With the final regular season game of 2014 in the books, it’s time to reflect on Stanford’s year. Back in August, I optimistically predicted that the Cardinal would go 10-2 or 9-3, with losses to Oregon (check!), UCLA (nope!), and either USC, Washington, or Notre Dame (two of three, ugh!). I also predicted that the keys to success this season would come down to four factors: a healthy wide receiver corps, a stingy defense, a great offensive line, and Kevin Hogan making plays with his hands and feet. When the sun set on this season, Stanford had two of these pretty well covered, but the areas where they were lacking provided a pretty clear explanation for why they didn’t win 2-3 more games, as they were more than capable of doing:
2014 Stanford Football Post-mortem
- A healthy group of wide receivers, specifically Ty Montgomery:
Not that this was anything Stanford could control, but this was something to watch out for. While Montgomery was ruled out for the UCLA game with a shoulder injury and Devon Cajuste missed some time due to a concussion, the receiving corps remained pretty healthy throughout the year.
- A defense that comes to play week after week:
Considering what Stanford lost on defense after last year (Shayne Skov, Trent Murphy, Ben Gardner, Derek Mason, etc.), this group of young men played remarkably well. It took seven games for them to give up more than 17 points, and they allowed the second fewest points in the FBS overall.
- An offensive line that jells early on:
Here’s where we start to go off the tracks. Replacing four starters on an offensive line that has been so crucial to Stanford’s success in the past few years proved to be a more difficult task than anyone on the Cardinal coaching staff anticipated. This had a serious impact on the quarterback and the running game, as Kevin Hogan has already been sacked 21 times this season compared to 14 in 2013, and the Cardinal hasn’t had a 100-yard rusher all year. The latter is particularly hard to digest for anyone who has watched this team play in the past 6 years. Though it took longer than anyone would have liked, the O-Line looked better in the Big Game, and they followed up that performance with an excellent showing during the upset of UCLA. While Stanford will need to find a replacement for Andrus Peat next year, I hope what we saw in the last two games is a preview of what this group can accomplish next year.
- Efficient quarterback play:
The way Kevin Hogan played this season was inconsistent at best. While his completion percentage was up from last year, his quarterback rating and passer rating were both down. Outside of Hogan’s own skill set, decision-making, and development, there were a number of things working against him this year: baffling play calling, the aforementioned inexperienced offensive line, and lack of a dominant running game. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what was off about Hogan this year, but he just wasn’t the same guy we’ve seen the past two seasons. Some people say he’ll return to Stanford next year, and some say he’ll go to the NFL. I’m honestly not sure what he’ll do, but if he returns, I sure the hope the guys we saw play against UCLA on Friday afternoon shows up. That guy is great.
A final regular season record of 7-5 seems pretty good considering how things could have turned out two weeks ago (a loss to Cal, a loss to UCLA, no bowl eligibility), but it isn’t what the Stanford players, staff, and fans have come to expect. The most frustrating part: this team, as poorly as they played sometimes, lost three games by a total of nine points. That’s hard to swallow because it tells me that they were capable of being a 9-3 or 10-2 team. But for now, the Stanford will have to be content with a bowl game, and the extra practices that will afford their developing players.
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