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Blogging with the Enemy: Washington Huskies

Once upon a time, if you were opening conference play against two teams who each were breaking in a new quarterback and also had brand new coaching staffs, you might feel like the schedule makers had smiled upon you. You'd assume those two early wins and begin thinking about bowl game destinations.

For the second consecutive game, Stanford will face an opponent with a brand new quarterback, a brand new system, and a brand new coaching staff. Unfortunately for the Cardinal, USC seemed to be in midseason form when they travelled to the Farm two weeks ago, and the Washington Huskies also look to be adjusting well to all the new faces in the building. 

Washington opened with two sacrificial lambs, Kent State and Portland State, beating them by a combined score of 97-26. It was easy to discount those two wins, but last week they beat #11 Michigan State 39-28 in a game that was essentially over at halftime. September rankings don't mean much, but this was still an impressive win over a name brand team, a statement win for a new staff and a new quarterback.

Blogging with the Enemy: Washington Huskies

With the Cardinal sitting at 3-4 coming out of a much needed bye week, it seems like as good a time as any to look at the season through a broader lens. Where is this team, and where is this program?

The success that David Shaw enjoyed in the early years of his tenure -- three conference championships in five years, and a couple of teams that were among the best in the country -- has led to something that would've been unimaginable twenty years ago. There is now a vocal part of the fanbase -- perhaps the most vocal part of the fanbase -- that is unsatisfied with anything less than what we saw from the Cardinal in the first half of the last decade.

I'm not here to say that Stanford Football should not always aspire to those heights, but my memories of the Dark Times, as well as a perspective that includes the wider landscape of college football beyond the Pac-12, allow me to remain calm while others around me are losing their heads. It's tempting to flip channels while sitting on the couch and bemoan the fact that every other program always seems to be performing at an elite level, but that simply isn't the case. Michigan fans, for example, might be thrilled with their team's 7-0 start, but it wasn't long ago that Jim Harbaugh's photo hung in every post office in Ann Arbor. The Clemson Tigers are clearly one of the sport's elite programs, but this morning they're lucky to be 4-3.

This 3-4 Stanford team could be 4-3 if they'd hung on against Washington State or even 5-2 if they'd also kept things together against UCLA, but that line of thinking ignores the improbability, almost impossibility, of the Oregon win. The Cardinal is a middle of the pack Pac-12 team, and like most average teams, the moments when they've teased us with brilliance have been counterbalanced with frustrating sequences of ineptitude. The absolute value of all that has been a season in which the team has never had more than a one-game separation from the .500 mark in one direction or the other.

Stanford 31, Washington 26

Imagine you're walking out of the Rose Bowl on the evening of January 1, 2016. You've just watched Christian McCaffrey and the Cardinal completely dismantle the Iowa Hawkeyes, and the future of Stanford football is bright. But as you walk away from the stadium and into the darkness, you stumble after stepping on an empty beer bottle, you hit your head on parked car, and you fall into a coma that lasts more than four years.

You wake up on the afternoon of December 5th, 2020, and the world seems to have turned upside down. A reality show personality is President of the United States, and a global pandemic has claimed more than a quarter million American lives. Nothing, it seems, is as it was before your coma. Seeking an escape from the swirling confusion, you turn on the Stanford-Washington game, and for a few hours you bask in the familiarity of intellectual brutality, of fullbacks and pulling guards, of jumbo sets and time of possession. For three hours on Saturday afternoon, it's as if you had never stepped on that bottle.

Blogging with the Enemy: Washington Huskies

As the Cardinal headed into last season's matchup with the Washington Huskies, they carried questions with them. They were 2-3, they were without their starting quarterback, and many felt they were without the identity that had produced so much success over the previous decade. They emerged with a 23-13 victory that seemed to provide not only answers but also optimism heading into the second half of the season. It felt like a clear turning point, and the closing lines of my game recap reflected that:

...the future looks much different than it did a few days ago. While a ten-year bowl streak once seemed to be in jeopardy, the Cardinal now sits at 3-3 and won't have to leave Palo Alto until the second Saturday of November. They play just twice in the next twenty days, and it isn't inconceivable that they could win the next four games before hosting Cal on November 23rd.

It's foolish to think that far head, though, so instead we'll focus on what we know for sure after this 23-13 victory. Stanford Football is alive and well.

That optimism, it turned out, was short lived. The Cardinal lost five of six games to finish the season at 4-8, and their four-game losing streak to close 2019 stretched to six after losing the first two games to start 2020. Before 2019, David Shaw had never endured a losing streak as long as three games; last week's win over Cal was the program's first victory in more than a calendar year.

So while there are lots of individual issues facing different aspects of the program, they all fall under one larger question -- which stretch of games is more reflective of Stanford Football under David Shaw: 64-16 from 2011-2016, 18-9 in 2017 and 2018, or 4-10 in 2019 and the first two games of this season?

