Stanford Welcomes USCStanford Welcomes USC
Football

Stanford Welcomes USC

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Stanford Cardinal (1-0 • 0-0 Pac-12)
USC Trojans (1-1 • 0-0 Pac-12)

September 17, 2016 • 5 p.m. PT
Stanford Stadium (50,424) • Stanford, Calif.

Game Notes Depth Chart Live Stats Tickets Gameday Info

TelevisionLive national broadcast on ABC with Joe Tessitore (play-by-play), Todd Blackledge (analyst) and Holly Rowe (sideline).

RadioLive coverage on Stanford's flagship station -- KNBR 1050 AM -- with Scott Reiss '93 (play-by-play), Todd Husak '00 (analyst) and John Platz 84 (sideline). The broadcast begins one hour before kickoff with the Cardinal Tailgate Show and concludes with the postgame Cardinal Locker Room Report. The game can be heard on Stanford student radio -- KZSU 90.1 FM -- and online at kzsulive.stanford.edu. Sirius Satellite Radio (channel 81) and XM Satellite Radio (channel 81) will carry a national broadcast.

PollsStanford (7th - AP, 6th - USA Today) • USC (NR - AP, NR - USA Today)

On the WebGoStanford.com • USCtrojans.com • Pac-12.com • #GoStanford

Notes

  • Stanford will face USC for the third time in less than a calendar year when the programs meet Saturday at Stanford Stadium in a prime-time matchup on ABC. It will be the Pac-12 Conference opener for both teams. The programs' men's water polo teams will face each other at Avery Aquatic Center prior to the gridiron matchup.
  • Stanford is ranked seventh in the AP poll and sixth by USA Today. Since the AP poll debuted in 1936, Stanford and USC have met 78 times. In 52 of those games, at least one of the two teams have been ranked. The series has featured a ranked team every season since 2001.
  • This will be third straight season -- and fourth time in five seasons -- that Stanford opens its conference slate against USC. Save for WWII, the Cardinal has played USC in Stanford Stadium in every even year since 1930. This game marks the seventh in 94 meetings that the rivals have met in September. However, four of the past five showdowns have been played in September.
  • For the first time in the 56-year history of the conference preseason poll, Stanford was chosen the favorite to win the Pac-12 Conference football title. The media poll has correctly selected the conference champion in 29 of 55 previous polls, but only twice in the last nine polls. The Cardinal was not picked to win as much as the Pac-12 North Division in any of its three recent championship seasons (2012, 2013, 2015).
  • Since 2010, Stanford is 48-6 in games played in California (1-0 in 2016, 9-1 in 2015, 7-2 in 2014, 7-2 in 2013, 10-0 in 2012, 7-1 in 2011, 7-0 in 2010). Two of those losses came at the hands of USC (2013, 2014).
  • Stanford has won at least 11 games four times in five seasons under head coach David Shaw. From 1891-2010, the program recorded four 10-win seasons.
  • The Cardinal is 47-6 (.887) at Stanford Stadium since 2008.
  • Under head coach David Shaw, Stanford is 31-4 at Stanford Stadium, 36-9 vs. Pac-12 opponents, 15-3 in September, 42-13 coming off a win, 35-5 vs. unranked opponents, 7-2 coming off a bye week and 8-4 on ABC.
  • The Cardinal returns 48 letterwinners (20 offense, 24 defense, four specialists) and 14 starters (five offense, six defense, three specialists) from last season's Pac-12 championship team that finished 12-2 and won the Rose Bowl Game against Iowa. Only 24.5 percent of this year's Stanford roster is composed of fourth- and fifth-year seniors. Underclassmen make up 75.5 percent of the 2016 roster.
  • Stanford's ongoing streak of seven consecutive winning seasons is the longest in program history since an 11-season streak from 1968-78 under John Ralston, Jack Christiansen and Bill Walsh. The program's longest streak (not including the rugby years) is 13, from 1923-35 under coaches Andrew Kerr, Pop Warner, and Tiny Thornhill.
  • Stanford's 2016 roster includes student-athletes from 29 states, Canada and Austria.
  • Stanford requires students to declare a major before their junior year. Among the team's upperclassmen, 15 majors are represented. Eight Cardinal are engineering majors. Majors among Cardinal student-athletes include: architectural design, biomechanical engineering, civil engineering, communication, computer science, Earth systems, economics, human biology, Japanese, management science and engineering, philosophy, psychology, public policy, science, technology and society, and urban studies.
  • Situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford's student-athletes are afforded the opportunity to experience the latest in cutting-edge technology, as the origins of some of the greatest hi-tech breakthroughs and most dynamic companies can trace their roots back to The Farm.
  • STRIVR Labs co-founder and former Cardinal kicker Derek Belch has created a truly immersive, fully customizable virtual reality experience specifically for football teams. The platform has already changed the way Stanford's student-athletes prepare, and high school, college, and NFL teams are close behind.
  • With the help of the Cardinal football team, a group of Stanford doctors and neuroscientists have been working to quantify the head trauma that players sustain during a game. The researchers developed custom mouth guards equipped with accelerometers and gyrometers that measure linear and rotational acceleration -- essentially, how violently the head gets whipped around during a game. The data from the sensors, which the scientists pull from the mouth guards after games and practices throughout the season, provides critical baseline data of how many jarring hits players typically experience.
  • Temperature-regulation research of Stanford biologists H. Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn led to a device that rapidly cools body temperature and greatly improves exercise recovery. This is the sort of claim you see in spam email subject lines, not in discussions of mammalian thermoregulation. By taking advantage of specialized heat-transfer veins in the palms of hands, "the glove" can rapidly cool athletes' core temperatures -- and dramatically improve exercise recovery and performance.
  • The program partnered with APTUS Sports to maximize athletic and academic development. Prior to the season, each player completed 10 game-like exercises in 30 minutes on a special tablet that assessed how quickly and accurately they learn, react and adjust. APTUS analyzed individual, group and team data, and reported the findings to the coaching staff.
  • In 2012, Stanford became the first college program to use iPad playbooks, saving countless trees, dollars and man-hours.

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