On Saturday at 4:00 PM PT on ACCNX, KZSU radio, and KNBR 1050 AM radio, Stanford football will take on the Cal Poly Mustangs at home. Stanford comes in at 0-1 while Cal Poly comes in at 0-1.
READ: Stanford eager to show growth against Cal Poly
Last time out: Stanford fell to TCU at home last week by a final score of 34-27.
RECAP: Stanford sputters in second half against TCU
On Cal Poly: The Mustangs are coming off a disappointing 27-21 loss to San Diego on the road in their week one game. As an FCS school, Stanford is the lone FBS school Cal Poly will face all year, so you know they’re going to be fired up.
Last season, Cal Poly went 3-8 overall and 1-7 in the Big Sky. In their lone FBS game at San Jose State, they lost 59-3. For an FCS program, they are not very good. Cal Poly quarterback Bo Kelly went 21-35 for 226 yards, one touchdown, and three interceptions in their loss to San Diego. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Kian Salehi had five receptions for 62 yards while redshirt senior wide receiver Giancarlo Woods had six receptions for 56 yards and one touchdown. The biggest issue they had were those three interceptions. Had they taken better care of the ball, they likely would have defeated San Diego.
At least last week, Cal Poly was very much a passing team as they threw for 286 yards while only rushing for eight yards. They also had 43 passing attempts while only having 18 rushing attempts. That’s throwing the ball over 70 percent of the time.
The top defensive player last week for the Mustangs was graduate student linebacker Judaea Moon, who had 11 total tackles (8 solo). As a team, the Mustangs had five tackles for loss, four of which were quarterback sacks. They did a decent job of putting pressure on San Diego.
Keys to the game: The first thing Stanford needs to do is jump out to an early and quick lead. If they can be up 14-0 at the end of the 1st quarter, any belief that Cal Poly had coming in will evaporate pretty quickly. If on the other hand Stanford gets off to a slow start and allows Cal Poly to hang around a bit, then maybe the Mustangs will start to get some belief and that’s the last thing Stanford wants them to have.
The second thing Stanford needs to do is play a clean game. Don’t commit silly penalties, take care of the ball, etc. This is a game where Stanford just needs to hope they win comfortably without anyone of importance getting hurt. Don’t try too hard. Just go out there and execute. If Stanford does that, they should be fine.
Finally, Stanford should look to force some turnovers after the way Cal Poly struggled last week to take care of the ball. If Stanford forces multiple turnovers via interception or forced fumble, they should cruise to a win. It’s as simple as that.
Prediction: Give me Stanford in a dominating 55-0 route. Getting a shutout should be the goal for the Cardinal defense and I think they’ll be eager to get that accomplished while the offense puts up a lot of points. Given that Cal Poly is terrible, this game won’t tell us a lot about Stanford, but it’ll at least be a fun day on The Farm and the first home win at Stanford Stadium since their 15-14 win over Arizona State in 2022.
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