Doesn’t it feel like just yesterday that Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw had Stanford playing huge Pac-12 games in November?
That was not ancient history, but it feels like it now.
Stanford used to be one of the most physical, consistent, annoying programs in the country. The Cardinal were built from the ground up, had NFL players everywhere, and for a while, it felt like Stanford had become a real national program.
Now?
Stanford is trying to remember what winning looks like.
The Cardinal went 4-8 last season and 3-5 in the ACC. Stanford’s last season with more than four wins was 2018. Technically, Stanford’s last winning season was the shortened 2020 season, when Stanford went 4-2.
That is a long fall.
Now Andrew Luck is back around the program as football general manager, and Tavita Pritchard is the new head coach.
The names make sense.
The rebuild still looks pretty big.
HEAD COACH
- Tavita Pritchard, entering year one as Stanford’s head coach
- Stanford went 4-8 last season.
- The Cardinal have not won more than four games in a season since 2018.
- Pritchard is a former Stanford assistant and former Washington Commanders quarterbacks coach.
- He previously coached running backs, quarterbacks and served as offensive coordinator at Stanford.
I understand the hire.
Tavita Pritchard knows Stanford. He played there, pulled off one of the biggest upsets in college football when he and the Cardinal upset No. 1 ranked USC.
He coached there. He has been around the program in a bunch of different roles, from running backs coach to quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator.
Then he went to the NFL and worked with the Washington Commanders.
So if Stanford wanted someone who understands the school, understands the program and understands what the Cardinal used to be, Pritchard makes sense.
But that does not mean this is easy.
Stanford is not just trying to make one or two tweaks. This is not a team that went 7-5 and needs a couple of portal pieces to jump back into the top 25.
This is a program that has been stuck for years.
The good news is Stanford does have experience coming back. The Cardinal return one of the highest snap-production totals in the country, including a lot on defense and four offensive linemen.
That matters.
But returning production only matters if the returning production is good enough.
That is the big question.
QUARTERBACK
The quarterback room is interesting, but it is not exactly proven.
The name I would expect to start is Davis Warren, the transfer from Michigan.
Warren was 6-3 as Michigan’s starting quarterback in 2024. He threw for 1,199 yards, seven touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Those numbers are not great.
But there is some context.
He played at Michigan. He started big games. He was in serious environments. He was part of a program where the pressure is real every single week.
And let’s be honest: Stanford would take a quarterback going 6-3 as a starter right now in a heartbeat.
That does not mean Warren is the answer. It just means he gives Stanford something it badly needs: an experienced option who has actually been in real games.
Dylan Rizk, the transfer from UCF, and Charlie Mirer are also in the room, but both have limited experience.
So this feels like Warren’s job unless someone takes it from him.
The concern is the ceiling.
I do not know if Warren is going to come in and suddenly make Stanford explosive. He was not that kind of quarterback at Michigan. And Stanford’s offense was so bad last year that it probably needs more than just “stable.”
But stable would be a start.
Because last year, Stanford did not have enough answers anywhere on offense.
If Warren can protect the ball, help the run game function and give Stanford something dependable at quarterback, that may be enough for step one of this rebuild.
THE REST OF THE OFFENSE
The offense was rough last year.
There is really no way around it.
Stanford averaged only 18.8 points per game, which ranked 117th nationally. The Cardinal averaged 306.5 yards per game, which ranked 124th.
That is not just bad.
The run game was especially ugly. Stanford averaged just 2.6 yards per carry and only about 84 rushing yards per game.
That cannot happen again.
The good news is Micah Ford is back.
Ford ran 145 times for 643 yards and four touchdowns last season. He was the one guy who looked like he could carry the ball, and I remember watching the Hawaii game and thinking, “Well, they might just have to hand it to Ford over and over.”
The weird part is they really did not do that enough.
Ford only had 20-plus carries in the first game and the last game. The first game was against Hawaii. The last game was against Cal.
If Stanford wants to be better, Ford probably has to be a bigger part of the offense.
The offensive line gives Stanford a chance to improve there.
The Cardinal bring back Fisher Anderson, Kahlil House, Niki Prongos and Josh Williams up front. That is a lot of experience on the line, and for a team that needs to run the ball better, that is where the optimism starts.
At receiver, Stanford has to replace CJ Williams, who had 59 catches last season and moved on to the NFL.
The transfer to watch is Nico Brown from Yale. He had at least five catches in every game last season, which is impressive no matter the level.
The jump from the Ivy League to the ACC is real.
But Stanford needs somebody who can become reliable quickly, and Brown at least brings production.
The formula for Stanford’s offense should not be complicated.
Run the ball better. Protect Warren. Let Ford be a real feature back. Make the passing game manageable. Do not ask the quarterback to save the whole program in one season.
That is not exciting.
