YOU MIGHT SAY Stanford is on a roll.
The Stanford football team takes a five-game winning streak against the Southeastern Conference into its first meeting with Vanderbilt, on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT.
Games against the SEC are so rare that Stanford hasn't had one since 1978, when the Bill Walsh-coached Cardinals, as they were known at the time, rallied from a 22-point second-half deficit to beat heavily-favored Georgia, 25-22, in the Bluebonnet Bowl at Houston's Astrodome.
Against current SEC teams, Stanford is 4-2-1. The most recent of those contests was a 10-7 season-opening loss to Texas A&M at Anaheim Stadium in the 1992 Pigskin Classic, as Walsh began his second stint as Stanford's coach. But the Aggies were in the Southwest Conference then.
Against actual SEC teams, Stanford is 5-1. Three of those contests came in the postseason – a 29-13 loss to Alabama in the 1936 Rose Bowl, a 24-14 victory over LSU in the 1977 Sun Bowl, and the 1978 Bluebonnet Bowl triumph over Georgia. A 7-7 tie against Alabama in the 1928 Rose Bowl was before the SEC was formed in 1932.
Stanford's three regular-season games against SEC teams all were against Tulane, a program that left the conference in 1966. Stanford beat the Green Wave in 1961 (9-7 at Stanford), 1962 (6-3 at Tulane), and 1965 (16-0 at Tulane).
The 1961 Tulane contest was Stanford's only home game against an SEC opponent. However, the Cardinal is scheduled to play host to Vanderbilt in 2027 and 2032 and return to Nashville in 2033 – if the new Pac-12/Big Ten/ACC alliance doesn't change things.
Yes, the sample size is small, but Stanford takes "momentum" into Saturday's game and hopes to extend its undefeated streak against the SEC to 86 years.
Chuck Evans in the last game Stanford played against an SEC team, a 1978 victory over Georgia. Photo by David Madison.
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THE PAC-12 VS. the SEC. A great chance to compare conferences and build some more intersectional credibility. Right?
"I try really hard not to get into all that stuff," said David Shaw, Stanford's Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football. "That's for everybody else out there. What that means for the conference, especially with all that's going on, gives me a mild headache. Whatever people want to say is fine. I just want to be 2-1 after this weekend."
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SCHEDULING VANDERBILT IS all part of a bigger connection among major-college football programs with high academic standards. That's why Stanford has played home-and-home contests (with two at neutral sites) against like-minded schools Duke, Northwestern, Rice, and Wake Forest since 2009.
Though they have much in common, including similar recruiting challenges, Stanford has had the most football success. Why?
"With no disrespect to any of those schools, but we're the best academic institution in that group," Shaw said. "We've been the highest-ranked academic program playing Division I football since as long as I can remember.
"That ability to go in and say, 'Do you want to play Division I college football and get the best education in the world?' That's how we've been able to get a lot of those recruits.
"We're also the only one that truly recruits nationally. Our academic prestige allows us to recruit coast to coast. That leads us to a better pool of talent."
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IN HIS FIRST start, sophomore Tanner McKee completed 16 of 23 passes against USC for 234 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions in a 42-28 victory.
In two games, McKee has a 76 percent completion rate and a robust 171.87 passer rating. The world is beginning to see what McKee, a four-star recruit out of Centennial High in Corona, California, can do.
Among the most impressive aspects of McKee's performance was his ability to release the ball quickly and accurately under pressure.
"Every player has their own personality, especially quarterbacks," Shaw said. "Andrew Luck had that combination of intensity and calm. K.J. Costello was 95 percent intensity. Kevin Hogan also that extreme confidence, just walking in the huddle, always in control. Davis Mills was just calm.
"Tanner McKee … just, let's go! Positive, energetic. If that didn't go well, what do we have next? Just easy-going, calm and positive. Nothing rattled him. Right off the bat, very comfortable, very confident."
McKee has worked with Tavita Pritchard, the Andrew Luck Director of Offense and Kevin M. Hogan Quarterbacks Coach, on throwing a different type of ball to his receivers on different plays – down the field, back shoulder, leading the receiver, over the top, underneath -- to avoid allowing defenders to anticipate throws.
