Game Preview: Stanford

Last year’s matchup between Notre Dame and Stanford on Nov. 28 in Palo Alto, Calif., held significantly more playoff implications than this year’s installment.

The Oct. 15 game at Notre Dame Stadium was supposed to a clash between two teams fighting for a top-four spot. The Cardinal entered the season No. 8 in the Associated Press poll; the Irish not far behind at No. 10.

But a 44-6 loss at Washington on Sept. 30 sent top-10 Stanford down to No. 15 in the poll.

“Well that was about as poorly as we could play from start to finish and that’s the bottom line,” Stanford coach David Shaw said after the loss to Washington. “I talked to the guys, they understand it, they know it. We did not rise to the challenge. That starts with me. We didn’t do enough to get our guys ready.”

Notre Dame has been the bigger disappointment, losing a heartbreaker to Texas in the opener before back-to-back ugly losses to Michigan State and Duke in Week 3 and 4, respectively. The defeats sent the Irish tumbling out of the national picture, and forced players and coaches to take a game-by-game approach.

Nevertheless, the two rivals enter this week’s game with plenty of questions.

Stanford is coming to terms with its worst loss under Shaw, a result few saw coming. Though the Cardinal faced a difficult early-season schedule — Stanford defeated Kansas State, USC and UCLA to open the season — the nature of the loss was jarring for fans.

“Evaluating the first four games is kind of interesting for Stanford because the record is not unexpected,” said Jacob Rayburn, the publisher of CardinalSportsReport.com. “A lot of Stanford fans would have expected a 3-1 start. It was the nature of the loss that really had a long lasting effect and caused a lot of discussion about Stanford moving forward.

“It was the worst loss for Stanford since 2006. Unfortunately for the Cardinal, there was a lot of 2006 statistical references in that game, which is an era that Stanford fans always wanted to leave behind. That makes it difficult to evaluate Stanford at the moment.”

All-American junior running back Christian McCaffrey ran for 49 yards on 12 carries and caught five passes for 30 yards. It was McCaffrey's fewest yards rushing since 2014 at California when he had 19 yards on three carries.

While the Cardinal have suffered a multitude of injuries early this season. Starting cornerbacks Quenton Meeks and Alijah Holder both missed the Washington game, while fullback Daniel Marx, tight end Greg Taboada and offensive lineman Brandon Fanaika have all been dinged up as well.

Stanford is taking stock of its current situation, while also trying to move past the loss.

“In some ways taking stock in the sense that getting back to what was working, getting back to performing at the level they know they’re capable of,” Rayburn said. “At the same time understanding that bad losses happen sometimes, and the point that I made to some people is that the mark of a great program isn’t that they never have bad losses like that, it’s that they put long stretches of success between those losses.

“Stanford finally had one for the first time in about 10 years. Nothing changes in terms of they did well enough to win three tough games against three tough opponents leading up to that week. It’s just a matter of, especially on the line of scrimmage, reaffirming what they know they can do and brushing up on the technique improvements.”

McCaffrey took college football by storm in 2015, tallying an NCAA record 3,864 all-purpose yards and finishing second to Alabama’s Derrick Henry in the Heisman Trophy voting. It was always going to be difficult to top his stellar sophomore season, though many expected the 6-foot, 200-pound son of former Stanford and NFL wide receiver Ed McCaffrey to impress the nation again.

Through four games, McCaffrey had 485 yards rushing and three touchdowns and 149 yards receiving and one TD.

“Coach Shaw has touched on this is a couple of press conferences, and the word he used was ‘spoiled.’ Everybody got spoiled last season watching a historic season,” Rayburn said. “There was a reason it was called historic, they don’t happen very often. The numbers were never really going to be there to the same degree that they were last year. If for no other reason it’s almost impossible to do, and then adding the fact that there’s three new offensive line starters and several new role players who come in on the extra offensive line packages.”

Stanford’s offense has been slow to get going in 2016. The Cardinal were averaging just 20.3 points per game through four games, which ranked 114th in the country. Despite McCaffrey’s abilities, he hasn’t had the room to run like he did in 2015.

“He’s put together some amazing runs, but the issue has been, and this is another point Shaw has made, he’s having to break three tackles to gain five yards much too often,” Rayburn said. “It seemed like they were trending away from that after rushing for almost 300 yards against USC. Last year he didn’t have to do that, he didn’t have to break three tackles to gain five yards. He still shows his brilliance, it’s just been a struggle in some ways to utilize him in all the ways that they would like because in general the offense has been slow to develop.”

First-year Cardinal starting quarterback Ryan Burns, who took over for veteran Kevin Hogan this season, has had limited effectiveness through the air. Though Stanford is a run-first team, Burns’ stats — completing 63.3 percent of his 79 passes for 546 yards and four TDs through four games — has plenty to do with Stanford’s subpar offensive line, which allowed seven sacks against Washington.

Speedy sophomore running back Bryce Love, who tallied 226 rushing yards, 250 receiving yards and three touchdowns as a freshman in 2015, has been limited with a foot injury. He’s the one player that Rayburn, as well as offensive coordinator Mike Bloomgren, are still waiting to see break out.

“They were just so thrilled in the offseason talking about the idea of Love and McCaffrey on the field at the same time and what that could do to opposing defenses,” Rayburn said. “The fact that that has yet to materialize and they’re still waiting for Bryce to be able to do what they know he’s capable of, and it’s health related, and if he can come back and if he can be what everyone knows he can be on the field, then he provides a significant boost to the offense that could have a dramatic effect result on the field.”

Defensively, it hasn’t been the same dominant Stanford as recent years. The Cardinal were allowing 359.3 yards per game through four weeks (41st nationally). Making sense of the loss to Washington, in which Stanford allowed 6.84 yards per play, is difficult.

“In some ways I’m not sure (Stanford) even knows because it was so unexpected,” Rayburn said.

Facts & Figures

Date: Oct. 15, 2016.

Site: Notre Dame Stadium (80,795)

Kickoff: 7:30 p.m.

Television: NBC.

Radio: This broadcast can be heard live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio (channel 129).

Series Facts: This is the 31st all-time meeting between Notre Dame and Stanford. Notre Dame is 19-11 against the Cardinal.

Coaches: Stanford — David Shaw (57-15, sixth season); Notre Dame — Brian Kelly (57-26, seventh season).

Noting Stanford: The Cardinal have played in 27 bowl games in their history, including 17 appearances in bowls. That includes 15 Rose Bowls (the third-most appearances of any team, behind only USC's 33 appearances and Michigan's 22) … Shaw was a wide receiver at Stanford from 1991-94. He caught 57 passes for 664 yards and scored five touchdowns in his career … Notre Dame is 12-3 all-time at home against Stanford and has won the last two matchups at Notre Dame Stadium.