2 hours ago
KartyFan dateline='[url=tel:1791090908' Wrote: 1791090908[/url]']
The timing of this post will likely bring out some strong reactions...
With five games under our belts, I thought this would be a good time to reflect on how Stanford is faring so far with Tavita and Andrew at the helm.
First, some grounding. I am judging the Pritchard/Luck era based on what Luck inherited when he was hired in November 2024. I believe this was a terrible situation: poor talent, a coach with anger issues, and a Stanford administration that prior to Levin showed little interest in supporting Stanford Football. I am not comparing the state of the program to what I wish it were or what it was 15 years ago.
I believe Stanford should adapt to the times while staying true to itself and preserve some semblance of the term “student athlete.” So in assessing our potential outcomes to date, I've discarded the idea that we could have gotten 35 transfers from the portal and fielded a 9-3 team this year. It will take time to get back to respectability.
I also recognize that it's way too early to draw any real conclusions. But message boards would be pretty boring if we all waited a few years to judge a coach.
Pre-Pritchard Era
Luck has been GM for two seasons, having been introduced at the end of November 2024. I am going to assume Luck did not have enough time to make much of a difference in our recruiting and transfer portal management in the 2024-2025 cycle and haven’t bothered to go back and look at those results.
In the offseason, the Troy Taylor issue surfaced, which one could argue he fumbled a bit before making the right call letting Taylor go. I believe the Frank Reich hire was the absolute best option, giving Stanford legitimacy at the coaching position while Luck searched for a permanent solution. 4-8 was a reasonable result considering the circumstances. And hey, we won the Big Game.
Pritchard Era
Tavita Pritchard was announced as head coach at the end of the 2025 season. My assessment will be purely based on results so far. I don’t think it is possible for someone without a football background or inside knowledge of the options we had to judge the hire before seeing results.
Grades are Stanford grades :) – a B is meeting expectations considering the circumstances inherited.
Portal: A-
As I’ve said before, by far the biggest positive I have seen in the new era is retention in the 2025-2026 offseason. We lost 10 players to the portal (per On3), and the only one we seem to really be missing right now is OT Emeka Ugorji (a big one, don’t get me wrong).
Conversely, of our six incoming transfers, two have been key players: Davis Warren (!) and Nico Brown. Aidan Kilstrom was a starting OL before unfortunately getting hurt. I think we have to say unequivocally that our team gained more than it lost in the transfer portal. Think about that: we are better off due to the transfer portal in a year where our head coach changed!
Recruiting: B-
Our recruiting class (per On3) ranked 39th in the country and 9th (dead middle) in the ACC. Compare to Harbaugh’s first year, where we ranked 56th and last in the Pac-10 (RIP). Is it where we want to be? No. But not bad considering how little time Pritchard had in the seat. I’d be thrilled to be the 39th best team in the country next year.
2027 recruiting doesn't look all that encouraging, which brings my grade from B to B-.
Now onto the season.
Win-loss record (2-3): B+
Remember, this is relative to preseason expectations. Stanford’s over/under was a 3.5 wins. While the Wake Forest result makes it feel unlikely we will ever win another game, Elon + 1 more win is more likely than not. Again, nobody aspires to be 4-8, but we have to be realistic about what is possible.
So far, we have won two tossup games (you would expect us to win one of two on average) and have gotten completely destroyed in two games where we were significant underdogs but winning should not have been out of the question. We were also destroyed by Miami, as expected, and will likely get destroyed again by ND.
All that said, I consider us half a game ahead of expectations so far this year.
Offense: B+
We have shown flashes of competence against bad teams, with stretches of Hawaii and Georgia Tech games downright encouraging. Warren is very good if not under intense pressure, and we have at least four WRs who can get open (but only two who can catch consistently). I didn't think we would see a game with 398 passing yards this year.
The OL is the glaring problem, again. We seem to be able to pass protect against bad teams and run against nobody. We’re going nowhere if that doesn’t change.
Running backs look good on the rare occasion they have space.
It feels like our offensive scheme/playcalling is maximizing the talent we have. We get open, and we are putting Davis Warren in a position to succeed when our OL isn’t getting manhandled. I would give our playcalling and scheme an A- grade.
Defense: C-
The strength of 2025 is the weakness of 2026. Seems like some of our better players in 2025 (Galvan, Green, etc.) have regressed this year, which is really concerning. I wonder how their PFF scores compare so far year-to-year. Add on recent injuries (see below), and this has to be a serious concern for Tavita.
Special Teams: C+
Punting: OK
Kickoff return: bad
Kickoff coverage: feels like the other team is about to break one most of the time
Field goals: low sample size but looks shaky
Injuries: D-
I don’t know what it is, but this continues to kill us. Our makeshift offensive line is our biggest issue, and we have like seven injured DBs and are missing maybe our two best linebackers. When you aren’t a very good team to start with, playing your second team isn’t going to work. We have to figure something out here. The most frustrating part is that we start the season already heavily injured.
A few other notes
How great (and thank goodness) that we finished the two games where we were competitive. Hawaii stormed back to take the lead, and we scored when we had to and got a turnover to ice it. Georgia Tech led by 10 at the half, and we took it to them with 24 unanswered points. This positive experience will come in handy if we can get into a couple more tight games this year.
I am perplexed by how much worse we are against good teams. Of course, good teams make you look bad. But we’ve had three games as 2+ score underdogs and have looked like 40-point underdogs against all of them. Miami I understand – the other two are concerning and frankly embarrassing results you don’t want to post as you try to turn around a program. That said, we got destroyed by ASU in 2007 the week before USC.
Looking forward
I think it is really important to get to four wins this year to maintain/build on the momentum of the 2025-2026 offseason. It is also important to be competitive in more games. Players don’t want to get run off the field in games. We need some tangible evidence of progress, or at least potential. A five win season, while unlikely at this stage, would be a tremendous success. Sad to say that, but true.
I believe we will learn a lot about this new era in the upcoming offseason. Another top 40 recruiting class, good player retention, and a few key portal snags (another QB?) would show that players are buying into this leadership. In the meantime, I hope we have some fun games to watch this year and snag 2-3 more wins. And Beat Cal.
Nailed it! Thanks for a dispassionate, thoughtful assessment. I particularly appreciate an analysis with objective success measurements. My number one take away is your emphasis on our inability to retain the quality linemen we have recruited and to attract high talent transfers for the offensive line. The traditional way of building one takes two or three years. We are not making progress… unless the injury bug is concealing it.
Is there a solution other than a significant, focused NIL infusion ? If we don’t address the O Line issue , we will,find it very hard to attract or keep quality QBs and RBs.
Thanks again