...the future looks much different than it did a few days ago. While a ten-year bowl streak once seemed to be in jeopardy, the Cardinal now sits at 3-3 and won't have to leave Palo Alto until the second Saturday of November. They play just twice in the next twenty days, and it isn't inconceivable that they could win the next four games before hosting Cal on November 23rd.

It's foolish to think that far head, though, so instead we'll focus on what we know for sure after this 23-13 victory. Stanford Football is alive and well.

That optimism, it turned out, was short lived. The Cardinal lost five of six games to finish the season at 4-8, and their four-game losing streak to close 2019 stretched to six after losing the first two games to start 2020. Before 2019, David Shaw had never endured a losing streak as long as three games; last week's win over Cal was the program's first victory in more than a calendar year.

So while there are lots of individual issues facing different aspects of the program, they all fall under one larger question -- which stretch of games is more reflective of Stanford Football under David Shaw: 64-16 from 2011-2016, 18-9 in 2017 and 2018, or 4-10 in 2019 and the first two games of this season?

Stanford 23, Washington 13

In a blueprint game that could've been pulled from the 2013 Stanford Media guide, the Cardinal produced its best effort of the season with a 23-13 win over Washington and reminded fans that yes, this program knows exactly who they are.

The Cardinal took the field on Saturday night with few believers, and it wasn't hard to understand why. This was a team that had logged three consecutive losses for the first time in the David Shaw Era and then snapped that losing streak in rather uninspiring fashion with a narrow win over a perennial conference doormat. This was a team that had entered the season with only three sure things -- Walker Little, K.J. Costello, and Paulson Adebo -- and the first two players were injured while the third had fallen from grace. This was a team that ranked near the bottom of the conference in almost every statistic that matters. Things were so bleak that people were no longer just wondering if the season could be saved, they were questioning the direction of the program. Vultures were circling.

Blogging with the Enemy: Washington Huskies

Suddenly, the Cardinal has arrived at the fulcrum of the teeter totter. A win over Washington on Saturday evening would move Stanford to 6-3 and, believe it or not, keep them at least partially alive in the race for Pac-12 North championship. A loss would drop them to the second tier of that division, scuffling alongside perennial cellar dwellers Oregon State and Cal. Forty-eight hours from now, the season will be going in one direction or the other; the see-saw will go up, or it will go down.

The Huskies, of course, present a formidable challenge. Heading into the season they were an almost unanimous choice to win the Pac-12, and many pundits tabbed Washington as a potential playoff team. Even after that early loss to Auburn, there was still hope. But like the Cardinal, the Huskies have been struggling of late, losing two of their last three games. Losing by three points on the road to the surging Oregon Ducks was understandable, but last week's upset at the hands of the pitiful Cal Bears was certainly the most surprising result of the Pac-12 season.

Game Preview: Washington Huskies

I started this blog seven years ago, mainly because I figured my friends needed a break from the lengthly emails I'd send out after each Stanford football game. One of my friends even suggested that my site could grow to the point where I'd be the voice of Stanford football. (At the time, there were no other Stanford blogs; RuleOfTree.com opened shop the same week I did.) Anyway, my voice obviously never became that influential, but those who have been reading long enough definitely know that I'm one of the most positive voices out there, perhaps positive to a fault.

The advantage I have over many of the younger bloggers following Stanford football is that I remember the darkness. How could I ever complain about the wattage of the bulbs we've got now when there were so many years when we were alone in the cellar searching desperately for candles? But with the sustained success of the program, the expectations have understandably changed.

Washington 44, Stanford 6

It really isn't as bad as you think it is. Stanford's 44-6 loss to Washington started out bad and got worse quickly and consistently over the course of three hours last weekend. Friday nights are typically reserved for high school football, and the Stanford team that travelled to Seattle to take on the Huskies resembled an overmatched high school squad, struggling in all phases of the game and showing glaring weaknesses in areas which have typically been strengths. But it really isn't as bad as you think it is.

Blogging with the Enemy: Washington Huskies

The all-time series between Stanford and Washington stands all square at 41-41-4, but it's perhaps the streakiest even series imaginable. Here's how things have gone since 1959:

1959-1966: Washington, 8-0
1967-1976: Stanford, 10-0
1977-2003: Washington, 20-2
2004-2015: Stanford, 9-2

Since the last quarter of the last century didn't go too well for the Cardinal, let's focus on the last eleven games. The Huskies beat Stanford during Jim Harbaugh's first season, but since then there hasn't been much suspense in this rivalry, as the Cardinal has won seven of eight games, including a three-game stretch from '09-'11 in which Stanford outscored Washington by a combined score of  140-35. The Cardinal has also won the the last three match-ups, but the recent game that might be the most informative is the 17-13 Stanford loss in 2012.

Stanford 31, Washington 14

When the Cardinal took the field late Saturday night against the Washington Huskies for yet another in what seems to be an endless stream of night games, they did so with the confidence of a team that knows it is among the best in the country. The offense had led the way to five straight wins featuring escalating point totals in each contest, and on this game's opening drive, Kevin Hogan and company picked up right where they had left off.