Saturday Blitz
Fansided

Stanford Football: Cardinal have full stable behind Bryce Love

By Matthew Bartlett

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 27: Cameron Scarlett #22 of Stanford celebrates scoring a touchdown during the College Football Sydney Cup match between Stanford University (Stanford Cardinal) and Rice University (Rice Owls) at Allianz Stadium on August 27, 2017 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 27: Cameron Scarlett #22 of Stanford celebrates scoring a touchdown during the College Football Sydney Cup match between Stanford University (Stanford Cardinal) and Rice University (Rice Owls) at Allianz Stadium on August 27, 2017 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Stanford football would be content with Bryce Love alone in the backfield, but the Cardinal also boast one of the deepest running back corps in the nation.

Having a generational running back makes everyone’s life a bit easier. David Shaw had the good fortune of stringing a pair of elite backs one after the other as Christian McCaffrey gave way to Bryce Love.

Love finished second in the Heisman voting in 2018 and stunned many when he decided to return to the Farm for his senior season. The Cardinal had enough ammo in the backfield without Love, but adding him to the mix gives Stanford one of the deepest backfields in the Pac-12.

Love produced 2,118 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns by himself last season. Anything more than that is just icing on the cake, and Stanford has plenty to go around.

Stanford racked up 2,868 yards on the ground last season. They’ll have to replace 16 yards (0.6 percent) of that production in 2018. The 16 missing yards? The combined total of 26 carries between quarterbacks Ryan Burns and Keller Christ, both of which are no longer on the roster.

That’s a lot of proven production coming back in 2018, and it comes from a variety of sources. Yes, Love took the lion’s share of the work, but the next three backs after him still saw 139 carries.

That’s a meaningful number of snaps, and Love’s running mates made them count. Cameron Scarlett, Trevor Speights and Dorian Maddox combined for 568 yards and 11 touchdowns last season. If Coach Shaw intends to keep Love healthy for the duration of the season all three are going to stay actively involved again this season.

Next: Building the best college football super team

Joining that group is sophomore Connor Wedington (who averaged 19.0 yards per carry in 2017) and true freshman Justus Woods. Woods is a 3-star prospect from Stanford’s most recent recruiting class. If things go according to plan he’ll have plenty of bodies in front of him, meaning he’ll more than likely redshirt in 2018. However, that’s yet another option for the Cardinal in the backfield should they decide they need it.

Home/Stanford Cardinal