Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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32 NOV. 25, 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: STANFORD few remaining unbeaten teams. "It's the play probably a lot of people will remember," Taylor said. "But many more plays in that game and opportu- nities. Not just one play. … Those guys were trying to make a play. It came up a little bit short." That play should send a message to everyone making the flight from South Bend to the Bay Area. Stanford has nothing to lose. If the Cardinal find it- self in a tight game with the Irish late, Taylor will dial up something similar. Anything he can do to get the first mar- quee victory of his tenure. Wins over Hawai'i, Colorado and Washington State are nice and all. A win over Notre Dame, in the final game of the year, would mean something extra. It didn't take long for Shaw to realize that, and it won't take long for Taylor, either. There is also a chance — a pretty good one, no matter what Stanford did against Washington or against Notre Dame just a year ago — that the game will not be close enough for a trick play to matter in the final minutes. Outside of the anomaly of playing the Huskies within a couple scores, Stanford's re- cord against ranked teams in 2023 has been downright putrid. USC beat Stanford 56-10. Oregon won 42-6. UCLA romped to a 42-7 tri- umph. Oregon State showed just how bad Stanford's defense is with a 62-17 thrashing. Anything can happen on any given Saturday in college football, but on more Saturdays than not, Stanford has showed the world who it really is right now. Not a good program. "We didn't play well enough," Tay- 1. The Cardinal Doesn't Lie Down Each Week Stanford entered Week 12 as a 3-7 team, but most expected this season to be worse than that. And while the Cardinal has suffered their fair share of blowout losses — a 56-10 loss to USC, a 42-6 beatdown by Oregon, a 42-7 loss to UCLA and a 62-17 loss to Oregon State stand out — its team can compete in and even win games against significantly more talented teams. No one thought Stanford would have any chance against No. 5 Washington Oct. 28, but they had the ball, down by two points with an opportunity to take the lead late in the fourth quarter. It wasn't like the Cardinal went down big and put together a massive comeback attempt, either — they went strike for strike with the most explosive offense in the country. Two weeks earlier, Stanford did come storming back in a Friday night overtime victory over Colorado, which was 3-2 at the time. The Buffaloes led 29-0, but the Cardinal just didn't quit and emerged with a 46-43 comeback win in double overtime. Palo Alto, Calif., isn't a place in which Notre Dame can just expect to show up, go through the motions and walk out with a win. 2. First-Year Head Coach Took Winding Path To Stanford Job Stanford head coach Troy Taylor coached for a decade, took al- most a decade-long break and has been back in coaching for more than a decade again. Very few, if any, Division I head coaches took a longer path than that. Taylor played quarterback at California, then after a brief NFL career, a year as a high school offensive coordinator and graduate assistant stint at Colorado, he was an assistant back at his alma mater from 1996-2000. Taylor then returned to the high school ranks, where he was the head coach of Folsom (Calif.) High — the school that produced Notre Dame freshman wide receiver Rico Flores Jr. In 2004, Taylor stopped coaching to become Cal's radio color commentator. He did that until 2012, when he went back to Folsom. After subsequent stops as an offensive coordinator at Eastern Washington (where he coached future NFL star Cooper Kupp) and Utah, Taylor finally got a head coaching job at Sac - ramento State, an FCS school, in 2019. Stanford hired him from there in 2023. It's been one heck of a journey from Taylor, and he rarely even left Northern California. 3. This Isn't The Team That Beat Notre Dame Last Season Not by a long shot. Stanford had 18 players transfer out and five others were drafted. Including among the exits were its starting quarterback, two leading receivers, four starters on the offensive line, seven major defensive contributors and an honorable men - tion All-Pac-12 punter. That team, of course, went 3-9. When he took the job, Taylor knew he would be rebuilding from scratch. This is an incredibly young team, as its starting quarterback, leading rusher and top two receivers are sophomores or freshmen. Stanford is about to move to the Atlantic Coast Conference. If it starts recruiting well again, it could be competitive with its East Coast foes sooner than later. — Jack Soble Sophomore wide receiver Elic Ayomanor had 13 receptions for 294 yards and 3 touchdowns to help the Cardinal rally from a 29-0 deficit and knock off Colorado 46-43 in two overtimes Oct. 13. PHOTO COURTESY STANFORD ATHLETICS Three Things To Know About Stanford