It took head coach Troy Taylor, now in his 2nd year after replacing David Shaw, 14 games with the Cardinal but he finally got his first home win this past Saturday in a blow-out against Cal Poly, 41-7. Everything got thrown into the win except the kitchen sink. On top of 4 TD’s and PAT’s there was a blocked field goal attempt, a successful fake punt, two field goals, and one punt return for TD by Sophomore WR Tiger Bachmeier which was, according to the AP in their recap for ESPN, “Stanford’s first punt return for touchdown since Christian McCaffrey’s in the 2016 Rose Bowl.”
After a rough start—fumbling on their first possession of the game and then being held to a three-and-out on the second—the Cardinal finally got seven points up on the board at the end of a 78 yard, 8 play, drive on a 5 yard TD pass to Junior WR Mudia Reuben from fellow Junior QB Ashton Daniels. Cal Poly came right back to tie the score on their next possession at the end of a 75 yard, 6 play, drive and 22 yard TD pass from Senior WR Michael Briscoe to Junior TE Jake Woods. The Cardinal would take the lead again right before the half on a Justin Lamson 2 yard rush into the end zone at the end of a six play 73 yard drive to go up 14-7 at the break.
A whole different Cardinal team came out onto the field after the break putting up 27 points starting with a punt returned for TD while holding the Mustangs scoreless the rest of the way. Stanford would score on their next four consecutive possessions including 2 TD’s and 2 field goals to get their first win as a new member of the ACC. Ashton Daniels had an efficient and productive game connecting on over 80% of his passes for 221 yards, 2 TD’s, and no interceptions while also rushing 9 times for 31 yards. Add in the 7-for-7 performance and another TD by back-up QB Freshman Elijah Brown and the two QB’s were a collective 26-of-30 for 318 yards and three scores to three different receivers. On the ground, Stanford rushed 32 times for 119 yards and the TD by Lamson mentioned above.
One area of the Cardinal game that was a surprise to me was that after giving up over 163 yards per game rushing last year Cal Poly was only able to manage 25 yards on 20 rushing attempts. I was impressed and excited for a minute until I looked at the Mustangs first game of the year and saw that against San Diego State they were only able to rush 8 yards—is that even possible. I mean a QB under center could just fall forward a few times and come up with more than that, right? So, even though the Cardinal held TCU to just 104 yards in Week-1, I’m going to reserve judgement for a few more games. After a bye week, Stanford starts their conference schedule on the road against Syracuse.