"Those are the things that really showed up in this game," Shaw said. "That was really good to see."
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FROM McKEE:
"If we execute and do our job, I feel like we can beat any defense."
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ON THE TEAM'S improvement from Game 1, a 24-7 loss to Kansas State, to Game 2:
"You definitely get better each game with a little more experience," McKee said. "Kansas State and USC, their styles of defense were completely different, so we took a different approach. But I feel like us as an offense, and me personally, we took a pretty big step. We just need to take same-size step into Week Three and keep progressing."
Austin Jones. Photo by Dave Bernal/ISIphotos.com.
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STANFORD'S VICTORY OVER USC led to the firing of Clay Helton, in his seventh season as the Trojans' head coach. Shaw opened his weekly press conference by paying tribute to Helton.
"Clay Helton deserves a lot of respect," Shaw said. "He shepherded the program through some really difficult times, including last year. Anybody who doesn't live or work in the state California doesn't understand what we all went through with the restrictions and guidelines we all had.
"For Clay to go 5-0 last year, get to the Pac-12 Championship Game, his third in six years … Clay operated the program with a lot of class and earned the respect of fellow coaches. I want to make sure that's understood."
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THE EXCITEMENT OF a dominant performance against a rival needs to be tempered, Shaw told his team.
"There are no trophies for being 1-1," he said. "We played a good game and we're back on the road again (Stanford's seventh consecutive road game dating back to last season). Another long trip. A bunch of distractions. Still COVID concerns with being in another state, another hotel room for two days before we play a game. A lot of things to clean up from a football standpoint.
"Two games into the year, coming off a good win. But we're not where we want to be yet."
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FOR THE FIRST time in their collegiate careers, senior roommates Ricky Miezan and Jacob Mangum-Farrar had extended action side-by-side at inside linebacker in Stanford's 3-4 defense against USC. Each had much of the past two seasons wiped out by injuries.
"They've been dying to play together," Shaw said. "It was a lot of fun for me to see, just because of how hard those two have worked to come back."
Said Miezan, "Jacob's one of my best friends. It definitely was a special night for us to play together. We've been looking forward to it ever since we arrived on campus, when we were on the scout team together as freshmen, just going hard and flying around.
"We couldn't wait for an opportunity, especially against USC. Two years ago, we both walked off the field injured against them. Now, we've come full circle. It was definitely a special night for both of us."
Shaw added that the play of backups Levani Damuni and Tristan Sinclair are just as important at that position.
"We're able to have four guys that we can rotate at inside linebacker and all four are productive and know what to do," Shaw said. "We're going to need all four of these guys the whole season."
The Cardinal defense. Photo by Dave Bernal/ISIphotos.com.
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THE BIGGEST ADJUSTMENT for an inside linebacker in returning to action is reading the play, Miezan said.
"Your eyes have to be clean when you're reading the line and reading if it's a gap scheme, zone scheme, or a pass or run," he said. "Or, if you see a plunger going back across the line, maybe they're running a boot.
"There are so many things we have to look for. It's making sure you're seeing the whole picture. That's one of the things where you really need to knock the rust off."
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MIEZAN CREDITS THE development of his athletic ability to his father's side of the family.
Ricky's grandfather coached Cote d'Ivoire's Olympic kayaking team. And Ricky's father, William, ran on the 4x100-meter relay for the African nation at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, which is what brought him to the United States, where Ricky was born.
"When I was a baby, he would put 14-pound weights in my carrier and walk around the house," said Miezan, who originally committed to play lacrosse at North Carolina before Stanford offered a football scholarship. "He's trained me since I was a little guy. So, he's the reason I'm an athlete."
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IN JUNE, FORMER Stanford football player and track athlete Jason Wingard '95 was named president of Temple University, another notable leader from early 1990s Stanford teams.
The 1991 squad included Shaw and Wingard, as well as 49ers general manager John Lynch. U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) played a season earlier.
"It's just about going to Stanford," Shaw said. "This is just who you're in the locker room with. As you're fighting to beat USC, Notre Dame, and Oregon and go to a Rose Bowl, you're surrounded by people who are going to be well-accomplished. That's just part of going to Stanford that you expect, that everybody around you is destined for success in their sport and out."