But after last year, functional would be a big step.
DEFENSE
This is where Stanford has a little more to work with.
The Cardinal return a lot on defense, and that is probably the best argument for improvement.
Matt Rose is the name that jumps out. He had 106 tackles and three sacks last season and earned All-ACC recognition. He gives Stanford a real building block at linebacker.
Ernest Cooper and Josiah Galvan are also back at linebacker, and Stanford has experience in the secondary with Scotty Edwards, Jay Green and Brandon Nicholson.
That is a lot of returning experience.
The problem is that Stanford still was not good enough defensively last year.
The Cardinal allowed 29 points per game, which ranked 87th nationally. They allowed 408 yards per game, which ranked 92nd.
That will not get it done in the ACC.
The interesting thing is that teams did not run on Stanford much. Opponents ran on only about 45% of their plays, one of the lower rates in the country.
Some of that may be because Stanford had good linebacker play and was tougher to run against than you might expect.
But some of it is also because opponents knew they could throw.
If teams believe they can beat you through the air, they will keep doing it.
That is why the secondary matters so much.
Stanford has experience back there, but experience has to turn into better results. The Cardinal gave up too many points, too many yards, and opponents converted too many third downs.
The defense does not have to become elite immediately.
But it has to give the offense a chance.
Last year, Stanford’s offense was so limited that the defense almost had to be great for the Cardinal to win.
It was not.
This year, if the offense improves from terrible to decent, the defense just needs to be steady enough to keep games close.
That is a more realistic path.
SCHEDULE
I do not love this schedule for Stanford.
The Cardinal open with Hawaii in Week 0, and that game matters more than people may think. Hawaii should be pretty good, and Stanford needs to start the Pritchard era with some confidence.
Then comes Miami.
That is a huge early test.
The game is at Stanford, which helps. Miami has to fly across the country, and the Hurricanes will be playing their season opener while Stanford will already have a game under its belt.
That is the good news.
The bad news is Miami might be the best team in the ACC and one of the best teams in the country.
Also, Stanford plays that game on one fewer day of rest because it is a Friday night game. So it is not a perfect setup.
After Miami, Stanford gets a bye before traveling to Duke, the defending ACC champion. Then Georgia Tech comes to Palo Alto.
So three of the first four games are at home: Hawaii, Miami and Georgia Tech.
That helps.
But the opponents are not easy.
Then the road stretch starts to get uncomfortable.
Stanford plays back-to-back road games at Wake Forest and Notre Dame. Wake was a nine-win team last year, and Notre Dame expects to contend for a national championship.
That is not fun.
Stanford gets Elon for homecoming on Oct. 17, then hosts NC State on Oct. 23.
After that, the schedule gets brutal.
From Oct. 31 to Nov. 21, Stanford plays three straight road games: at Louisville, at Virginia Tech and at Cal.
There is a bye mixed in, but still.
That is over a month without a home game.
And I really do not love the timing of those games. Louisville could be an ACC contender. By mid-November, James Franklin may have Virginia Tech playing its best football. Then Cal is the rivalry game, and even though it is a short trip compared to Stanford’s other ACC travel, it still comes at the end of a draining stretch.
Then Stanford closes at home against SMU on Nov. 28.
SMU might be the second-best team in the ACC.
So the back half is nasty.
If Stanford is going to flirt with bowl eligibility, it probably has to steal something early.
OUTLOOK
I want to believe Stanford can get back.
College football was better when Stanford was good. Those Harbaugh and Shaw teams had an identity. They were physical. They were smart. They were different. They made you play their game.
This version of Stanford is not there yet.
The Cardinal have pieces. Micah Ford is back. Four offensive linemen return. Davis Warren gives them an experienced quarterback option. Matt Rose is a real player on defense. The secondary has experience. The roster brings back a lot of snaps.
That is the optimistic case.
The concern is everything else.
The offense was one of the worst in the country. The run game was almost nonexistent. The defense gave up too many points and yards. The schedule is difficult. And Stanford is trying to rebuild in a league where the travel alone is a weekly storyline.
The best-case scenario is that Warren stabilizes quarterback, Ford becomes a true feature back, the offensive line makes the run game respectable, and the defense improves enough with all those returning pieces to keep Stanford in games.
If that happens, maybe Stanford can push toward bowl eligibility.
The worst-case scenario is that the offense still cannot score, the run game still cannot move people, the passing game lacks playmakers, and the schedule buries the Cardinal before November.
My gut?
This still feels like a long year.
Not because Pritchard was a bad hire. I actually think the hire makes sense.
But Stanford feels like a program that needs more than one offseason to fix.
The Cardinal may be more competitive. They may look more organized. They may have a clearer identity.
But in the ACC, with this schedule, that may still not be enough.
Stanford is trying to climb back toward relevance.
The hill just looks really steep.
Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.
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