• Stanford heads on the road for a Friday night showdown at No. 22/25 Arizona State. Both teams are coming off wins over ranked opponents. Stanford defeated No. 3 Oregon, 31-24, in overtime, while Arizona State won at No. 20 UCLA, 42-23, on Saturday night.
• Stanford and Arizona State meet for the 33rd time on Friday night, but the first time since 2018.The Cardinal has won the last two meetings, and six of the last seven. Stanford is 4-1 against Arizona State under David Shaw.
• Friday night marks Stanford’s third consecutive game against a ranked opponent. The last time Stanford played ranked opponents in three straight games was the last three games of the 2017 season. The last time it happened in the regular season was in 2012 (Nov. 10 vs. #13 Oregon State; Nov. 17 at #1 Oregon; Nov. 24 at #15 UCLA).
• Saturday’s win over No. 3 Oregon was Stanford’s fifth victory over a Top-5 team under David Shaw and its fourth win over a Top-3 team. Shaw, who is in his 11th season, has 29 wins vs. Top 25 opponents, 17 wins over teams in the Top-15 and 11 wins against teams inside the Top 10.
• Since being named the starting quarterback prior to Stanford’s win at No. 14 USC, Tanner McKee is 3-1 has gone first four starts with two victories over Top-15 opponents. McKee has completed 74-of-120 (61.7%) for 975 yards and 10 touchdowns. He has also added two rushing touchdowns, totaling three TDs in each of his first four starts.
• McKee was the fourth-ranked quarterback in the Class of 2018, behind Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields and J.T. Daniels. McKee’s 975 passing yards in his first four career starts is tied with Daniels for the most amongst the Top 4 QBs in the Class of 2018, while his 10 passing touchdowns and 12 total touchdowns are second behind Fields’ 13 passing touchdowns and 19 total touchdowns. In McKee’s first four starts, he faced three ranked teams, going 2-1 in those contests. By comparison, Lawrence played just one ranked opponent (1-0), Fields none and Daniels two (0-2).