STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — After three straight nine-loss seasons, Stanford has far bigger concerns headed into coach Troy Taylor’s second season on The Farm than the new opponents and increased travel that come with the move to the ACC.
The Cardinal are trying to get back to the form that made them one of the top teams on the West Coast for a decade under Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw.
“Where we’re playing and who we’re playing, all those things are kind of secondary to our process and our preparation, what we do day in and day out,” Taylor said. “That’s how we live. Obviously, you got to travel across the country a couple times, three times to be exact. Our guys will adapt. There’s been harder things to overcome.”
The Cardinal haven’t overcome much the past three seasons as they have finished 3-9 each year, with only UMass and Akron losing more games than the 27 for Stanford among all FBS teams in that span.
It wasn’t always that way at Stanford, which prided itself on its style of “intellectual brutality” during a 10-year run when the Cardinal never won fewer than eight games in a season and were tied for the sixth-most wins in FBS from 2009-18.
Taylor hopes having players experienced in his system and having more depth after playing with only 75 scholarship players in 2023 will help the Cardinal take a big step forward this season.
“I think knowing what they’re doing, the comfort level and the confidence,” he said of the difference this season. “When you’re first getting used to each other and you’re just trying to figure out exactly what you want, how to do it, and I think they got a great feel for that.”
The Cardinal had a three-way quarterback competition last summer that ultimately went to Ashton Daniels. Daniels heads into this season as the starter after throwing for 2,248 yards and 11 TDs last season when he started nine games.
“Ashton just has comfort level in the offense, consistency,” Taylor said. “You can see him going through his progression and moving in the pocket and sticks with it after just doing it for a year and a half.”
If Daniels falters, four-star recruit Elijah Brown could step in if needed. But whoever plays quarterback will need better play from an offensive line that was often overmatched last season when the Cardinal allowed 41 sacks.
The breakout star for Stanford last season was Canadian receiver Elic Ayomanor. He had 13 catches for 294 yards and three TDs in a comeback win against Colorado. He finished the season with 62 catches for 1,013 yards, including 100-yard games against national runner-up Washington and Oregon State.
He did that in his first season playing college football and looks to build on that this year.
“I think my own confidence in my ability to do stuff, my coach’s confidence in my ability to do stuff, allowed more of the onus to be put on myself to make plays in games,” he said. “When those opportunities came, I did my best to capture them.”
If the Cardinal are going to have any success this season, they will need to make a big improvement defensively. Stanford ranked 132nd out of 133 teams in FBS last season in points per game allowed with 37.7 and 126th in yards per play allowed at 6.57.
They are hoping for a boost from defensive lineman Clay Patterson, a rare transfer for the Cardinal who was a two-time All-Ivy League performer.
The move to the ACC will lighten the competition for the Cardinal, who played six games against ranked teams last year, including three against top 10 teams. Stanford lost all six of those games, getting outscored by at least 33 points in five of them.
The Cardinal face only three teams ranked in the preseason poll with trips to No. 14 Clemson in September, No. 7 Notre Dame in October and No. 24 North Carolina State in November.
In all, Stanford makes three trips to the Eastern time zone, including back-to-back weeks in September against Syracuse and Clemson.
The Cardinal open the season at home against TCU on Aug. 30.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
