College Football

2024 Stanford football predictions: Ranked No. 98 by RJ Young

Updated Aug. 12, 2024 10:25 a.m. ET

FOX Sports National College Football Analyst

Stanford Cardinal Ranking: 98/134

[Check out RJ Young's ultimate 134 college football rankings here]

Conference ranking: 17th in ACC (+40000 to win conference)
Teams ahead of them: Indiana (97), Colorado State (96), Northern Illinois (95), Bowling Green (94), Washington State (93)
Teams behind them: Vanderbilt (99), MTSU (100), Army (101), UAB (102), San Diego State (103)

[Stanford 2024 schedule]

RJ's take: Stanford? In the ACC? Yeah, that's weird. God bless the folks that plan to travel from Palo Alto to Syracuse — 2,820 miles or 41 hours along Interstate 80 West — for a Friday night game to see the Cardinal play the Orange coming off Syracuse's bye week.

I understand there are other parts of Stanford football that are not Elic Ayomanor, but they need to be bookended by his first and last name. Ayomanor went for 294 receiving yards on 13 catches with three TDs against Colorado — nearly a third of his 1,093 yards and nearly a fifth of his 62 catches in 2024.

No one knows his value like coach Troy Taylor, who played at Cal and left as the program's all-time leading passer. He has a quarterback who is more than capable of churning out yardage in Ashton Daniels. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound junior threw for 448 yards against national title runner-up Washington last season. However, with games against Texas Christian, at Clemson, against Virginia Tech, at Notre Dame, against SMU and at N.C. State, Stanford might be favored in only three games all season.

Stanford Win Total Odds: Over 3.5 (-160) Under 3.5 (+135)

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