Differences in style for Cal, Stanford
staying power.
Wilcox and his new offensive coordinator, Beau Baldwin — who ran a high-powered offense as a successful head coach at Eastern Washington — aren’t making any new-look promises. But the Bears’ approach will be different, and unless you prefer the video-game thing, that’s very refreshing.
There will be times when the quarterback actually takes snaps under center, and when running backs take handoffs at the line of scrimmage instead of 5 yards deep in a shotgun alignment. Seasoned Cal fans are likely to embrace a more hard-nosed look to the attack, instead of plays run at a breakneck pace while the defense spends far too much time on the field.
If there’s a bit of uncertainty to Stanford’s offense, it revolves around quarterback Keller Chryst and his recovery from ACL knee surgery. All seems well so far, and although Chryst finished last season with a six-game winning streak, much of it came against lesser opposition.
Scan any of the preseason previews, and you won’t see Chryst’s name alongside USC’s Sam Darnold, UCLA’s Josh Rosen, Washington State’s Luke Falk, Washington’s Jake Browning and Oregon’s Justin Herbert, collectively representing perhaps the deepest conference for excellent quarterbacks in the country.
For all the talk about Darnold and Rosen in the South division, “the craziest thing for me is that there’s a guy at Washington State throwing for more yards than any of them,” said Cardinal coach David Shaw. “We’ve got three guys in the conference that are head and shoulders above anybody else in the nation, with a chance to be special on the next level. I’m surprised Falk came back” for his senior year.
Does Chryst feel overlooked by the media forecasts? “Absolutely not,” he said at practice last week, after being named one of the team’s captains. “I don’t really care what anybody else thinks. Rankings, preseason talk, that doesn’t matter at all to me. It’s all about the guys on this team and getting ready for the season.”
It’s hard to imagine Stanford being “slighted” in any way, but another popular forecast has USC and Washington headed for a showdown in the Pac-12 championship game. “I’m completely fine with that,” said Shaw. Given that the Cardinal were routed by Washington last season, while USC’s seasonending streak climaxed with a sensational Rose Bowl victory, “we haven’t earned the right to be in that conversation. We played pretty well at the end of the year, won our last six games. But we didn’t play to the level of Washington or USC. I think we’re right where we should be in the conversation, and that’s pretty good. We will improve.”
It’s shaping up as a delightfully edgy season for Stanford. For all of the plaudits cast upon USC, Stanford has won seven of the past nine meetings, temporarily derailing the Trojans’ 2016 season with a 27-10 victory (pre-Darnold) in the second week. Then there’s the contrast between Chryst, with his calm and measured outlook, and UCLA’s Rosen, who finds himself having to overcome his cocky demeanor.
This goes back to Rosen’s high school years, when he described Stanford as his “dream school” but left a negative impression at a summertime Stanford camp. “I can come off as arrogant,” he admitted at the time. “Sometimes I’m too confident for my own good.”
This month, Rosen caused a stir by telling reporters, “Football and school don’t go together. Trying to do both is like having two full-time jobs. There are guys who have no business being in school, but they’re here because this is the path to the NFL.”
That really struck a nerve with Shaw, who runs the nation’s most admirable program for the combination of talent and graduation levels. “Talking to a lot of guys around the nation, there are guys graduating everywhere,” Shaw said. “Some are graduating in three years, and there are plenty of examples of guys playing at a high level and not just staying eligible but exceeding in academics. So I think that’s an unfortunate comment.”
And to think: The USC and UCLA games are the first on Stanford’s Pac-12 schedule. Plenty of intrigue lies beyond, including road games at Utah and Washington State, Notre Dame coming to Stanford Stadium, and, of course, the Big Game. Sounds as if it won’t be terribly “big” this season, but one thing’s for certain: It won’t lack the element of contrast.
“Rankings, preseason talk, that doesn’t matter at all to me. It’s all about the guys on this team and getting ready for the season.” Keller Chryst, Stanford quarterback