You know that friend of yours who watches The Walking Dead? The one who's always trying to convince you to start watching it? At one point or another, this person has certainly shared this mantra: "It isn't about the zombies, it's about the people." (He's right, by the way.)
Tweak that line just a bit, and you get some key insight into the psyche of Stanford football fans as the Cardinal navigates its way through these times of trouble. "It's not about wins and losses, it's about the fans." The best evidence that the program has achieved elite status has nothing to do with the burgeoning trophy case nor the parade of four- and five-star recruits eager to come to Palo Alto. No, the true proof of the Cardinal's football-factory status comes in the discontent of the fans who are unhappy with a season which once would've been cause for celebration.
To understand what's happening in the present, we have to look to the recent and not-so-recent past. In 2001 Tyrone Willingham led the team to a 9-3 record before leaving for Notre Dame. The following season Buddy Teevens steered the ship into the ground with a 2-9 mark, a seven-win dip that was just the beginning of Stanford football's darkest era. The win totals the next four years under Teevens and Walt Harris were four, four, five, and one, but those numbers can't begin to measure the depth to which the program had sunk. Any notion that Stanford might one day become relevant again in the college football world seemed overly optimistic; fantasies about dominance wouldn't have been spoken out loud. The program was closer to Division II than it was to the Rose Bowl, and there was no hope in sight.
And then Jim Harbaugh arrived. His most important contribution to the program was not his brand of smash mouth football, not his enthusiasm previously unknown to mankind, and certainly not the restroom he had built in the football offices. He brought belief. When he announced during his introductory press conference that he had come to The Farm to compete for and win championships, he wasn't just the only person in the room who believed it, he was probably the only person in the world who could have turned that pipe dream into reality.
We know what happened next. There was the Biggest Upset Ever in his first season, and just three years after the worst season in the history of Stanford football, he led the Cardinal to eight wins and a bowl game in 2009. When Harbaugh presided over eleven regular season wins and an Orange Bowl victory in his final year on the Farm, it felt as if the program had peaked. After its accidental ascension into the upper reaches of the sport in 2010, a return to mediocrity seemed certain. Instead David Shaw was promoted from within, and so began the Golden Age of Stanford Football.
From Harbaugh's 2010 season through 2015, a total of 64 BCS and NY6 bowl game berths were claimed by 32 different teams. While 16 of those 32 schools were imposters taking advantage of circumstances to make a single appearance, a handful of teams earned multiple bids, establishing themselves as college football's elite. No school reached this level more than Stanford's five bids (2011 Orange; 2012 Fiesta; 2013, '14, and '16 Rose), a total matched only by Alabama. Including Stanford and Alabama, nine teams have earned three or more BCS/NY6 bids during this stretch, and it's informative to take a look at how Stanford fits into this group.
| Team | Bids | Overall | Best | Worst | 2016 |
| Alabama | 5 | 72-10 | 14-1 | 10-3 | 8-0 |
| Oregon | 4 | 69-12 | 12-1 | 9-4 | 2-5 |
| Ohio State | 4 | 68-12 | 14-1* | 6-7 | 6-1 |
| Florida State | 4 | 68-14 | 14-0 | 10-4 | 5-2 |
| Stanford | 5 | 66-15 | 12-1 | 8-5 | 4-3 |
| Michigan State | 3 | 65-16 | 13-1 | 7-6 | 2-5 |
| Oklahoma | 3 | 62-17 | 12-2 | 8-5 | 5-2 |
| Clemson | 3 | 62-19 | 14-1 | 6-7 | 7-0 |
| Wisconsin | 3 | 60-21 | 11-2 | 8-6 | 5-2 |
(* Ohio State finished 12-0 in 2012, but an NCAA probation kept them from playing in a bowl game; I rate their 14-1 National Championship season of 2014 above that.)
Several things jump out. First of all, look at the names on the list, heavyweights all, and think about the schools you don't see. Michigan, Auburn, USC, Florida, LSU, and Notre Dame, teams normally considered football royalty, don't make the cut. (Notre Dame and Auburn have two bids; Michigan, Florida, and LSU have one apiece; and USC has zero.) In addition to that, Stanford clearly belongs in this group, with its 66 wins topped by only four teams. Furthermore, while Stanford's best season doesn't look any different than anyone else's best, four teams dipped below the Cardinal's lowest mark.
But just in case you're one of those who aren't interested in drawing solace from past success, let's take a look at what's happened over the past two months. Stanford sits at 4-3, and while that's a far cry from what Alabama and Clemson have done, it's just a notch below Florida State and Oklahoma, and it's eons above Oregon and Michigan State, both of whom are enduring an apocalypse of their own. While it's tempting and understandable to fear the worst, what we're seeing is neither the beginning of the end nor a regression to the mean. It's just football.
Stanford's three losses are each problematic in different ways (thrashings by the Washington schools and an anemic performance by the offense against Colorado), but together they aren't as worrisome. Washington and Washington State are undefeated in conference play and tied for first place in the Pac-12 North; Colorado is tied for first in the South. Could it be that Stanford is the fourth-best team in the conference?
The bile you're still coughing up after Saturday's embarrassing loss to Colorado might prevent you from realizing that a 4-3 record against Stanford's schedule, a slate rated by Sagarin as the toughest in the country through eight weeks, is not a disappointment. (Sagarin's data-heavy system rates the Cardinal as the #22 team in the nation.) In fact, considering the slew of injuries to star players and significant starters (Christian McCaffrey, Greg Taboada, Daniel Marx, Francis Owusu, Quenton Meeks, Alijah Holder, and Harrison Phillips) one could argue that this team has actually overachieved, not underachieved.
