Cardinal again hit hard by injuries; this time before playing a game
The very good health-related news announced by David Shaw at the beginning of the regularly scheduled Tuesday press conference is that the Cardinal are COVID-19 free. The bad news is that before the first snap of the season two different positions on defense have been hammered by unspecified injuries.
At inside linebacker, third-year Jacob Mangum-Farrar and second-year Tristan Sinclair are out for the season. Fifth-year running back Dorian is out for the season and so is second-year cornerback Nicolas Toomer.
Starting outside linebacker Gabe Reid, starting cornerback Kyu Kelly and reserve outside backer Loa Kaufusi are "unlikely to be available" for Saturday. Fourth-year, and recent scholarship recipient, Thunder Keck will get his first career start in place of Reid, but Cardinal Sports Report expects there to be a heavy rotation involving second-year Stephen Herron and third-years Tobe Umerah and Andres Fox.
The loss of Kelly is the most impactful for Saturday because Stanford is down its most experienced, and arguably most physically, talented corner.
Ethan Bonner is penciled in as one starter and the third-year out of Texas finally had a healthy camp — cue knocking vigorously on wood. He missed his senior season with a torn ACL and has seemingly been injured more often than not since. When healthy he has impressed coaches and now is his chance to shine.
Second-years Salim Turner-Muhammad and Zahran Manley will likely play a lot at cornerback as well.
The season-ending injuries are devastating for Mangum-Farrar, Sinclair, Maddox and Toomer — they all were expected to play a role this season. Mangum-Farrar effectively missed all of last season as well, raising tough questions about his development moving forward.
The loss of the inside backers was presumably part of the reason that outside backer Caleb Kelly and safety Spencer Jorgensen were moved from the end of the bench at their respective positions to inside backer. The Cardinal need help at the position group in practice.
The importance of Curtis Robinson, Ricky Miezan and Levani Damuni has been magnified. It's reasonable to project that a strict rotation of those three talented players will produce better results than what Stanford got last season in the middle of the front seven. But another injury would be crippling.