Bay Area Sports Blog

FOUR BOLD PREDICTIONS

Bold Prediction: Andrew Luck will throw for more touchdowns as a freshman than Steve Stenstrom.

Over-under on the number of punny headlines involving Luck this season: 326. If we’re lucky, it’ll be the under. The son of an NFL quarterback is the first freshman to win the starting job in training camp since future “Hard Knocks” star Chad Hutchinson in 1996. Trent Edwards and Kyle Matter each played as freshmen, but neither generated quite the buzz that Luck has this fall. The hype is largely a product of his dazzling performance in the Spring Game, when he torched his teammates on the defensive side of the ball for five touchdowns.  Stenstrom, Stanford’s all-time leader in passing yards, threw 15 touchdowns and was sixth nationally in passing efficiency as a freshman in 1991 despite nearly wetting his pants when he met Bill Walsh and entering camp as the third QB on the depth chart behind John Lynch (maybe you’ve heard of him) and Jason Palumbis. Lynch converted to safety, while Palumbis was injured early in the season. Stenstrom, who, like Luck, played his high school football in Texas, helped guide the Cardinal to a berth in the Aloha Bowl after the Cardinal started the season 1-3. Should Luck falter, the Cardinal offense will be in the capable, but less explosive, hands of Tavita Pritchard.

Bold Prediction: Toby Gerhart will lead the Pac-10 in rushing touchdowns.

Jahvid Best, Jacquizz Rodgers, and LeGarrette Blount could make this prediction look downright silly in a hurry, but that’s why this is a bold prediction and not an italics prediction, okay? Part of the reason that Stenstrom was so successful as a freshman was that he had Tommy Vardell and Glyn Milburn in the backfield. Touchdown Tommy scored a team-record 20 touchdowns in 1991 and Luck won’t have any problem handing the ball off to Gerhart and watching him take aim at that mark. While Luck is expected to provide a boost to a passing offense that struggled at times last season, the Cardinal will only go so far as their locomotive from Norco can take them. Gerhart broke Vardell’s single-season rushing record last season and had four multi-TD games.

Bold Prediction: Television announcers will reference Jim Harbaugh’s spiffy new bathroom more than Stanford’s iffy new slogan, “We Work.”

Captain Comeback’s swanky stalls could provide a lot of fodder for the broadcasters lucky enough to call Stanford games this season. Who doesn’t like a little toilet humor, right? “Jim Harbaugh will have a lot of time to think about what went wrong in this game while cleaning off in his golden shower. I should clarify — the shower head is gold-plated.” Or, “Jim Harbaugh would like to flush this one from memory and move ahead to next week. At $50,000, his toilet just might be up to the task.” Or, “At Stanford, $50,000 buys a nice bathroom. At Oklahoma, $50,000 buys at least two nice receivers.” Advance kudos to the announcer who manages to work both into a single sentence. “Stanford’s slogan this year is ‘We Work’ — as janitors for Jim Harbaugh’s personal bathroom.”

Bold Prediction: Stanford will go bowling this season.

And we don’t mean at the Palo Alto Bowl on El Camino, though you should check out Thirsty Thursday if you’re in town. It’ll probably mean winning a game that they’re not favored to win, but the schedule sets up nicely for the Cardinal to get to six wins and qualify for the postseason for the first time since the Seattle Bowl in 2001. After opening the season with Pac-10 patsy Washington State, Stanford travels to Winston-Salem for a very winnable game at Wake Forest. After that, they return home for games against San Jose State and Washington. Hello, 4-0? It’s feasible that Stanford could enter the last game of the season against Notre Dame already bowl eligible. More likely, their postseason fate will hinge on whether they beat the Irish at home. We say they will.

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By Scott on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 pm.
Tags: Stanford Cardinal