This Saturday night, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (9-2) travel out west to wrap up their regular season against the Stanford Cardinal (4-7). The Irish are coming off of their most dominant victory in the Marcus Freeman era after beating Syracuse 70-7 inside of Notre Dame Stadium on Senior Day. They're riding a nine game win streak and are looking to cap it off with a resounding victory of Stanford.
The Cardinal are sitting at 4-7 on the year and have a tumultuous road to get there. They were riddled with offseason drama, replaced their head coach with Frank Reich, hired a new GM in Andrew Luck and had a host of players hit the portal. Through all of that drama, the Cardinal have only lost one game at home this season. Notre Dame needs to finish strong and they'll have to do it against a long-time rival.
Location: Stanford Stadium (Stanford, CA.)
Date: Saturday - November 29
Time: 10:30 PM ET
TV: ESPN
Line: Notre Dame -32.5; O/U 52.5 (FanDuel)
Let's kick off our preview of this matchup with an overview look at the Stanford Cardinal:
HEAD COACH - Frank Reich
Record at Stanford: 4-7 (1st season)
Reich was hired earlier this past offseason after Stanford elected to let go of former head coach Troy Taylor after some back house issues. Reich has four wins this season as the interim head coach at Stanford, which might be more than some gave them credit for looking at this team in the preseason. I, for one, did not see them beating Florida State or Boston College this season. Still, the Cardinal are struggling in some key areas. They rank 124th in scoring offense, 128th in yards per play, 132nd in sacks allowed and that's just on the offensive side of the ball.
Defensively, they have a scrappy rush defense that ranks No. 25 in the country in yards allowed, 40th in the country in rushing touchdowns allowed and 34th in the country in yards allowed per rush. Unfortunately, their pass defense has been extremely poor this season. They rank 135th in passing yards allowed, 102nd in yards allowed per attempt and 100th in the country in passing touchdowns allowed. Reich and company will have their work cut out for them as they prepare to host one of the hottest teams in the country this Saturday night.
Offensive Coordinator: Nate Byham (1st Season)
Defensive Coordinator: Bobby April (3rd season)
STANFORD 2025 SCHEDULE
STATISTICAL OVERVIEW
STATISTICAL LEADERS
Rushing: RB Micah Ford - 145 att., 643 yards, 4.4 YPC, 4 TD; RB Cole Tabb - 103 att., 413 yards, 4.0 YPC, 3 TD; RB Sedrick Irvin - 31 att., 89 yards, 2.9 YPC, 1 TD
Passing: QB Ben Gulbranson - 148-260, 56.9%, 1,813 yards, 7.0 YPA, 9 TD, 10 INT, 119.2 Rating; QB Elijah Brown - 56-90, 62.2%, 625 yards, 6.9 YPA, 3 TD, 1 INT, 129.3 Rating
Receiving: WR CJ Williams - 58 rec., 735 yards, 12.7 YPC, 6 TD; TE Sam Roush - 45 rec., 472 yards, 10.5 YPC, 2 TD; WR Bryce Farrell - 27 rec., 440 yards, 16.3 YPC, 1 TD; WR Caden High - 33 rec., 380 yards, 11.5 YPC, 1 TD; RB Micah Ford - 11 rec., 119 yards, 10.8 YPC; TE Benji Blackburn - 7 rec., 82 yards, 11.7 YPC 1 TD; WR Myles Libman - 6 rec., 64 yards, 10.7 YPC, 1 TD
Tackles: LB Matt Rose - 97; S Scotty Edwards - 52; LB Jahsiah Galvan - 48; S Jay Green - 37; CB Collin Wright - 33; S Charlie Eckhardt - 33; S Mitch Leigber - 31; LB Tevarua Tafiti - 29; DL Clay Patterson - 28
Tackles For Loss: LB Matt Rose - 8.0; LB Tevarua Tafiti - 7.0; DL Clay Patterson - 5.5; LB Ernest Cooper - 5.0; S Scotty Edwards - 3.5
Interceptions: CB Brandon Nicholson - 2; CB Collin Wright - 1
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