[CTcard]

It's hard to judge this team because of the two performances against the Washington teams. The other four games are consistent with a top-20 team that's OK on the road and good at home -- which would lead you to believe that Stanford should be a solid favorite. On the other hand it's hard to erase two massive blowouts from your memory. Just hard to know for sure. I feel the four wins are more consistent with the team's actual level but I have no real idea.

Agree that judging Stanford is a bit tricky. There's the two hideous games, there's the fact that to date Stanford has played one of the toughest schedules in the country (#1 per Sagarin), and the strong disparity between offense/defense from both us and our opponents.

So, we have already played the top 3, 5 of top 6 and top 8 defenses we will play this year according to S&P+ (which I don't love but it doesn't seem terrible, and FEI seems to be unavailable at the moment).
The worst defense by this measure we have played is WSU.
The best defense we have yet to play is Colorado (#34 vs #31 $C and #39 und).

However, we have yet to see the (S&P) top offense we will face, 2 of top 3, 4 of top 6.
The best offense we have faced is UW (duh), but they also list und at #53, UCLA #56, KSU #60 - not atrocious but not cream of the crop either.

Simply by opponent strength one might think we'll feel a little better about the offense and less good about the defense going forward - let's see what actual performance turns out to be.

I would notice one surprise to me. The book on und so far was supposedly capable offense but terrible defense. S&P rates those units as offense #53 and defense #53. Not so clear that view was correct.

[CTcard]

It's hard to judge this team because of the two performances against the Washington teams. The other four games are consistent with a top-20 team that's OK on the road and good at home -- which would lead you to believe that Stanford should be a solid favorite. On the other hand it's hard to erase two massive blowouts from your memory. Just hard to know for sure. I feel the four wins are more consistent with the team's actual level but I have no real idea.

Agree that judging Stanford is a bit tricky. There's the two hideous games, there's the fact that to date Stanford has played one of the toughest schedules in the country (#1 per Sagarin), and the strong disparity between offense/defense from both us and our opponents.

So, we have already played the top 3, 5 of top 6 and top 8 defenses we will play this year according to S&P+ (which I don't love but it doesn't seem terrible, and FEI seems to be unavailable at the moment).
The worst defense by this measure we have played is WSU.
The best defense we have yet to play is Colorado (#34 vs #31 $C and #39 und).

However, we have yet to see the (S&P) top offense we will face, 2 of top 3, 4 of top 6.
The best offense we have faced is UW (duh), but they also list und at #53, UCLA #56, KSU #60 - not atrocious but not cream of the crop either.

Simply by opponent strength one might think we'll feel a little better about the offense and less good about the defense going forward - let's see what actual performance turns out to be.

I would notice one surprise to me. The book on und so far was supposedly capable offense but terrible defense. S&P rates those units as offense #53 and defense #53. Not so clear that view was correct.