No one wanted to pick up this game preview during the off-season, and with good reason! Fine, I’ll do it.
There are still whispers of aspirational peers. West Coast return games to Palo Alto to finish the regular season for “recruiting purposes” and definitely not hobnobbing with the academia of Leland Stanford Junior University. One of many “rivalry” games on Notre Dame’s docket, the series has waned considerably in recent years. Hey, Pete Sampson at The Athletic just recently ranked all of Notre Dame’s rivalry games HERE and placed the Cardinal a distant 11th overall. Tough, but extremely fair.
Stanford (+38.5) at #3 Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2026
Time: 3:30 PM ET
TV: NBC/Peacock
We’ve repeated this numerous times over the past few seasons that Stanford is a bit lost in the NIL era and doesn’t really have much of an identity anymore, at least in the positive sense. They’re coming off a weird interim year with Frank Reich and GM Andrew Luck went with an unproven crony hire in these uncertain times on the Farm. Despite being in the ACC and tied closer to Notre Dame with that affiliation, this rivalry has never felt more distant since the teams started playing.
Vegas Corner
The last 3 meetings in this series have seen a point spread of 26 points, 23 points, and then 31.5 points for last year’s finale in Palo Alto. Notre Dame has won those games by an average score of 51-17 and that includes last year’s garbage time scores that added 14 points for Stanford in the 4th quarter.
A backdoor cover is something to watch this weekend though, especially as the spread has moved a point up to 38.5 by mid-week during this writing. Either way, Vegas thinks Stanford is much closer to Rice than Michigan State for reference.
Weather Report
It may be a bit breezy at times with 10-15 mph winds but this Saturday is looking like a beautiful fall afternoon. Temperatures are expected to climb up to 78 degrees with mostly sunny skies. Later in the game expect things to drop down into the 50’s though.
Series History
Notre Dame leads 24-14-0
This series has experienced brutally boring games–either not close or not particularly entertaining–punctuated by hair-pulling close losses and victories for both sides. Recently, we’ve been in a loop of the former as Notre Dame has won the last 3 meetings by an average margin of nearly 35 points.
Marcus Freeman has lost to 4 unranked teams since 2022 and Stanford is one of those teams, so I guess you never know what can happen in college football. Still, the trajectories of these two programs have never been more dissimilar in the modern era. Stanford is on the Irish schedule for 2027 and 2028 but beyond that who knows how things will shake out with the ACC schedule and an attempt to keep this matchup close to an annual event.
Fun Fact(s)
Stanford’s endowment for the fiscal year 2025 was just over $40 billion, the most among all FBS football teams. It’s double the $20 billion at Notre Dame, the next best FBS football program.
Stanford has used a variety of “S” helmet logos through the years but settled on their current block “S” back in the 1980 season. Since 2014, their helmet has featured their tree logo inside the letter, but despite it being colored this way on the official school logo, the tree has never been green on the football helmets.
Never green.
The Legends Trophy, awarded to the winner of this matchup, was first presented during the 1989 season. The base is made with California redwood and the top is made from the company Dublin Crystal. The Notre Dame Alumni Clubs of Northern California are responsible for its creation.
Coaching Staff
Tavita Pritchard beat USC in THAT historic upset back in 2007 and a couple years later would be replaced at quarterback by redshirt freshman Andrew Luck in 2009. He then went straight into coaching and stayed at Stanford where he eventually moved up and became offensive coordinator from 2018-22. Pritchard left with the David Shaw resignation to coach quarterbacks with the Washington Commanders but was hired back by Andrew Luck this off-season for his first-ever head coaching job.
Pritchard engineering one of CFB’s biggest upsets.
Terry Heffernan is the offensive coordinator after being Virginia’s offensive line coach last season, although Pritchard was brought in for his offensive acumen and calls plays for the Cardinal. Kris Richard is running the defense after coaching the Jacksonville Jaguars defensive backs last season.
Running backs coach Malcolm Agnew, tight ends coach Nate Byham, inside linebackers coach Andy Thompson, and safeties coach Kodi Whitfield (2016 graduate and former receiver for the school) were the only holdovers from the previous interim regime.
Portal
Sometimes it takes a couple hours in this section to sort through all of the transfer drama that happens to schools each off-season. That is not the case with Stanford, it’s pretty straightforward.
They lost 10 players to the portal but only brought in 6(!) new transfers:
QB Davis Warren (Michigan)
WR Nico Brown (Yale)
WR Carter Shaw (UCLA)
OL Dara Adeyemi (Bucknell)
OL Aidan Kilstrom (Harvard)
CB Leroy Bryant (Washington)
From this group, only Warren, Brown, and Bryant are making an impact so far this year.
Top Players
Can I be a real one and in this section proclaim there’s no one really worth highlighting?
Stanford had no first-team All-ACC players coming back from last year. Tight end Sam Roush made second-team and is on the Bears now. I guess linebacker Matt Rose (second-team last year) is a decent player. He’s leading the Cardinal in tackles again after posting 106 tackles last year with 8 TFL and 3 sacks. I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot of tackles available when you’re allowing 458.8 yards per game this season–that is the worst among all power programs heading into the weekend.
Rose is a rare bright spot on the no. 115th ranked SP+ defense.
Most Stanford previews discuss running back Micah Ford being a potential breakout star which is odd because he averaged 4.07 yards per carry as a freshman, 4.43 yards per carry last year, and 3.68 yards per carry through 5 games in 2026. Former Irish commit Sedrick Irvin didn’t play much last year (he was passed up by Cole Tabb who has since transferred to Cincinnati) and is in a backup role this year. He’s coming off 10 yards on 6 carries against Wake Forest.