Even so, the drop-off from last season's offense to this year's is so dramatic that it can't be ignored. Any way you measure it, with statistics simplistic or esoteric, the offense has fallen off a cliff and produced little more than a cloud of dust, Wile E. Coyote style. Take a look at these numbers and Stanford's national ranking out of 128 teams.
| Statistic | 2015 | 2016 |
| Points per game | 37.8, 15th | 17.0, 124th |
| Total Yards per game | 435.4, 37th | 299.1, 124th |
| Total Yards per play | 6.4, 18th | 4.8, 107th |
| Rushing Yards per game | 223.6, 20th | 138.0, 95th |
| Rushing Yards per carry | 5.1, 15th | 4.0, 88th |
| Adjusted Offensive Efficiency | 1.45, 2nd | -0.22, 84th |
| Touchdown Rate | 45.4%, 5th | 12.9%, 126th |
| TD After 1st Down Rate | 52.2%, 5th | 16.7%, 128th |
| Available Yards Percentage | 64.9%, 1st | 41.5%, 95th |
(Advanced statistics and their explanations can be found at Football Outsiders.)
Once again, this isn't just a decline, it's a statistical nosedive from the top of the circus tent into a kiddie pool. After the departures of quarterback Kevin Hogan and offensive linemen Josh Garnett and Kyle Murphy to the NFL and the retirement of center Graham Shuler, a decline would've been expected, and most observers probably felt like we'd see something like what happened in 2014. After averaging a respectable 32.3 points per game with the 27th best offense in the nation according to Football Outsiders in 2013, the Cardinal slipped to 25.7 per game with the 50th best offense in the country in 2014.
That's not as big a dip as we've seen this year, but the similarities between 2014 and 2016 are striking. That team boasted a championship caliber defense, but the offense struggled, and -- just like this 2016 team -- the Cardinal was 4-3 after seven games, with a disheartening loss in that seventh contest, 26-10 to Arizona State. Fans will remember that a big factor in that disappointing start was a rebuilt offensive line that took longer than expected to come together. Quarterback Kevin Hogan had four new starters in front him, and even though all five linemen were highly touted and would develop into one of the best units in the nation, they weren't there yet. Here's what I wrote about them in my midseason report card after the sixth game of the season:
Every spot on line is manned by a member of the Class of 2012. From left tackle to right tackle the starters are Peat, Garnett, Graham Shuler, Johnny Caspars, and Murphy. Even though those five had never played together, they had all played in important moments, so the hope was that they'd be able to overcome any cohesion issues by drawing on their individual game experience and prodigious talent. That hasn't quite been the case.
The running game has suffered, and while the absence of an elite running back is certainly part of the problem, Toby Gerhart, Stepfan Taylor, and Tyler Gaffney would be the first ones to tell you that the offensive lines of the past six years had an awful lot to do with the great seasons they each had. Since 2008 the Cardinal has averaged 4.9, 5.3, 5.2, 5.3, 4.4, and 5.0 yards per carry. Through six games in 2014, that number is down to 4.4. Again, that average might be higher if the coaching staff would stick with one running back for a bit longer, but the bottom line is that this year's Tunnel Workers Union isn't opening up tunnels quite the way we've seen in years past.
And what about pass protection? Kevin Hogan hasn't had as much time to throw this season, a fact which might be contributing to the dramatic reduction in yards per catch for his receivers. Additionally, he's being sacked at a much higher rate. He went down 14 times in all of 2013, but he's already been sacked a dozen times through the first six games this season.
But perhaps worse than all this, the offensive line has committed more penalties -- many of which negated scores or crippled critical drives -- than any Stanford line in recent memory.
Sound familiar? Although the improvement wouldn't be immediate, that unit -- and that offense -- eventually came together, closing out the season by scoring 38, 31, and 45 points as they beat Cal to keep the Axe, thrashed UCLA to bounce them out of the Pac-12 Championship game, and throttled Maryland in the Foster Farms Bowl.
You can expect to see similar improvement from this year's team. As difficult as the schedule has been thus far, there's a considerable difference when you look at the final five teams on tap. Take a look at the defenses that Stanford will face down the stretch and how they rank nationally out of 128 teams in a few key categories.
| Opponent | Record | DFEI1 | DTD2 | PPG3 |
| Arizona | 2-5, 0-4 | 98th | 116th | 33.0 |
| Oregon State | 2-5, 1-3 | 64th | 92nd | 32.3 |
| Oregon | 2-5, 0-4 | 113th | 127th | 43.3 |
| Cal3 | 4-4, 2-3 | 103rd | 107th | 41.3 |
| Rice | 1-6 | 104th | 111th | 37.0 |
1. Adjusted defensive efficiency
2. Defensive touchdown rate
3. Statistics do not include Thursday night's 45-24 loss to USC.
If you want to extend the Wile E. Coyote analogy from above...
It's quite likely that we're about to see a new Stanford offense, and not just because there will be a new quarterback. Keller Chryst is arriving at the perfect time (see live image above), as he'll be facing five of the weakest defenses on the Stanford schedule. More than that, Stanford's two most electric weapons, Christian McCaffrey and Bryce Love, are both healthy together for the first time all season, giving Chryst and the Cardinal coaches two of the conference's shiniest toys to play with. It's no secret that the offense has struggled to get into the end zone over the first half of the season. That group has scored just three touchdowns in the past month, but I predict they'll score at least three touchdowns in each game over the rest of the season, giving them a shot to run the table and finish the regular slate at 9-3 with a shot at a tenth win in a bowl game.
This is not the apocalypse. Everything is going to be okay.
