by Daniel Dullum

PALO ALTO–What your seeing with the Stanford Cardinal are the earmarks of a very average team (5-4) and let’s be very honest about that. This is a team that won four games against unranked teams and their 0-4 against ranked teams. It goes back to the old Bill Parcells statement of “you are what your record is” and right now that is where the Cardinal are.

The Cardinal are hovering around .500 their not ranked anymore, they can forget about the football playoffs system. Right now the Cardinal if anything their hardpressed to get a bowl bid. What their playing for is trying to get that sixth win and squeeze one of the lower tier bowls out of this season. Their in a situation where they need to finish strong to get any kind of a bowl bid and the Rose Bowl is out of the question.

The Pac 12 Championship is out of the question, that’s not going to happen but they still get a bowl out of the deal. That’s kind of your payoff, sure it’s not the Rose Bowl but it’s not going to be the Fiesta Bowl or any of the big New Year’s day games. The Cardinal certainly can get into one of the lower tier bowls and their season is based on a winning note the Cardinal have something to play for.

The Cardinal looking ahead meet the Cal Bears (5-4) at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley on Sat Nov 22nd and it should be a good match up the only problem is for Stanford every school is allowed to request a game film to watch and I got to believe everybody that plays Stanford is requesting the Arizona State film. The Sun Devils just litterally shut down the Cardinal in that game 26-10 on Sat Oct 26th.

The Cardinal in that game couldn’t pass, they couldn’t throw, they couldn’t do much of anything. We’re not talking about a great ASU team, they’re improving but this is not necessarily a banner year for ASU (7-1). For them to shut down the Cardinal like they did last month that’s the film the opponents really want to look at. With Cal having enough offense to get the scoring done it’s going to be a tall order for Stanford to win the Big Game.

Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan is a fine college quarterback he’s not Andrew Luck nor should he be confused with him. Hogan is better than average and for Stanford’s purposes Hogan is fine. The problem is he’s not getting a lot of good blocking. Especially good pass blocking he’s getting flushed out of the pocket a lot more so he has to run a lot.

In the past Hogan can get by just taking care of business with high percentage passing he has to be a good field general and get the job done. Whereas now he’s being depended upon to be a little more patient and with a little more pin point accuracy with his passing and that’s really not what Hogan is about. He’s flushed out of the pocket a lot more now and he has to throw on the run and he winds up running. We’ll see if he gets some decent protection against the Utes on Saturday at Stanford.

Daniel Dullum covers Stanford football with Jeremy Harness and Jerry Feitelberg for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images