It’s been an up and down season for Stanford football this year, who is 3-3 overall and 2-2 in the Pac-12. Every week it either seems like they’re heading in the wrong direction or they’re starting to turn the corner. On the surface it may seem like there’s no real rhyme or reason to these results. And yet, if you look back on all six of the games they’ve played this year, one constant stands out: The winners of the first half have gone on to win every single time.
In the opening game, Kansas State led 14-0 at halftime and went on to win 24-7. At USC, Stanford was up 21-10 at halftime and went on to win 42-28. At Vanderbilt, Stanford led 27-14 at halftime and went on to win 41-23. In their home opener against UCLA, the Bruins led 21-7 at halftime and went on to win 35-24. Against Oregon, Stanford led 17-7 at halftime and ended up winning 31-24 in overtime. Most recently, at Arizona State, the Sun Devils led 21-7 at halftime and went on to win 28-10.
When asked why his team got off to a better start after the Oregon win, Stanford head coach David Shaw admitted it was somewhat of a mystery to him:
“I wish I knew. I wish I could bottle it up because I would do it every week.”
Obviously, Stanford needs to do some internal soul searching of sorts to get to the bottom of this. Because if they can figure out how to not be down at halftime and get off to better starts, the data indicates that that’ll make a world of difference. So far, it appears to be the biggest factor in their results up to this point. And what’s interesting is that it’s pretty polarizing. Either they’re up big at halftime, or their opponent is up big. There really hasn’t been a close first half all year.
While both the offense and defense needs to do their part to get off to better starts, the defense in particular seems to have had issues getting settled in early. The Arizona State game was a prime example of this. In the first half, Arizona State was running all over the Stanford defense. In the second half, the Sun Devils scored just 7 points. In the Vanderbilt game, both teams were trading touchdowns tied 14-14 with 4:19 to go in the second half before Stanford ended the half on a 13-0 run.
In the Oregon game, it was Gabe Reid’s interception that helped Stanford jump out to that 10-0 lead. That interception set the tone. This bottom line is when the defense is doing their job early, everything else falls into place. When the defense is getting worked early and giving up tons of yards and allowing easy scores, the offense feels more pressure to make big plays to make up for what just happened to the defense.
As Stanford approaches the mid-way point of their season, the biggest thing they have to figure out is how can the defense get off to better starts and not require a first half to figure out the opposing offense. Once they settle in, as we saw against Arizona State, the defense can do a lot of good things and get some big time stops. But if they’re getting themselves into big holes early, a lot of those sound second half plays end up being all for naught.
