Well, We continue moving up the coast to the northern half of the Pac 10. The logical place to start is with the other central California team, the Stanford Cardinal.

There has been a fairly significant amount of hype surrounding this Stanford team, but unfortunately for them, it is only hype and it is for all the wrong reasons.

After a series of dismal seasons Stanford finally chooses to make a coaching change, so they bring in NFL veteran, Jim Harbaugh. This sounds like a great move, right? Well, in the immortal words of Lee Corso, "Not so fast, my friends".

Of all of the things Harbaugh needs to do in order to rebuild a once solid football tradition, what does he do first? This idiot decides to incite Jim Carroll and insult the entire USC Football program by stating publicly that they are over-rated, and has been for years. he added that he believes his team can compete with them. Can you say 63-0 next season?

The truth is that beyond this moron, Stanford has a host of challenges and unless Harbaugh is the second coming as a head coach, they are almost certainly destined to be in the Pac 10 cellar, as they will not even have as much on the field talent as last years last place Pac 10 team. Remember UW's offense two years ago? This Stanford team has significantly less offensive talent. How does that sum it up?

Simply put, Stanford lost their only NFL quality player, in Trent Edwards. and has almost no experienced talented players on the field.

They seem to be so bad that their rosters have not been updated to reflect the 2007 season ON THEIR OWN WEB SITE! Therefore, I deeply apologize if there are holes in my research.

Not much to analyze here, but quickly, at Quarterback, they will likely start TC Ostander. TC was an exceptional quarterback in highschool, but now, it is unclear whether he has graduated or is still there, as he is listed as a fifth year senior (who has never been redshirted). Therefore, to be honest, I'm just not sure. If he's not there, it will be an unproven Tavita Pritchard at the QB helm.

Assuming the rest of the information I obtained is accurate, at running back they will be showcasing Toby Gerhart, who is a relatively immobile running back but at 229 pounds, is a bit of a load to get down.

At wide receiver, the good news is that Stanford will be returning two of their top three receivers. The bad news is that neither of them had much success in 2006. Richard Sherman, Stanford's top returning receiver, had only 34 receptions for 580 yards and 3 touchdowns, while on the other side, Kelton Lynn had just 19 receptions for 250 yards and 2 touchdowns. Hardly what I would call intimidating.

The logical thing to assume here is that with no quality wide receivers, they must have had a solid tight end, right? Well, not really. Jim Dray will be returning at Tight End, but he only had 19 receptions himself, so he is hardly a receiver you need to game plan around.

Last years offensive line for stanford was the absoluite worst I have ever seen for a Pac 10 team, making a quality, NFL -type Quarterback like Trent Edwards look like a JV quarterback, and they don't appear that they will fare much better in 2007. The only alluring aspect of their line is that they have beefed up a bit by moving Gustav Rydsted (6'3" 300 pounds) from defense to offense, bringing their average on the offensive line up near 290 Pounds, and they do have one excellent offensive tackle, Allen Smith. Smith could be a darkhorse for All Pac-10 honors in 2007, but with the huge and talented offensive lines of Cal, ASU, USC, Washington, and others, even that would seem like a longshot.

So what do they have going for them? What about their kicker? He must be great, right? well, in 2006 Aaron Zagory was 13 for 15 in PAT's and 8 for 13 in FG attempts, so maybe not.

Basically, it comes down to this... Stanford is ripe for a bowl bid, if their defense is strong enough to hold opponents to between 3 and 7 points a game... Frankly, I can't see this offense average more than 10. I just hope that whoever lands the starting quarterback job has good insurance.


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