[needle]

Yeah, 4-8 seems reasonable. We beat Hawaii, Sac State, and two of the three among Kal, Colorado, and Arizona.
Perhaps we lose one of those and beat somebody we aren't supposed to, like ND last year.
Is that being optimistic? Who knows? Hopefully one of the QB's will emerge to be effective.

I'm not exactly picking Stanford to lose to Hawaii or Sac State, but whether or not that happens is going to be irrelevant to how I judge 2023 as a fan. Those two games are early in the season and have enough weird things about them (Hawaii will be playing its second game and Stanford is travelling very far; Sac State obviously is going to be tremendously motivated to beat their old coach) that there could very well be some flukey things that happen. As of July 24, Stanford is a 9.5 point favorite to beat Hawaii, fwiw.

Also, I will never forget that Alabama's coach Saban lost at home to Louisiana-Monroe in his first season. So, a first-year coach at any program going through a major rebuild can very much lose a game against lesser talent but still have things turn out OK in future years.

For Stanford, I want to see a.) at least one conference victory b.) a defense that is far from last in the Pac when it comes to stopping the run c.) pretty good QB play.

[needle]

Yeah, 4-8 seems reasonable. We beat Hawaii, Sac State, and two of the three among Kal, Colorado, and Arizona.
Perhaps we lose one of those and beat somebody we aren't supposed to, like ND last year.
Is that being optimistic? Who knows? Hopefully one of the QB's will emerge to be effective.

I'm not exactly picking Stanford to lose to Hawaii or Sac State, but whether or not that happens is going to be irrelevant to how I judge 2023 as a fan. Those two games are early in the season and have enough weird things about them (Hawaii will be playing its second game and Stanford is travelling very far; Sac State obviously is going to be tremendously motivated to beat their old coach) that there could very well be some flukey things that happen. As of July 24, Stanford is a 9.5 point favorite to beat Hawaii, fwiw.

Also, I will never forget that Alabama's coach Saban lost at home to Louisiana-Monroe in his first season. So, a first-year coach at any program going through a major rebuild can very much lose a game against lesser talent but still have things turn out OK in future years.

For Stanford, I want to see a.) at least one conference victory b.) a defense that is far from last in the Pac when it comes to stopping the run c.) pretty good QB play.