Notre Dame vs. Stanford: True examples of student athletes
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Correspondent
Notre Dame and Stanford are as good as it gets when talking about successful football programs that graduate their players.
Saturday’s meeting between the Irish and Cardinal will mark the first time that schools ranked in the top 20 in the Associated Press football poll and on the U.S. News and World Report list of the top university in the country will meet on the gridiron.
Notre Dame boasts a No. 7 ranking in football and is rated 17th in U.S. News and World Report. Stanford’s football team is 17th and its school is seventh.
Furthermore, the Irish rank first in the FBS with a 97 percent graduation rate among athletes, while the Cardinal are 10th with a graduation rate of 87 percent. Notre Dame and Stanford are currently the only two ranked football teams that rank in the top 10 in graduation rate.
Notre Dame is a great school and Stanford’s a great school, so it’s a huge testament to both programs that they’re accomplishing good things on and off the field, said Irish receiver TJ Jones, who originally committed to Stanford in 2009. There’s a lot of smart guys on our team, and there’s going to be a lot of smart guys on Stanford’s team. It’s a good matchup.
It’s matchup that will come to fruition when the two teams collide at 3:39 p.m. tomorrow in Notre Dame Stadium.
Notre Dame will put its sparkling 5-0 record up against Stanford’s 4-1 mark, which includes an impressive 21-14 victory over then-No. 2 USC, its fourth straight win in the series, on Sept. 15.
The Cardinal come into the game following a thrilling 54-48 overtime victory against Arizona at home last Saturday.
Stanford features a team with plenty of star power as it has more NFL-caliber ready players than any team the Irish have faced this season.
The marquee player on offense is stud senior running back Stepfan Taylor, a Doak Walker Award candidate and one of the most prolific runners in Stanford history.
The second-team All-Pac-12 selection a year ago is averaging 112 yards rushing per game, good for 15th-best in the country.
Taylor is Stanford’s third-leading rusher in the school history with 3,325 yards. He is also third in rushing touchdowns with 32, including five this season.
Taylor needs 197 yards to catch Toby Gerhart on Stanford’s career rushing list. Gerhart is currently in second place on that list.
Taylor is an outstanding back, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. He’s a physical player. You can see he’s the heart of their football team and one of their captains.
Paving the way for Taylor is an offensive line that returned just two starters from a year ago. The headliners up front are right tackle Cameron Fleming and left tackle David Yankey, who can play left guard, too.
Fleming and Yankey and their line mates have helped Stanford average 154.8 yards rushing per game, including a season-high 257 against Arizona last week.
Handing the ball off to Taylor is senior quarterback Josh Nunes, the reigning Pac-12 Offensive Player-of-the-Week after he engineered a 14-point comeback in the fourth quarter against Arizona. In that game, Nunes threw for 360 yards and accounted for five touchdowns.
Nunes, who replaced the No. 1 pick in last spring’s NFL Draft Andrew Luck, is completing 54.1 percent of his passes this fall (86-of-159). Nunes has already thrown for 1,145 yards with eight touchdown passes and four interceptions.
Nunes won’t have one of his top receiver to throw to as Ty Montgomery, who had six catches for 77 yards in Stanford’s 28-14 win over Notre Dame last season, is likely out due to a knee injury.
If Montgomery is unable to go as expected, Stanford may lean heavily on a couple of stellar tight ends. Levine Toilolo is on the Mackey Award watch list and is massive. He’s listed at 6-foot-8, 265 pounds. Zach Ertz is the other tight end. He leads the team with 21 catches on the year for 316 yards with a couple of touchdown receptions.
Kelly knows Toilolo and Ertz present matchup problems for his defense.
Stanford also likes to use Taylor in the passing game. He’s third on the team with 15 receptions this season.
Defensively, the Cardinal will present quite the challenge to the Irish. It’s a defense that is loaded with talent, particularly at the linebacker position where many of its standouts will be playing on Sundays in the future.
One of those backers is junior Trent Murphy, who is listed in the depth chart as 6-6, 261 pounds. He has 23 tackles on the year with 5.5 going for losses, two sacks and an interception.
Flanking Murphy on the other side, is fifth-year senior Chase Thomas, a team captain. He leads the team in tackles with 31 tackles, including six for losses, 2.5 sacks and one interception.
The outside linebackers are difficult to block, they’re active, Kelly said. Murphy and Thomas are outstanding players and they have caused havoc with so many teams, not just this year but last year as well.
It’s because of that strong linebacking corps and stout defensive line that Stanford ranks sixth in the nation in run defense, allowing just 77.2 yards via the ground per game.
The Cardinal D also excels in tackles for loss where it ranks fourth among the 120 FBS schools, registering 8.6 per outing.
Where Stanford appears to be susceptible on defense is against the pass. It allows 302.4 yards through the air per game, but that’s slightly deceiving for a couple of reasons. First, teams have such difficulty running the ball against Stanford that they opt to go to the air with much more frequency than they normally would. Second, the Cardinal have faced several pass-happy offenses in their first five games this season.
Stanford may give up a lot of passing yards, but it really gets after opposing quarterbacks. Through five games, the Cardinal have 15 sacks.
Notre Dame also has to be leery of Stanford’s special teams, particularly its punt return unit. The Cardinal has the sixth-best punt return team in the nation, averaging a whopping 20 yards per run back because of Drew Terrell, who has 140 yard on seven returns including a 76-yard touchdown run.
Stanford’s kickoff coverage unit is also very good, leading the Pac-12 with a net average of 46.6 yards.
My Take
This is a very dangerous Stanford team. If you didn’t know that by now, take a look at how it not only beat USC earlier this season, but pretty much shut down the Trojans’ high-powered offense, holding them to just 14 points and a mere 26 yards rushing.
The Cardinal are more than capable of upsetting the Irish, who likely will struggle as much as any time this season moving the ball on offense.
This game has all the makings of a big-time defensive struggle, especially if Mother Nature acts up as expected. The weather is supposed to be lousy. Showers and thunderstorms are likely and winds could be 20 to 30 miles per hour.
Whoever runs the ball more effectively and takes care of the ball will come out on top.
I like the Irish, but just barely and mainly because they’re at home. Expect this to easily be Notre Dame’s toughest test to date.
Notre Dame 20, Stanford 17
ND Nuggets
– Stanford has owned Notre Dame recently, winning the last three meetings in the series.
Overall, the Irish lead their series against the Cardinal, 17-9, including 10-3 at Notre Dame Stadium.
– Notre Dame has not allowed a rushing touchdown this season. The last time the Irish began a season without permitting a rushing touchdown in five straight games to start a season was 1989.
– The Cardinal lead the Pac-12 in turnover margin with 11 takeaways and six giveaways.
– Irish defensive end Stephon Tuitt is tied for seventh in the nation in sacks per game, averaging 1.2 per contest.
– Notre Dame is the only team in the nation that has yet to trail. It’s the first time a Notre Dame team has not trailed in any of its first five games of a season since the 1947 national championship team accomplished the feat.
– The Irish have not allowed a touchdown in three straight games and has allowed just three all season, the fewest in the nation.
The current three-game streak of having not allowed a TD is the longest by an Irish defense since 1980.
Follow Doug Griffiths on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ISLgriffiths.
