Ahead of Saturday’s game, The Daily’s King Jemison, Cybele Zhang and Gregory Block talk defensive matchups, backup quarterbacks and Stanford’s recent win

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Coming off a 9-4 season capped by a sloppy Sun Bowl victory, expectations are all over the place for No. 25 Stanford in 2019. Senior quarterback KJ Costello returns to lead the offense but without the receiving weapons he had a year ago. Junior cornerback and All-American Paulson Adebo headlines the defense, but run-stopping ability is still in question. A well-coached, disciplined Northwestern team heads into Stanford Stadium on Saturday to kickoff the season. The Daily’s King Jemison, Daniel Martinez-Krams and Gregory Block discuss expectations, breakout candidates and the trenches.

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Stanford football enters the Big Game this year with the same record as the Cal Golden Bears for the first time in what seems like forever. The playing field is level, and everything is on the line. The Cardinal have an eight game winning streak in progress, and look to make it nine. Cal has a strong defensive identity and a bowl game for the first time since 2015. Two teams enter, one team leaves. The Daily’s King Jemison, Andrew Tan, and Gregory Block share their thoughts on the aerial strength of the Stanford offense, the Big Game finale for Bryce Love, the meager Cal offensive attack, and how everything (and I mean everything)could go wrong.

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The Stanford Cardinal football team (5-3, 3-2 Pac-12) has fallen out of the AP College Football Top 25 once again, after yet another heart-wrenching loss to Washington State. The good news? The Cougars look like the best team in the Pac-12 and might be heading to the Rose Bowl. The team suffered a ‘quality loss.’ The bad news? Any loss is still a loss. The Cardinal are now effectively eliminated from winning the Pac-12, and to make matters worse, they take on the Washington Huskies on the road this weekend. The Huskies aren’t looking too hot either though, getting upset by Cal just last weekend. What was once billed in the preseason as a marquee matchup is now just a Saturday evening game between two unranked teams. The Stanford Daily’s Andrew Tan, Shan Reddy, and Gregory Block take a look at Stanford’s offensive identity, the defensive game plan against Jake Browning, and the outlook for the rest of the Cardinal’s season.

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One of my oldest and most vibrant memories is walking through the streets of Squirrel Hill with my family on a warm summer morning. I remember taking scraps of old cardboard from behind my grandparents’ house and driving to Frick Park, where we would line up to race down the blue slide. I remember walking…

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KJ and JJ. It’s a combination that is quickly becoming one of the best in the country. Get the ball inside the 20 – preferably inside the 10 – and you can expect KJ to throw it up and JJ to bring it down. Against Notre Dame last Saturday, though, the Cardinal only made one red zone trip, which resulted in an Arcega-Whiteside touchdown. For Costello and his Cardinal teammates, Stanford’s failure to get the ball into the red zone more often was one of their big takeaways from the 38-17 beatdown at the hands of the Fighting Irish.

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The No. 14 ranked Stanford Football team suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Notre Dame last Saturday during a tough road game in South Bend, Indiana. Although the team’s hopes of making it into the College Football Playoff are all but gone, they are still at the top of the Pac-12 North, and have the championship game set in their sights. This week they return to the Farm to take on the Utah Utes, a team riding a two-game losing streak. The Daily’s Gregory Block, King Jemison and Bobby Pragada discuss a winning game plan for the Cardinal, who they think will win the battles in the trenches and the competition level in the rest of the Pac-12.

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No. 7 ranked Stanford (4-0) and No. 8 ranked Notre Dame (4-0) first played each other in the 1925 Rose Bowl . Since that first meeting (where Knute Rockne’s Fighting Irish took down Pop Warner’s Cardinal), the teams have met 31 times. Thirty-two matchups. Almost a century of history in the rivalry. But for the first time this Saturday, the programs will meet while both ranked in the top-10.

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Stanford football is currently ranked seventh in the country coming off of an unbelievable comeback victory in Eugene, Oregon. The Cardinal now face the tall task of heading to South Bend, Indiana to face off against the undefeated, eighth ranked Notre Dame, in what could be the team’s most important game in the last decade. The Daily’s Bobby Pragada, King Jemison, and Gregory Block discuss dealing with the Fighting Irish’s new quarterback, the future direction of the Stanford offense, and the sleeper student to break out in this game.

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Unlike many of the young kids who watched Tiger Woods win a a golf tournament on Sunday,  I’m old enough to remember when Tiger was the most dominant athlete in the world. I’m also old enough to remember his fall from grace. The magazine covers, the news reports, the endless series of setbacks—personal, physical, and professional—it seemed impossible that he would ever make it back to the top of the golfing world.

