Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports
The Stanford Cardinal have no excuse in Tuesday’s Foster Farms Bowl against Maryland. It’s a matchup that favors Stanford from start to finish.
First of all, this year the Cardinal have to travel the fewest miles to a bowl game from their home campus, while Maryland has to travel the furthest. Although there’s a decent argument to be made that it’s not like the Terrapins show up on Monday and the game is Tuesday. And it’s not like the Cardinal is made up entirely of Bay Area natives. Plus this is also Stanford’s first time playing at the new home of the San Francisco 49ers, Levis Stadium. But there’s a comfort factor for the Cardinal that cannot be overlooked.
Second, if you’re a Pac-12 follower, you’re aware how much was made of how bad Stanford was at passing and running the ball this season. The Cardinal were 75th in the country in rushing yards per game and 63rd in passing yards. Leading rusher Remound Wright gained 552 yards and scored eight times, more than 100 fewer yards and six fewer rushing touchdowns than Oregon’s quarterback, that Marcus Mariota fellow. Most observers agreed that Cardinal QB Kevin Hogan wasn’t elite in 2014, throwing for just over 2,600 yards and 17 touchdowns. His 143.6 QB rating was ninth in the conference.
Well, Maryland was worse. The Terps were 105th in the country in rushing yards and 73rd in passing yards. Maryland’s leading rusher was also their QB, C.J. Brown, who had 659 yards and seven touchdowns, about 300 yards and four TDs fewer than Ohio State’s QB, J.T. Barrett. Brown threw for nearly 2,100 yards and had 13 passing TDs. His QB rating of 114.3 was 10th in the Big 10 and would have been dead last by a healthy margin in the Pac-12.
If that’s not enough to make Stanford look like easy winners, there’s the defensive comparison. The Cardinal are allowing 16 points a game, second-best in the country and behind only Ole Miss, which gave up an astonishingly low 13.8 PPG. The Cardinal only allowed an opponent to score over 30 points once the whole season, and you can probably figure out which school with a waterfowl mascot that was.
Bowl season so far just makes the Cardinal defense look better. The Pac-12 is 3-0, and all of those teams also beat Stanford. But USC, which just put up 45 points against Nebraska, managed only 13 against the Cardinal. Utah, which put up 45 against Colorado State, scored 20. Arizona State, which scored 36 against Duke, put up 26, the second-most points Stanford gave up all year.
But Maryland’s offense isn’t close to those three, and the Terps’ defense is ranked 84th, giving up 28.9 points per game. Maryland allowed 50 points twice and at least 40 points four times. Even if this game was played 20 minutes from the Terrapins home stadium instead of 20 minutes from Stanford’s, the Cardinal would still be favored.
There’s still a chance for Maryland because even though the matchup favors Stanford from start to finish, the season hasn’t. But this is Stanford’s game to lose, and all numbers indicate the Cardinal won’t.
Alex Drude is a Pac-12 writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Alex_Drude. “Like” him on Facebook and add him to your network on Google+.
