On Friday at 7:30 PM PT on ESPN, KZSU, and KNBR 1050 AM, Stanford football will welcome the TCU Horned Frogs to The Farm for their season opener. Stanford has been working hard in fall camp and is eager to show that they are better than they were a season ago in which they finished the season 3-9.
READ: Stanford Depth Chart: TCU
READ: Stanford looks ahead to TCU
On TCU: The Horned Frogs are coached by Sonny Dykes, who used to coach at Cal. During his tenure in Berkeley, the Golden Bears never won a Big Game, which also means that Dykes has never defeated Stanford as a head coach home or away.
Of course, Dykes is returning to The Farm under very different circumstances than when he was at Cal. The Horned Frogs are two years removed from a season in which they went 13-2 overall, losing in the national championship game and after a rough 5-7 season last year, they are eager to get back to being an elite team.
The starting quarterback for the Horned Frogs is redshirt sophomore Josh Hoover. Hoover threw for 2,206 yards, 15 touchdowns, and nine interceptions last season in 10 games. He completed 62.1% of his passes and looks to build on the solid season he had last year.
The top two receiving targets for Hoover are senior wide receivers Savion Williams and JP Richardson. Williams is coming off a season in which he had 41 receptions for 573 yards and four touchdowns while Richardson had 46 receptions for 536 yards and three touchdowns. The top receiving target from last year, tight end Jared Wiley, was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in the fourth round of the NFL draft. Williams and Richardson have big shoes to fill.
As for the run game, the Horned Frogs also lost their top running back from last year as Emani Bailey signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent. Bailey rushed for over 1,000 yards last year. The running back who is listed atop the depth chart for this year, sophomore Cam Cook, rushed for 58 yards last season while the number two running back senior Trey Sanders rushed for 176 yards and six touchdowns.
On defense, the Horned Frogs are led by senior linebacker Namdi Obiazor, who totaled 84 tackles (48 solo) last season including 6.0 tackles for loss and 4.0 sacks. He’s by far and away the top returning tackler on the team. As for the top returning ball hawk, junior free safety Bud Clark had a team-high three interceptions last season along with 33 total tackles (21 solo).
As a team, the Horned Frogs averaged 31.3 points per game while giving up 27.8 points per game. Sonny Dykes is an offensive oriented coach that loves to put up points while also giving up a good amount of points as well. His inability to field an even remotely competent defense was a major reason why he failed to have much success at Cal. But during those years, boy did he have some explosive offenses.
Overall, TCU looks to be a solid team. There are a lot of unknowns. Especially in the run game. If they are to have a bounce back season from last year, they’re going to need some guys to step up who previously had more of a backseat role.
Keys to the game: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is win the turnover battle. Whoever is playing quarterback for Stanford, whether it be Ashton Daniels, Justin Lamson, or Elijah Brown needs to make sure they are taking care of the ball and making smart reads. If Stanford is able to take care of the ball and not commit any silly turnovers all while forcing some turnovers on defense, they should win this game.
Secondly, Stanford needs to play well against the pass. TCU is going to look to make plays with their passing game as their run game is a lot more unproven. If Stanford defends the pass well and forces TCU to rely more on their run game, Stanford should be in a good spot to win the game. The entire Stanford secondary is going to have to really do their thing.
Third, Stanford needs to be active in the pass rush. That’s supposed to be a major strength of this Cardinal defense. If Stanford is able to get after the quarterback and not allow Josh Hoover to be comfortable, I like their chances to pull this one out.
Finally, if this game does indeed come down to the last few possessions, Stanford needs to make plays in crunch time. Last year, there were some games that Stanford nearly won but lost due to not making plays when they really needed to. Third down conversions are a big part of that on both offense and defense. If Stanford can convert their third downs and play with confidence down the stretch, they should be feeling good.
Prediction: Given they are at a home, I’ll give Stanford the nod and say the win this game 31-28. I think it’ll be a high action game with lots of scoring. These week one games are always tough to predict and can go either direction but tend to favor the home teams a bit.
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