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A Half Full Look at the 2024 Stanford Football Schedule

Because I'm doing my best to look at the bright side of college football's new reality, I'll present this schedule overview without sadness, sarcasm, or cynicism. Just the facts as they're laid out before us.

The Atlantic Coast Conference -- that's Stanford's new football conference now, for those who aren't aware -- announced its schedule rotation through the year 2030. (That's rather optimistic considering Clemson and Florida State are already house shopping in the SEC, but no cynicism, remember?)

Pac-12 Media Day Recap

To give you an idea of how long I've been doing this, the first Pac-12 Media Day that I attended was David Shaw's first and Andrew Luck's last.  There were only ten conference teams back then, and that season would mark the first conference championship game. 

Everything is different now. Troy Taylor is Stanford's head coach, no one knows who will be the starting quarterback, and there are twelve conference teams -- for now. USC and UCLA will move to the Big Ten next season, and this week we've learned that Colorado will follow them out the door to the Big 12, meaning that there are big changes coming. Will the conference act quickly (when has this conference ever acted quickly?) to add a team or three? Or will things completely dissolve? Only time will tell.

An Interview with Troy Taylor

Towards the tail end of a long morning and afternoon at Media Day, I was able to talk with Stanford's new head coach, Troy Taylor. We only had about ten minutes, so I've transcribed the entire conversation here. My main takeaway from our short chat is that Coach Taylor is confident and excited about what lies ahead, and he's also incredibly nice. I could've happily talked with him for an hour or more on any number of subjects, but we hit on a few interesting things -- his theories on love as it relates to team building; his expectations about how he'll balance his three responsibilities as head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach; and how he'll approach the quarterback competition this summer and fall. Oh, and how nice is Coach Taylor? At the end of our conversation he thanked me for my time. So yeah, he's a nice guy. Read on...

2022 Position Preview: Defensive Backs

If we're ranking the greatest Stanford football players of the past 50 years, three obvious names come to mind -- Bryce Love, Andrew Luck, and Christian McCaffrey. (Personally, I hedge a bit. I've got Luck as the best quarterback in program history and Love as the greatest pure running back, which allows me to choose McCaffrey as the best all-around player.)

But if we're talking about the most important players, there's a fourth name that has to be included with those three. In fact, I'd argue that along with Luck, Richard Sherman is one to the two most important players in program history.

2022 Position Preview: Offensive Line

If you've been reading this series, and if you've been paying attention to Stanford Football for the past decade, you know that nothing I wrote as I previewed the running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and quarterbacks really matters. Not a word. 

You could make a strong argument that the offensive line of any football team is the most significant variable in determining overall success, and it's no different for this year's Stanford squad. In fact, given the identity and brand defined by the program ten years ago in comparison to the product on the field recently, the performance of this year's offensive line will do more than just determine how long Tanner McKee has to throw or how wide the holes are for E.J. Smith. This group will decide whether or not we still talk about Intellectual Brutality. They will determine the future viability of the Tunnel Workers Union. It's that serious.

2022 Position Preview: Quarterbacks

A year ago at this time, the Stanford quarterback position was a mystery. The early departure of Davis Mills had left a question mark behind center, and most fans felt like Tanner McKee was the obvious answer. But McKee was still relatively new to the program, just over a year removed from his LDS mission, and senior Jack West waited in the wings, presumably with a thorough understanding of the notoriously complex Stanford playbook. (If you need a second, repeat after me: "God grant me the serenity to accept that I cannot change the Stanford playbook, the courage to turn away from the lure of other teams' watered down playbooks, and the wisdom to know the difference.")

2022 Position Preview: Tight Ends

Junior Ben Yurosek needs a new nickname. His Stanford teammates started calling him The Future a couple years ago, but that became passé in 2021 as Yurosek led the Cardinal in receiving yardage while catching 42 passes for 653 yards and three touchdowns.

It was an eye-opening debut for a player who hadn't caught a single pass the year before, but it was familiar at the same time. Yurosek is just the latest in a long line of legendary Stanford tight ends, many of whom earned all-conference and All-America honors. (One, Zach Ertz, even had the Mackey Award stolen from him, which for Stanford players is the same as winning it.) Ertz is on his way to the NFL Hall of Fame and still doing his thing on Sundays (74/763/5 for the Arizona Cardinals in 2021), and Dalton Schultz ranked third among NFL tight ends with 78 receptions for the Dallas Cowboys.

2022 Position Preview: Wide Receivers

Stanford held an early 10-7 lead over Oregon in the fifth game of the season when Tanner McKee completed a 15-yard pass to wide receiver Brycen Tremayne for a 1st down. Big plays like this were no longer a surprise to Stanford fans who were familiar with Tremayne's story at that point. The former walk-on had earned a scholarship, and in his senior campaign he had become one of the most dependable receivers on the roster, leading the team with 240 yards receiving and a touchdown in each of the season's first five games. He didn't scare defensive backs, he just beat them.

2022 Position Preview: Running Backs

At the very least, there is clarity. It is clear who the feature back in the Stanford offense will be, but more on him later. We cannot discuss the future of the Stanford running game without first looking to the past -- the recent past as well as memories which are rapidly fading away. 

Once upon a time there was no more feared rushing attack in the nation than what was happening in Palo Alto a decade ago. As hard as it might be to believe, Toby Gerhart was a Heisman finalist thirteen years ago, Christian McCaffrey had his trophy stolen seven years ago, and Bryce Love was the runner-up five years ago. This year's seniors were scouring their cafeterias for prom dates the last time the Cardinal had a substantial running attack. And that has changed everything.

The Dean of the Conference

David Shaw is comfortable. And why shouldn't he be? By any measurement his tenure as head football coach at Stanford has been the most impressive in school history. His teams have won three Pac-12 championships and two Rose Bowls, he's been named Pac-12 Coach of the Year a record four times, and no active coach in the conference can match his ninety wins, which is also a Stanford record.

Shaw's confidence, however, likely doesn't come only from those records and accolades, but from a life spent in the game. The son of a football coach who grew up to play wide receiver at Stanford, Shaw worked on various staffs in college and the NFL before taking the head coaching job at his alma mater just a little over ten years ago. His early success led to annual speculation about a future at the next level, and most observers assumed he would use the Stanford job as a stepping stone to greater glory at the next level. He certainly had opportunities to leave, but the rumors which were once rampant every time the NFL coaching carousel began to spin have slowed to a trickle. It seems that the football world has finally started believing Shaw's claim that the Stanford job is the only one he ever really wanted.