Stanford football has their first of two bye weeks this weekend following a tight 34-27 home loss to TCU and a blowout 41-7 home victory over Cal Poly. Stanford will get back in the saddle on Friday, September 20th when they have their first game of ACC play at Syracuse.
With two games in the books, I thought it would be good to provide five thoughts on the Cardinal and some takeaways from what we have seen thus far. Ok, let’s get after it!
#1. Stanford is a legitimate power five level team: The first takeaway I have is that Stanford is a legitimate power five level team. They may not be a good power five level team, but they are a legitimate power five level team. They played TCU tough and after a slow start blew the doors off Cal Poly, who is an FCS team. Stanford may not win a lot of games this year, but they at least should be in a lot more games this year and have more competitive losses even if the wins-loss record isn’t great.
Going into the season, my prediction for Stanford’s season was 5-7 and so far, when looking at how other future opponents have performed around the country, I feel like Stanford has a chance to get to five wins though four wins is probably the more realistic outcome. Regardless, they look up to power five level, something that wasn’t evident a year ago after they lost to Sacramento State.
#2. David Bailey is out there hustling: One of the big things coming into this season was what kind of performance would Stanford get from junior outside linebacker David Bailey. His hustle and motor were questioned a lot last season. So far, he’s been playing hard and running to the ball with the kind of aggression that Stanford has been waiting to see. Through two games, he’s looking good. It’s just a matter of him keeping it up.
#3. Elijah Brown is the real McCoy: Granted it was against Cal Poly in the 4th quarter, but true freshman quarterback Elijah Brown looks like the real McCoy. Brown went 7-7 for 97 yards, one touchdown, and zero interceptions. He looked cool as a cucumber (his favorite flavor of Gatorade is Cucumber Lime) and poised. He delivered good zip on his passes and went through all of his progressions really nicely. This doesn’t mean he’s going to take over the starting job from Ashton Daniels, but suffice to say, I think the Cardinal have a good one in Elijah Brown.
#4. Emmet Kenney hasn’t been a drop off from Josh Karty: One major question coming into this season was how good would senior Emmet Kenney be as he goes about replacing field goal kicker Josh Karty, who is now kicking for the Los Angeles Rams. So far anyways, Kenney hasn’t been a drop off from Karty. At least with respect to his field goals. Kenney is 4-4 on his field goals so far this season and 2-2 from kicks in the 40-49 yard range. His long is 45 yards. Whether or not Kenney can keep this up remains to be seen, but so far so good on the field goal kicking.
#5. The offensive line remains a weak point: It hasn’t been all sunshine and positives for Stanford through two games. They have a lot to work on and improve if they want to get to the five win threshold that I think they can reach. If there’s one thing that absolutely needs to improve and remains a weakness, it’s the offensive line. Head coach Troy Taylor mixed things up against Cal Poly by having fifth year veterans Levi Rogers and Connor McLaughlin come off the bench, giving some of the freshmen an opportunity to show what they can do. Stanford was hoping to have a better offensive line this season after last year and so far that hasn’t been the case.
One thing I will say is at some point, Stanford does need to pick a starting five and stick with it. You can’t be constantly rotating offensive linemen in and out. I’m sure Taylor knows this and is trying to jump start the unit. It’s absolutely crucial Stanford gets more out of this unit in the coming weeks.
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