Notre Dame Opponent Preview | Stanford
David Shaw seemed like the perfect fit at Stanford. A former player and assistant, he took over as head coach in 2011 after Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL. The transition couldn’t have gone better with him winning 34 games in his first three years and though they slipped a bit in the next five years, he ended year eight averaging 10 wins a season and winning 76% of his games.
It all fell off a cliff from there.
He won only 14 games in his final four seasons and lost 28 of them. Many thought he would be a lifer at Stanford. Instead he walked away before they were forced to fire him.
Enter Troy Taylor, a former offensive coordinator at Utah before becoming the head coach at Sacramento State. He went 30-8 there over the last three seasons.
He’s going to be the offensive coordinator and will modernize the Stanford offense by being a lot more adaptable to the talent. He played two quarterbacks at Sac State, one a dual-threat and the other more of a pocket passer, and they had success with both.
Bobby April III is the defensive coordinator. He was previously at Wisconsin coaching outside linebackers and worked with Jim Leonhard. It’s a fair expectation that he’ll bring a similar approach to Stanford with a group that wants to create plenty of havoc.
They upgraded the staff and making these changes were absolutely necessary, but Taylor is inheriting one of the most depleted rosters in the country. Without much help coming from the transfer portal, this is a rebuilding situation that won’t be fixed quickly.
According to SP+, they are only favored in one game all season and that’s against Hawaii in week one.
Post-Spring SP+ Ranking
They are ranked 95th overall, 115th on offense and 66th on defense.
The only Power 5 program ranked lower than them after the spring is Colorado.
Key losses
QB Tanner McKee is off to the NFL and he was a good player in a situation that wasn’t ideal. They would have been in a lot of trouble without him last season. Considering they were in trouble with him, that kind of says it all.
WR Michael Wilson and WR Elijah Higgins were bright spots for them at receiver and both were drafted. Their top three receivers are gone.
CB Kyu Blu Kelly was an NFL talent at corner who had a down season, but they aren’t loaded with NFL caliber corners ready to step in. He had 19 Havoc plays the last two seasons.
S Kendall Williamson was also drafted and they lost all of their top safeties, including Jonathan McGill, who transferred to SMU. The four projected starters in the secondary this fall played less than 400 snaps combined and 297 are from one player.
They lost four starting O-linemen in the portal and six of top eight are no longer with the program. This is pretty close to a Notre Dame 2007 scenario up front.
They lost their leading tackler to Utah in the portal as well as two other linebackers who transferred. They also lost their best pass rusher, edge Stephen Herron, in the portal to Louisville.
They had 17 players transfer out since November. Those kinds of losses at a place where they can’t just add in ready-to-go talent is crushing. It’s happened to them two years in a row.
Key additions
They added two Ivy league offensive linemen, guard Trevor Mayberry (Penn) and tackle Alec Bank (Harvard). Mayberrry was a two-year starter at tackle, but will play inside for Stanford. Bank is the projected starter at left tackle for them, but it’s quite a step down from previous starter Walter Rouse (Oklahoma).
LB Gaethan Bernadel had over 100 tackles at FIU last season and is going to start at one inside linebacker spot for them.
They do have a couple of true freshmen who are expected to play immediately in WR Tiger Bachmeier and CB Jshawn Frausto-Ramos. They were both 4-star prospects.
Bachmeier was a rare Stanford early-enrollee and with the lack of depth at the position, he could end up starting for them at some point this fall.
Top returners and returning production
They are 129th in returning production, 129th on offense and 128th on defense.
Welp. Shaw did not leave the cupboard full.
Their leading returning passer threw for 65 yards. They have five starters back on offense and defense combined.
RB EJ Smith is technically not one of them, but they desperately need him to help spark the running game. He tore his knee early in the season, but was averaging 6.87 yards per carry before his injury. He’s the son of NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith.
TE Benjamin Yurosek is the John Carlson of their team where he is clearly the best returning skill player. He’s a threat after the catch and will play in the NFL.
WR John Humphrey is the leading receiver returning (29 catches). He’s that typical tall Stanford receiver (6-5) and has potential to be that go-to contested catch target for them (10 of 17 in those situations in 2021), but he struggled with 50/50 balls bringing in only two of nine in 2022.
Edge David Bailey is the best returning player on defense by a wide margin. He had a terrific true freshman season with 10.5 Havoc play and he should thrive working with April who did a great job with similar players at Wisconsin.
He could be a game wrecker type for them, but also might receive a lot of double teams unless they develop someone else opposite of him.
One big question
Just how bad are they going to be?
The answer might be much worse than they have been in the last few years. The roster had issues before, but they still had enough talent to hang with most teams. Unless they get a ton of surprises from within the roster, that doesn’t appear to be the case for them in 2023.
Taylor engineered a quick turn around at Sac State, but this is a different beast with challenges that will be much more difficult to overcome by simply being coached better.
There’s a chance they might be frisky by the time they get to the end of season when they host the Irish. There’s also a chance that they have a couple of key injuries and this season will all be about getting to the next one.
How they’ve recruited
Here’s the biggest problem that Taylor has to deal with. Stanford’s recruiting has dipped considerably over the last four cycles.
They are at 21.3% blue-chip ratio compared to 43.2% the previous four years. They were doing that and developing a lot of 3-stars into quality players and that hasn’t been happening as of late.
Only one of the 10 fifth-year blue-chips from the 2019 class are still on the roster and this team could have had a much better chance at a quicker turnaround if they didn’t lose 11 fifth-year players who will be playing for other Power 5 programs this fall.
It’s not going to be about signing 5-stars for Stanford. It’s going to be about finding players who can develop into good college football players who want to stick around like they did when Shaw had things rolling in the right direction.
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