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The end of a sports season can be a sad and upsetting time. There are no games to watch, wins to celebrate or losses to mourn. It is an unsettlingly empty feeling. As a Stanford sports fan, what are we to do when no sports seasons are in progress? Are we supposed to reflect on the four national championships we won last year? Reflection only takes us so far before we crave the beginning of a new season. Are we supposed to watch professional sports? In the mid-summer months, we have nothing to watch but meaningless midseason baseball games and the NBA Summer League, the latter of which is an especially miserable way to spend a summer day.

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It has been smooth sailing to start the season for the No. 7 ranked Stanford Cardinal (3-0, 1-0 Pac-12). Three straight home games. A blowout win over San Diego State. A dominating defensive performance against USC and their true freshman quarterback. And last Saturday, an easy win over an overmatched UC Davis team.

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When I was 12 years old, my Little League all-star team lost in the regional semifinals to a team from San Francisco. It was a heartbreaking loss that ended our chances of competing in the Little League World Series. With thousands of teams vying for eight spots in Williamsport, PA, it was unlikely we would have advanced much further in the tournament, but the finality of the defeat, and thus the finality of our youth baseball careers, was crushing to a seventh grader.

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Coach Jerod Haase and his Stanford men’s basketball team must have breathed a sigh of relief in the locker room after Sunday night’s thrilling 84-82 over Arizona State in Tempe. A wildly exciting and competitive finish to the conference season, it wasn’t until the final seconds that Stanford was sure they would emerge from the desert with a victory.

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If you wanted a clinic on how to dominate a team in all facets of the game, all you had to do was head to Maples Pavilion on Sunday night. Stanford women’s basketball (14-8, 8-2 Pac-12) was lights out from beyond the arc, played stifling defense, and controlled the glass against Arizona (5-16, 1-9 Pac-12), jumping out to a massive lead on its way to a 79-42 victory.

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After suffering a disappointing 61-67 loss to Eastern Washington last Tuesday, the Stanford Cardinal (3-1) may have hoped for a few weaker opponents as they try to regain their footing. Instead, next Monday they host No. 9 North Carolina (2-0), the defending national champions and one of the most talented teams in the country.

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After a brutal couple of games to begin the season, No. 14 Stanford women’s basketball (0-2) will look to right the ship in their home opener against UC-Riverside (0-2) at Maples Pavilion on Friday.

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Maybe it was the impending matchup with North Carolina next Monday. Maybe it was the absence of injured leaders Dorian Pickens and Marcus Sheffield. Or perhaps it was the quick turnaround after Sunday’s victory. Whatever the reason, the Stanford men’s basketball team (2-1) looked lethargic and sloppy in an ugly 67-61 loss to Eastern Washington (2-1) at Maples Pavilion on Tuesday.

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Last Friday, it was Reid Travis. On Monday, it was Michael Humphrey. Regardless of who steps up and takes control of the game when the Stanford Cardinal (2-0) take on the Eastern Washington Eagles (2-1) Tuesday night, as long as the two big men keep rolling, the Cardinal will be tough to stop.

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Coming off of a week in which they lost their first conference match of the season, the No. 2-ranked Stanford women’s volleyball team (22-3, 15-1 Pac-12) heads back to the Farm for a difficult back-to-back slate against No. 17 USC (20-7, 12-4 Pac-12) on Wednesday and UCLA (16-9, 9-7 Pac-12) on Thursday.

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It seems unreasonable to describe anything as a challenge for the No. 2 ranked Stanford women’s volleyball team. After all, the Cardinal have absolutely steamrolled their way through conference play, dropping only seven sets over the course of 14 matches. However, if there was one team that could stand in the way of an undefeated conference season, it may be No. 11 Washington, who Stanford plays Wednesday as part of a trip to the Pacific Northwest, where they will also face Washington State on Saturday.

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The Stanford men’s basketball team had a brutal schedule last year and didn’t fare too well against some of college basketball’s top programs. The good news? The Cardinal should be better this season, thanks to a highly-touted freshman class and the return of four starters from last year’s team. The bad news? Their schedule this year may be even tougher than last year’s, including a visit to the Farm from the defending national champions. Other nonconference matchups against highly-ranked opponents also loom large for a Cardinal team that has big expectations, but also many obstacles standing in their way of going dancing in March.

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Even with all the pre-season hype surrounding Stanford basketball’s highly-touted freshman class, this is still Reid Travis’ team. The senior forward reminded everyone just how good he was last year, kicking off his senior season with a 24-point performance as Stanford was able to fight off a scrappy Chico State team in its 91-81 exhibition victory…

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