense were first starting to crescendo, I used this space to make a few suggestions to Coach Shaw. My first request was to unleash Kelsey Young, something I'm still waiting to see, but check out #2:

2. Run the Sequoia (wildcat), but use Kevin Hogan.
I loved when you rolled this out last week. Hogan is a mobile quarterback with speed, but he's still a quarterback, which means he can throw the ball. The wildcat we saw early in the season was terribly one-dimensional -- Anthony Wilkerson up the middle. There was a numbers advantage, and the play typically gained five or six yards (which is never a bad thing) but there's no guessing for the defense. With Hogan back there, everything changes. And here's the hidden bonus, Coach. If you commit to giving Hogan four wildcat plays in each half, you'll also get a look at how the offense performs with a different quarterback. I know you've made it clear that the quarterback competition ended in August and you aren't interested in discussing it, but somewhere in the back of your mind you must be wondering, even just a little bit.  

The word out of Palo Alto this week is that this is exactly what's happening. Hogan has played a handful of downs in each of the past two games, but on Tuesday Shaw promised 12 to 20 plays for the Hogan Package. (More good news: that means more Kelsey Young as well.) When I suggested this back on October 6th, I noted that this could also be a way to gradually make a quarterback change without ripping the bandaid off all at once. It seems Shaw was paying attention. When asked if Hogan might eventually become the starter, he answered in the affirmative: "Anything is possible, which is always the thing when you're going to give a guy more time at any position."

And suddenly this Saturday's game against Colorado is a LOT more interesting.

[Photo Credit: Kelley L. Cox/US Presswire]

Forecasting Stanford Football in 2012, One Game at a Time

Remember in Back to the Future II when Biff stole Marty's copy of Grays Sports Almanac and used the DeLorean to give it to his 1955 self so that he could win every sports bet for the next fifty years? Well, here's the next best thing.

We here at Go Mighty Card have never condoned gambling, but we noticed something recently that caught our attention. Sure, it might be fun to put down some cash on an individual game, then bite your nails to the nubs for three hours before hopefully claiming your winnings, but we've always been more intrigued by the long-term bet, especially because it always looks so easy to make a fistful of money.

One of the earliest reports from Las Vegas has the over/under for the 2012 Stanford Cardinal set at 7.5 wins. On the surface, eight wins seems like a gimme, so I thought I'd take a look at things game by game, putting each match-up into one of three categories: Guaranteed Lock, Toss Up, or Likely Loss.

This is hardly scientific, and by no means a recommendation on how to spend your hard-earned money, but it gives us an excuse to analyze the schedule a bit. As always, feel free to agree or disagree in the comments section. Could it be possible that Stanford could win only seven games this fall? Let's take a look...

Week 5 Progress Report: The Defense

Was the Cardinal defense dominant on Saturday evening? I'm not sure we can go that far, but anytime you hold a team to just a touchdown, you're doing something right. Let's take a quick look.

Gametime: Stanford vs. Colorado

Since last weekend's game against Colorado was televised by a relatively marginal network, many fans complained about having to miss it. The football department has come through with a short highlight package which includes some cool behind the scenes stuff. Check it out...

 

Week 5 Progress Report: The Offense

I have to admit that I'm starting to wonder about the relevance of these grades. After all, if you were to take a high school senior out of calculus and slip her into an algebra class, shouldn't she be expected to get an A? That's kind of like what's going on with the Cardinal.

But even though there hasn't been much competition yet, it's still worth our time to take a closer look at each unit and how things went on last Saturday. So here we go...

Stanford 48, Colorado 7

A friend of mine called me a few hours before kickoff and asked me how I was feeling about the game. My response? I told him I was getting tired of watching games like this, tired of watching the Cardinal beat up on listless opponents, tired of waiting for Washington and USC and Oregon and...

And then the game started and I realized that I could never get tired of this. Not in a millions years.

Blogging With the Enemy: Colorado Buffaloes

This weekend the Cardinal gets its first look at one of the two newcomers to the Pac-12, the Colorado Buffaloes. The Buffs fired coach Dan Hawkins midway through last season, and they seemed to be trending up during the final weeks, but this year has been something of a disappointment thus far.

All signs point towards a big win for the Cardinal on Saturday evening, but stranger things have happened. Robert Bell from the incredibly thorough Buffalo blog, The Ralphie Report, was good enough to answer a few of my questions about the Buffs and their season so far. Check, check, check it out...

Pac-12 Summer Preview: Colorado Buffaloes

Even though the season won't kick off until early September, I thought it would be fun to take a look around the conference for a quick preview of the other eleven teams -- in no particular order. We'll get more in depth during the week before the Cardinal plays each team, but for now we've got a quick overview of how the team looks at this point as seen through the eyes of a blogger who knows that team best. Enjoy.

Colorado Buffaloes (Pac-12 South)
Head Coach: Jon Embree (First Year)
2010: (5-7, 2-6, 5th in Big 12 North)
Did not play Stanford

In the eight seasons from 1989 to 1996 the Colorado Buffaloes compiled a cumulative record of 78-15, including five bowl victories, and a national championship in 1990. In the middle of that stretch they enjoyed the services of Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam and dynamic quarterback Kordell Stewart. Remember the Miracle at Michigan? Without question, Colorado was a national power.

Things have changed. Boy Wonder Rick Neuheisel and his successor, Gary Barnett, kept the program respectable over the next decade or so, but in 2006 the university looked north and plucked Dan Hawkins from Boise State. This decision would prove to be a mistake, as Hawkins never finished a season in Boulder over .500 and was dismissed after nine games in 2010 after going 19-39 as head coach.

This year the Buffaloes enter the Jon Embree era. Embree played tight end for Colorado in the mid 80s, and he's thrilled to be back home. "This is a dream come true. When I stepped on the field for my first spring practice here as a volunteer coach in 1991, I started to envision what it would be like to come back one day and be the head coach of this great university. It's truly a privilege when you have the opportunity to become head coach at your alma mater." It's as if he was reading from the same script Stanford coach David Shaw used at his introductory press conference.

Embree will rely on the senior leadership of quarterback Tyler Hansen and tailback Rodney Stewart, both of whom could finish their careers as the best to have played their positions in Colorado history. Will that be enough to compete in the Pac-12 South? I checked in with the folks at The Ralphie Report, and Jon Woods gave me the lowdown. Check it out...