I Told You So! Stanford Just As Talented As Ex-Coach Predicted

Bill Walsh told ‘em so - ‘em being the writers and broadcasters who cover Pacific-10 Conference football.

But the Left Coast press, like some of the players Walsh inherited four seasons back at the start of his second stint as Stanford’s head coach, had apparently tuned out “The Genius.”

That’s why those same writers and broadcasters who had heard Walsh rave about his last two recruiting classes picked the Cardinal to finish last in the Pac-10 this fall.

And that’s why those same writers and broadcasters have suddenly annointed Stanford as the Cinderella team of this year’s conference race.

The Cardinal, coming off back-to-back finishes of 4-7 and 3-7-1, wasn’t supposed to be 3-3 in the Pac-10 and 5-3-1 overall at this point of the season.

Not with Walsh having retired amid ripples of team dissension. And especially not with Tyrone Willingham, a career assistant with no head coaching experience, having been named as Walsh’s surprise successor.

But the 41-year-old Willingham has Stanford sitting in a cozy four-way tie with Arizona, UCLA and Arizona State for fourth place in the Pac- 10. The Cardinal has knocked off last year’s Rose Bowl representative Oregon and pushed league-leading and 12th-ranked USC to the limit last Saturday before losing 31-30.

And it can become bowl eligible Saturday afternoon by beating Washington State (2-4 and 3-6) in a 3:30 p.m. Pac-10 matchup in Martin Stadium.

Two people who are not surprised by Stanford’s success are Willingham and WSU coach Mike Price, whose Cougars have not played Stanford the past two seasons because of the Pac-10’s balanced schedule.

“I’m not surprised,” said Willingham, who spent 17 years as a college and NFL assistant before landing the job at Stanford, where he had been an assistant under Denny Green from 1989 to 1991.

“I came here and saw we had some talent that needed to be brought out. Everybody thought after two bad years we had to rebuild. I didn’t think so. We had the players. What they needed was motivation.”

Price, unlike the press, listened to Walsh’s assessment of his own recruiting efforts.

“He was saying what a great team he was going to have,” Price said. “And now Coach Willingham has taken that group and has really gelled them. The chemistry is good.

“He has taken a football team that was segmented and really going in different directions and brought it back together as a team.”

The key for the Cardinal seems to be balance.

Quarterback Mark Butterfield, a fifth-year senior in his first season as a starter, ranks second in the Pac10 and 22nd in the nation in total offense. The 6-foot-4, 215-pounder has thrown for 2,331 yards and 15 touchdowns and ranks fifth in the Pac-10 in passing efficiency with a rating of 130.4.

“I think our quarterback has put himself among the top three in the conference this year,” Willingham said.

Price can find no reason to argue with that statement, but he points out that Stanford is hardly one-dimensional.

“Stanford is just a real good football team,” he said. “I like the way Stanford plays because it plays as a team. It plays offense, defense and special teams and it plays them hard.

“They’re well-disciplined. They don’t have any big stars, but they sure get the job done.”

Along with Butterfield, the Cardinal boast two of the Pac-10’s most reliable receivers. Mark Harris has caught 49 balls for 792 yards and four touchdowns and Brian Manning has 28 catches for 446 yards and two TDs.

In addition, sophomore tailback Anthony Bookman ranks 6th in the Pac-10 in rushing with an average of 72.7 yards per game and the Cardinal kickoff return team ranks No. 1 in the nation with an average of 27.8 yards per return.

Placekicker Eric Abrams has connected on 14 of 16 field-goal tries, including one of two from over 50 yards. And punter Kevin Miller has been solid.

If Stanford has a weakness, it is on the defensive side of the football, where it is giving up averages of 406.6 yards and 27.8 points per game.

But the Cardinal defense has plenty of big-play potential, as indicated by its 13 interceptions turnover margin of plus-.56 per game.

Adding to Price’s problems is a jumbled WSU quarterback situation brought about by the benching of starter Chad Davis for “behavior problems” earlier this week.

That means either seldom-used fifth-year senior Shawn Deeds or redshirt freshman Ryan Leaf will start under center for the Cougars. And they will be working against a veteran Cardinal secondary that is anchored by free safety Josh Madsen, an active 6-2 junior who ranks second in the Pac-10 with four interceptions.

“They play hard for 60 minutes,” Deeds said of Stanford’s defense. “They remind me of us last year when we were expected to finish 10th in the Pac-10 and we came through with a great season behind our defense.

“Stanford has kind of taken that role this year.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo