1. We have the Axe! That was a season-defining win we will long remember. Indeed, I am hard-pressed to think of many games that change the entire complexion of a season like this one. Andrew Luck came into this season with a bold goal for a bowl despite our challenges and a less bold goal of a Big Game win to end our drought. The first unsurprisingly did not come to pass but Luck and Reich led this team in a way all season that built to as much of a "one game season" result as you can get. We will have a bad record this year, but thanks to yesterday's win we can view 2025 as a step in the right direction. We will end with our first post-pandemic four win season, the winningest season of the last five. We have the Axe for the first time since 2020, something Luck has put outsized importance on and quite plainly served as a catalyzing and unifying source of motivation for our players, who played with an intensity I wish we could bottle up every game. As somebody who fundamentally views 2025 as a punt of a season waiting for the next era of Stanford football to really start, I wasn't expecting to put great stock in individual games or even breaking the three win season streak if it meant only four wins. Now that it's happened, I can't deny that it feels like a catharsis and step in the right direction that validates the unusual Frank Reich interim arrangement and Luck's approach to this season. We won the one game season.
2. We will see where the algorithms place us when the dust settles in January (and will mostly have the picture by this time next week) but right now this looks like a successful season given where we started in terms of talent and coaching. Going into the year, I thought a top 80 team would be a good result showing very clear progress, and most to the point be good in light of coaching turmoil, a mostly minor league coaching staff, and a roster that lost its top playmakers. I thought it was possible Reich could do it but I would not have bet on Stanford arguably not even being in the bottom ten of Power Four teams. At least as of now, that's what Sagarin thinks. Sagarin #74 currently puts this team ahead of four ACC teams (including Cal) and six other power conference teams. This would put us on par with the 2019 Sagarin #73 team as the best full season Stanford team during our long seven year bowl drought. We have had scoreboard results this season befitting #85, #86, #63, #152, #152, #94, #27, #132, #98, #85, #20. In short, this is a team that we thought should be viewed as the caliber of teams in the 80s but just put an exclamation point on the season that gives the season a much better flavor than the team we saw against Hawaii, BYU, and North Carolina (what I would call our typical performances).
3. Big Game was our best game of the season as judged by scoreboard outcome relative to opponent, PFF grades, and of course vibes and fun. The story of the game was the complete momentum shifting two defensive touchdowns. This will always be the scoop and score game, remembered by Stanford fans and even nationally to some extent for the iconic Luck sideline interview celebration. A perfect encapsulation of the energy he is trying to bring the program. Nonetheless, I want it understood that we had a yard advantage in yards per play. This was not a game we won only because of fumbles - and regardless a defense that comes in with intensity and physicality gets credit when it does create turnovers, even if the fumble category is more luck-dependent. This joined the Boston College game as really the only games we've outplayed an opponent in that yards per play sense. That should be understood and celebrated. As we all saw with our own eyes, the defense gets the bulk of the credit. PFF as of now has it as our best single game grade on defense since 2015. That's a long time! The offense did some good things too, and in particular I want to acknowledge our best team pass blocking grade of any game this season. It was big for our chances in this one to only give up one sack. The other thing that was fun and really goes without saying is that whooping Cal in a demoralizing second half is a lot of fun for a Stanford fan. I am not used to having to do the garbage time calculation for games we win. In this one we enjoyed ten minutes of garbage time as the Williams touchdown put the game out of reach.
4. The offense was subpar but the defense was more good than the offense was bad, hence the statistical and scoring delta between the teams. The offense scored 1.89 points per non-garbage drive, making the #48 points per drive defense look like #35. The defense allowed 1.0 points per non-garbage drive, making the #86 points per drive offense look like #135. The offense had the eighth most yards per play of the 11 teams on Cal's weak (#64) schedule. The defense was the only team to hold Cal's offense under four yards per play in the last 35 games, going back to the early season 2023 Cal-Auburn game. Special teams was a terrible weakness for us but even that plus the offense's mediocre play was easily outweighed by how good the defense was.
5. The standout stat for the defense is giving up 12 yards rushing on less than half a yard per carry. Twelve. Half a yard. The April defense had two games that accomplished that in 2023 but it's been a minute. The novelty of it slightly off realizing that Virginia did the same thing to Cal two games ago but being the second most stifling run defense a team plays in a season is a great thing. The pass defense was also very good, a complete defensive performance that makes my heart sing. Yesterday was the best defensive yards per attempt we've had since Shaw was coaching and the best defensive passer rating in a bit over two years. We were top four of Cal opponents in pass defense (top three in yards per attemp and top four in passer rating). We also got to JKS, with five sacks our most in a game since...last year's Big Game. I am eager for FEI's algorithm to update as going into the game it already thought we had the #58 defense and obviously our best defensive game in years will make that go up. The defense looks like it will end up as kind of poor man's Teevens era defense, a group that is competent and would be understood to be much better if it didn't have to play hamstrung by such weak offense.
6. The offense was subpar but with our team being only a bit subpar on that side of the ball is what we need to let the defense give us a chance. Cal has a good pass defense so as bad as 123 yards passing sounds it was actually a middling performance by our passing game compared to Cal opponents (again, albeit a bad schedule for Cal0. We were just under Cal's season average in yards per attempt allowed (six teams did better, four worse) and just over their season average in passer rating allowed (five teams did better, five worse). On the ground, other than Boston College yesterday was our most effective run game of the year and subjectively it was fun to watch Ford do his thing and impose our will up front. However, Cal had a lot to say about that and I wouldn't say our run game performance was impressive. In the last two months only North Carolina has been less effective on the ground than we were. The reality is that Cal can't stop the run and we just took advantage of that rather than distinguishing ourselves.
2. We will see where the algorithms place us when the dust settles in January (and will mostly have the picture by this time next week) but right now this looks like a successful season given where we started in terms of talent and coaching. Going into the year, I thought a top 80 team would be a good result showing very clear progress, and most to the point be good in light of coaching turmoil, a mostly minor league coaching staff, and a roster that lost its top playmakers. I thought it was possible Reich could do it but I would not have bet on Stanford arguably not even being in the bottom ten of Power Four teams. At least as of now, that's what Sagarin thinks. Sagarin #74 currently puts this team ahead of four ACC teams (including Cal) and six other power conference teams. This would put us on par with the 2019 Sagarin #73 team as the best full season Stanford team during our long seven year bowl drought. We have had scoreboard results this season befitting #85, #86, #63, #152, #152, #94, #27, #132, #98, #85, #20. In short, this is a team that we thought should be viewed as the caliber of teams in the 80s but just put an exclamation point on the season that gives the season a much better flavor than the team we saw against Hawaii, BYU, and North Carolina (what I would call our typical performances).
3. Big Game was our best game of the season as judged by scoreboard outcome relative to opponent, PFF grades, and of course vibes and fun. The story of the game was the complete momentum shifting two defensive touchdowns. This will always be the scoop and score game, remembered by Stanford fans and even nationally to some extent for the iconic Luck sideline interview celebration. A perfect encapsulation of the energy he is trying to bring the program. Nonetheless, I want it understood that we had a yard advantage in yards per play. This was not a game we won only because of fumbles - and regardless a defense that comes in with intensity and physicality gets credit when it does create turnovers, even if the fumble category is more luck-dependent. This joined the Boston College game as really the only games we've outplayed an opponent in that yards per play sense. That should be understood and celebrated. As we all saw with our own eyes, the defense gets the bulk of the credit. PFF as of now has it as our best single game grade on defense since 2015. That's a long time! The offense did some good things too, and in particular I want to acknowledge our best team pass blocking grade of any game this season. It was big for our chances in this one to only give up one sack. The other thing that was fun and really goes without saying is that whooping Cal in a demoralizing second half is a lot of fun for a Stanford fan. I am not used to having to do the garbage time calculation for games we win. In this one we enjoyed ten minutes of garbage time as the Williams touchdown put the game out of reach.
4. The offense was subpar but the defense was more good than the offense was bad, hence the statistical and scoring delta between the teams. The offense scored 1.89 points per non-garbage drive, making the #48 points per drive defense look like #35. The defense allowed 1.0 points per non-garbage drive, making the #86 points per drive offense look like #135. The offense had the eighth most yards per play of the 11 teams on Cal's weak (#64) schedule. The defense was the only team to hold Cal's offense under four yards per play in the last 35 games, going back to the early season 2023 Cal-Auburn game. Special teams was a terrible weakness for us but even that plus the offense's mediocre play was easily outweighed by how good the defense was.
5. The standout stat for the defense is giving up 12 yards rushing on less than half a yard per carry. Twelve. Half a yard. The April defense had two games that accomplished that in 2023 but it's been a minute. The novelty of it slightly off realizing that Virginia did the same thing to Cal two games ago but being the second most stifling run defense a team plays in a season is a great thing. The pass defense was also very good, a complete defensive performance that makes my heart sing. Yesterday was the best defensive yards per attempt we've had since Shaw was coaching and the best defensive passer rating in a bit over two years. We were top four of Cal opponents in pass defense (top three in yards per attemp and top four in passer rating). We also got to JKS, with five sacks our most in a game since...last year's Big Game. I am eager for FEI's algorithm to update as going into the game it already thought we had the #58 defense and obviously our best defensive game in years will make that go up. The defense looks like it will end up as kind of poor man's Teevens era defense, a group that is competent and would be understood to be much better if it didn't have to play hamstrung by such weak offense.
6. The offense was subpar but with our team being only a bit subpar on that side of the ball is what we need to let the defense give us a chance. Cal has a good pass defense so as bad as 123 yards passing sounds it was actually a middling performance by our passing game compared to Cal opponents (again, albeit a bad schedule for Cal0. We were just under Cal's season average in yards per attempt allowed (six teams did better, four worse) and just over their season average in passer rating allowed (five teams did better, five worse). On the ground, other than Boston College yesterday was our most effective run game of the year and subjectively it was fun to watch Ford do his thing and impose our will up front. However, Cal had a lot to say about that and I wouldn't say our run game performance was impressive. In the last two months only North Carolina has been less effective on the ground than we were. The reality is that Cal can't stop the run and we just took advantage of that rather than distinguishing ourselves.
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