Go Mighty Card

Kansas State 24, Stanford 7

It isn't an accident that it's taken several days for the recap of Stanford's opening week loss to Kansas State to show up here. I needed time to digest it. To ruminate. To contemplate. To investigate. Try not to hate. All of that.

Had I opened my laptop and pounded out my thoughts in the minutes following the game, my thoughts would've been dark and without hope. If you ventured into Stanford Twitter during the game or after, you know what I'm talking about. Few were able to find any optimism in the Cardinal's effort, some called it Stanford football's lowest point since the arrival of Jim Harbaugh, and most were ready to give up on a season that was one game old.

The worst of all that? Unlike previous panics, this one seemed justified. This time it was hard for me to tell the villagers to put away their torches and pitchforks. Perhaps the emperor really had no clothes.

Blogging with the Enemy:Kansas State Wildcats

The last time we saw the Stanford Cardinal on a football field, they had just completed one of the most unlikely comebacks you've ever seen. The Cardinal's improbable 48-47 double overtime victory over UCLA did more than just cap an equally improbable 4-2 season, it potentially altered the direction of the program.

A loss that day would've dropped the Cardinal to 3-3 and raised dozens of questions about a team that was set to lose its quarterback and top wide receiver after a fractured season in which its best offensive player (Walker Little) and best defensive player (Paulson Adebo) had opted not to play. It could've been devastating.

I'm not sure if there was a direct causation, but things right now look a lot brighter than they might have. (Another cause for optimism -- early reports and verbal commitments indicate that the 2022 signing class will likely be Stanford's best since 2017.)

And so the Cardinal takes a four-game winning streak into Saturday morning's game against Kansas State in football's Taj Mahal, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Wildcats are the first of Stanford's three Power 5 non-conference opponents, and while they likely slot firmly in the middle of the three (Vanderbilt is in disarray and Notre Dame is still Notre Dame), there are a few reasons why this isn't an ideal season opener.

Stanford 26, Kansas State 13

The sun was still high enough in the sky above Stanford Stadium to filter through the light towers and surrounding trees and cast wide swaths of sunlight across the field as Christian McCaffrey stood near his own goal line to receive the first kick of the Cardinal's 2016 season. The last time we had seen McCaffrey on a football field had been on the first day of the year when he announced to the world -- or at least to those who didn't already know -- that even if he hadn't won the Heisman Trophy, he was undoubtably the best college football player on the planet, one of the best ever to play the game.

So when Kansas State's Ian Patterson put his foot into the ball and sent it hurtling towards McCaffrey, a fan could be excused for filling those last few seconds of anticipation with thoughts of all that happened in the previous autumn and what might unfold over the coming months. The summer had been filled with questions about the quarterback, concerns about a rebuilt offensive line, whispers about a stronger, faster McCaffrey, and dreams of a playoff berth -- the kinds of issues that are common to college football fans across America. But when he football finally fell into McCaffrey's arms at the 8, he returned it 28 yards to the 36, the season was underway, and those issues faded into the background.