Leland Stanford Junior University Football 2025: Defensive Preview

If a tree falls in the forest, how can shareholder interest be best upheld?

Numbers lie. It is important, from the jump, to reframe Stanford’s defense into a more high minded framework that speaks to an expansive vision of what value is. Too often, football zealots will wield statistics as incontrovertible truth. This is a limited worldview. Through the framework of effective altruism, one could see a generous group of student-athletes, who, in giving up substantial yardage, allow for player development. While this appears costly in the short term, maximizes future success of players and eventually, the program. Opposing teams, in kind, have a chance to develop their players who may never make it past series A funding.

The Stanford defense, like so many institutions of prominence, resists easy categorization. Viewed through one lens, it is flawed, underachieving, vulnerable. Viewed through another, it is enduring to the point of whimsy, symbolically committed, perversely elegant in its theater of effort. If this is the last time we see some of these players in Stanford uniforms, before they enter the great portal, know they are the most Stanford of them all, because what’s more Stanford than dropping out of Stanford.

Defense in 2024

• Second season as Defensive Coordinator for former Wisconsin outside linebackers coach Bobby April.

• Allowed an average of 280.6 passing yards per game

• Ninth ranked run defense in the ACC, allowing 127.5 yards per game

• No white collar convictions for any alumni on the year (after googling about it a few times, phrasing the question a few different ways)

Defense in 2025

• Co-Defensive Coordinator and outside linebackers coach Andy Thompson has been added to the staff

• Holding opponents to a stout 123.7 rushing yards per game, their lowest figure since 2013

• Allow for 407.7 total yards, and nearly 30 points per game

Provisional Starters

EDGE: Ernest Cooper, Tevarua Tafiti

DT: Clay Patterson, Anthony Franklin

LB: Jahsiah Galvan (OR Hunter Barth), Matt Rose

NICKEL / STAR: Darrius Davis

CB: Collin Wright, Brandon Nicholson

S: Jay Green, Mitch Leigber

Players to Watch:

DB Collin Wright is a gritty senior who tackles well. He is a team captain and excels in man coverage. He also has 28 total on the year in eight games, and a knack for breaking up passes. He only has one pick on the year, but it was a big pick 6 that sealed their effort against Boston College. ILB Matt Rose also provides some solid downhill play at times, Cal will need to get him working in space.

Senior LB Matt Rose has had his finest year as a Cardinal. He has been with the team for his entire college career, but only this season has he made the jump, going from 17 individual tackles in 2024 to 41 so far in 2025. In this era of player movement, he will be a key leader on defense with a keen sense of the gravity of the game.

How Does Cal Win This Game?

Purity of heart and tenacity of spirit. A considered and kind distribution of the football to the Golden Bear’s gifted collective of pass catchers. If the front seven and the backfield unite and work as one, comrades in arms against the Palo Alto offensive aggression, such as it is, this game could be well in hand for the People’s Program. Beware the traps of Silicon Valley, for things are not as they appear. Though the Golden Bears display a worker’s resilience that all can admire, Frank Reich’s pro style can sometimes confuse and wear down a more noble team with its old school dishonesty.