There was excitement about Yale transfer Nick Brown coming to the Farm after totaling 1,085 yards (led FCS in yards per game) last year but he was injured during camp, missed the first 2 games, and has just 10 catches for 148 yards and one score so far.
For some reason, Stanford saw Michigan’s offense last year and said, “Yeah, give me the backup from that unit who couldn’t see the field” and thought it would work. Perhaps it was allure of having another first named Davis at quarterback? What arrogance to think you’ll hit twice on someone named Davis (Davis Mills turned into a 3rd round NFL pick) who has been corrupted by affiliation with Michigan. Coming into Saturday, Davis Warren is 15th in passer rating among qualifying ACC quarterbacks but despite a 59.0% percent completion percentage they are still trying to chuck the ball as he’s 13th nationally in attempts per game.
Prediction
Is there anything interesting about this game?
Well, it’s the annual Irish Wear Green game! While the blue numbers mercifully look to have been retired for good four years ago, that was also the last time Notre Dame wore gold pants with the green jerseys. For the second year in a row (and third out of the last 4 years) the Irish are going with green on green. This will also be the debut of the new running leprechaun logo that will be displayed on the shoulders.
Green on green, I don’t make the decisions.
Some of the injuries surrounding the team are worth monitoring this weekend. Word leaked out this week that linebacker KVA may not play in an abundance of caution following a wrist injury. Star corner Leonard Moore could also be held out coming from concussion protocol following the North Carolina game. Potential starting guard Matty Augustine has been upgraded to questionable, could he see the field for the first time if even in a backup role?
We’ll see how Pritchard has this Stanford team ready. Looking back, I guess you can’t be surprised by his hiring. Andrew Luck is an offensive guy, it’s his former teammate who was DGT™ as an assistant in the NFL with tons of experience at Stanford (although his time as OC wasn’t great), and normally it makes sense to use that side of the ball to crawl a program out from the basement.
Still, you look up and it’s been a decade since Stanford had a really good football team. And while they have been bad on both sides of the ball, something seems to be missing from their DNA in recent years when it comes to defense. This is the 3rd time since 2020 that they are ranked over 100th in the FEI defense list. I’d question whether they have the ability in this NIL era to attract the right skill players to help their offense while leaning into their old nastiness along the lines seems like a smarter route for development. Instead, they are weak along the lines and trying to roll out generic pro-style castoff quarterbacks while hoping for the best.
My prediction is Notre Dame leads 21-0 early, cruises to a wider lead early in the 2nd half, both teams miss a field goal, and it’s mostly backups in the game for the last 12 minutes of the game.
If this game is a burdensome contractual obligation, what is the Navy game?
The same thing, but with a little faux “history” attached to it by the networks.
Don’t make this more of a bummer!
Where’s Noise when you need him ?
I’m here! Just awake. Some difficult circumstances from which to emerge after the high school protesters decided to target my… university…? From wiping tear gas tears from my eyes, I now have to wipe tears of sorrow for a no longer worthy opponent?
Thanks for taking on the preview, Eric. Glad you didn’t have to spend too much time on the portal transmutations (kinda sounds science fiction-y, no?)
— To everyone who has posted, yep, I see your points here, but:
— Remember, aside from the Rose Bowl (OK a century ago, but my granddad actually made the game out west because he was friends with the Rock) the modern series started under Lou Holtz when we were looking for a West Coast game to help in recruiting West Coast players. Plus the academic piece helped, as we are an aspirational peer vs them.
— We kicked the s__ out of them at the outset, but then they got good coaches. Bill Walsh cost us a natty in ’92, and then Harbaugh and even his successor built tough teams with good lines and RBs and even a QB or three, and made our lives challenging for a while. And then they beat HCMF…
— Guess the question is can they rebound, and the verdict would seem to be no. Even though we still like the West Coast trip, and we were the ones who saved them after the Pac-10 debacle by pressuring the ACC, and we’re still aspirational peers…
Even so — I admit, it does seem like time to pull the plug. Any other West Coast teams we could play?
I’d try Ucla. They don’t have a scaredy cat running their team, like their LA neighbor, and they are another high academic school. Or maybe a rotation of Ucla, Ore., UW ?
Stay safe.
Do a rotation of Cal, Stanford, and UCLA and make a certain school feel left out
I have always regarded Stanford as a rival, but not one I care about at all. I think 11 is too high.
I would rather they just fall into the regular 5 game ACC deal. I see no reason why we would play them more often than Louisville or Wake Forest or Cal.
I do think some rival evaluations are based on the age of the evaluator. Personally, I think we should play one of Michigan State and Purdue every year. But that may just be I remember when those games were mostly good and even.
I think the last good game in the Stanford series was 2012. That is a long time.
There were at least two other good games after 2012:
https://www.espn.com/college-football/team/schedule/_/id/87/season/2015
https://www.espn.com/college-football/team/schedule/_/id/87/season/2017
Michigan State is fun, but Purdue never should be played. Stanford is a more successful program than them
In defense of Davis … already forgot his last name. He probably should have gotten a chance at starting for Michigan.
Davis: 59%, 241 ypg, 5 TD, 1 INT, 7.0 ypa
Bryce: 59%, 176 ypg, 4 TD, 4 INT, 7.8 ypa – worth every penny