Stanford football faces Louisville on the road this week, eager for a third straight victory. A win means the Cardinal will secure its most wins in a season since 2018. Head coach Tavita Pritchard held his weekly media availability on Tuesday, giving his thoughts about how things currently stand through eight games.

Here are the top takeaways from the press conference.

Stanford's offense struggled to consistently move the ball earlier in the season, combining for just 10 total points between the Wake Forest and Notre Dame games. But over the last two weeks back at home, things have completely flipped, with the unit scoring at least 30 points in back-to-back weeks.

Pritchard and his staff installed a new scheme when they were hired during the offseason, and it looks like the players are finally getting the hang of it.

"You've heard me talk a lot about just stay in the space of constant improvement and showing up and being our best every single day," Pritchard said. "And I think you're seeing the fruits of that. You're seeing consistent improvement on all fronts. Us as coaches continuing to find ways to teach our scheme, teach our techniques, and help our players continuously improve.

"And then you're seeing our players put it into practice and go out there and work on those skills in practice, and then execute them on game day."

Pritchard also mentioned that he's noticed more examples of clean runs the past two weeks, which means "guys going to the right guys [and putting] hats on hats." The goal for this week will be to continue to execute at a high level. 

There is still a lot of football left and tough games, but if the program can continue its ascent on the offensive side of the ball, it will give teams trouble and could find itself bowl eligible for the first time in eight seasons. They just need to reach six wins first. 

Winning is the goal every week, and at 4-4, the Cardinal are a win away from their highest win total since 2018. As the wins come, the team is seeing several members of the roster play their best football.

Quarterback Davis Warren has 1,933 passing yards and is within striking distance of 3,000 yards while running back Micah Ford has 679 rushing yards and is well within reach of 1,000 yards.

Stanford has not had a player reach either of those milestones in nearly a decade, and if Warren and Ford can meet those marks, it will be a major accomplishment for them and the program. But it also shows how far the program has come and how Pritchard has managed to change the culture.

"When you think about statistics like that, generally they point to signs of hopefully improvement in scoring points and winning games, and so I think as long as those stats continue to coincide with that, that's where my focus will be," Pritchard said.

He also noted that the stats themselves are not a focal point, but as long as they're going up while wins are being tallied, he's all for it. 

"But, we do look for markers of what it looks like to create a winning culture and a winning process. It does go back to more of the consistency of practice and how that's showing up. Those show up in numbers for the outside world, for us, it's much more qualitative when looking at the film."

The Cardinal are on the road for three of their final four games, making their path to a bowl game even tougher. But if players like Warren and Ford can keep playing at a high level, who knows how many wins this team is capable of.

Wins are the only thing that matters at the end of the day, but when you look back at each game, the path to a win can still have some flaws.

For Stanford, one issue last week was going for it on 4-and-20 from the Wolfpack 34 and failing to convert. But Pritchard took accountability for the struggles in that department against NC State, acknowledging that some of his play calls did not fit the situation.

Luckily, a coach like Pritchard knows how to move forward, continuing to evolve in his first year, and fix those mistakes before they become a serious issue.

"In that game [against NC State], obviously we had the fourth and goal. We had the early fourth and one. We had the one where we kicked later on, we had the fourth and 20. That was a bad call by me," Pritchard said. "Clearly a stupid call that will go differently next time.

"It takes an immense amount of buy-in from our guys and our staff of just like what our philosophy is and what are those spaces that we're going to be aggressive and go for it on fourth down."

Stanford's offensive growth definitely raises the confidence level in the unit to get things done, but it takes a village to stay consistent. If the program can continue to shine on fourth-down conversions, these next few weeks could be promising.