Stanford Football: 3 takeaways from tough road win over Cal

It wasn’t easy, or pretty, but Stanford football went on the road to beat the Cal Golden Bears. What’d we learn from the Cardinal win?

The 2018 season didn’t go quite as planned for Stanford football, but the Cardinal had a chance to finish strong with a road win over Cal.

The Golden Bears (7-5) put up quite the fight, but it ultimately wasn’t enough against a Stanford team trying to improve its bowl slot. The Cardinal finished the regular season with an 8-4 record with this tough road victory and they’ll likely be headed to an even better bowl game than expected before this one.

Still, there’s plenty of work for this Stanford team to do before bowl season officially begins. What’d we learn from the Cardinal’s big win?

3. Defense bounced back in big way

Beating UCLA in a shootout, the Stanford Cardinal veered away from what has made them such a successful program in the Pac-12 over the past decade: defense. Stanford allowed 42 points in the win and looked to be headed toward a disappointing end to the season, defensively, but the Cardinal bounced back in a big way against Cal, finishing the year strong.

Stanford allowed just 197 passing yards to Chase Garbers on 22-of-39 completions to go along with a touchdown and two interceptions. The secondary was rather stingy, forcing the Golden Bears to rely heavily on the run, which is why Patrick Laird broke the 100-yard mark.

A complete defensive effort would have been welcomed, but you can’t be mad at one of the two facets of that side of the ball being dominant. The run defense will be just fine, but the secondary needed a bounce-back game and got it.

David Shaw should feel good about how this unit ended the regular season, heading into a bowl game.