Stanford Head Coach Troy Taylor took over after David Shaw’s resignation following back-to-back 3-9 years. Shaw, who was the offensive coordinator under Jim Harbaugh, led the Cardinal for twelve years over 150 games—three times as many as Harbaugh. Taylor, now in his second year is still waiting to experience a win at home, going 0-7 last year and dropping their opener against TCU this past Saturday 34-27, becoming the only heritage PAC-12 team to lose in Week-1.
It all started out just great with what looks in the game stats like a vintage Stanford 13 play, 89 yard, seven minute drive culminating in a TD pass from starting Junior QB Ashton Daniels to Sophomore WR Jackson Harris to go up 7-0 on their very first possession of the game. A look at the details of that drive reveals that they got a lot of help from TCU including penalties for pass interference, unnecessary roughness, and a face mask which accounted for half the yards gained. The Horned Frogs came right back to tie the score 7-7 and then forced Stanford to punt on their next possession, although they couldn’t capitalize—fumbling the ball on the second play of the drive and leaving Stanford 1st and 10 in the red zone. It took the Cardinal seven plays to get in but they did on a 4th and goal with a 2 yard pass from their wildcat QB Justin Lamson to Sophomore WR Ismael Cisse to go up 14-7. After forcing TCU to turn the ball over on downs Ashton Daniels threw up a pick on the first play of their possession setting the Horned Frogs up with a 1st and 10 at the Cardinal 22 yard line. In spite of an unsportsmanlike penalty on Stanford, the defense kept TCU from getting into the end zone and limited the damage to a 22 field goal and a 14-10 lead with four minutes left in the half. Eight plays later Stanford Place Kicker Emmet Kenny made it 17-10 on a 35 yard field goal of their own. It looked as though the Horned Frogs were going to tie the game right before the break but sitting at 1st and goal from the Cardinal 4 yard line with just 13 seconds left TCU starting QB Josh Hoover fumbled the ball which was recovered by Stanford Senior DL Clay Patterson which left the Cardinal on top 17-10 at the half.
TCU came out after the break to pick up a field goal and a TD in the 3rd Qtr while forcing back-to-back three-and-outs by Stanford to go out in front 20-17 late in the quarter with a chance to go up by another three early in the 4th but missed another field goal from 39 yards out. After trading TD’s on their next respective possessions the Horned Frogs were up 27-24 and stretched the lead even further to 34-24 on a 7 yard TD run by Sophomore RB Cam Cook with less than two minutes left in the game. Eight plays and 48 yards later sitting 4th and 4 at the TCU 27 yard line Kenney connected on another field goal, this one from 45 yards out to give us our final 34-27 score.
For the Horned Frogs, QB Josh Hoover connected on 28-of-42 for 353 yards, 2 TD’s and no interceptions as well as a rushing TD. On the ground, led by RB Cam Cook, TCU rushed 34 times for 104 yards and 2 TD’s with Cook picking up 81 one of those yards on 20 carries as well as the other TD on the ground. For Stanford, QB Ashton Daniels connected 17 times in the air for 163 yards, 1 TD, and 1 pick to go along with 17 rushing attempts and 87 of the Cardinals 121 total yards on the ground with their Wildcat QB Justin Lamson picking up the lone rushing TD.
In spite of all their miscues TCU was still able to come out on top of this one. As the AP put it in their Takeaway on the game for ESPN; “The Horned Frogs overcame a litany of mistakes to come out with the victory. They had 100 yards in penalties, several dropped passes, the two turnovers and a missed field goal. They will have to clean that up if they want to improve on last season’s 5-7 record and get back to their 2022 form when they went to the national title game.” As TCU head coach Sunny Dykes said after the game; “We made some critical, critical mistakes that typically get you beat, so we were fortunate to win.”