As #6 Stanford gets ready to head to Durham to take on ACC weakling Duke, you can be sure that the Cardinal will not take
Duke's Wallace-Wade Stadium and its small capacity won't intimidate David Shaw in his first game as a head coach.
the Blue Devils lightly. The last two times the Cardinal have played an away game against an ACC team (excluding the Orange Bowl) they have lost and have won only one regular season game in the Eastern time zone in ten years, when in 2005 they defeated Navy 41-38.
In 2002, the Cardinal blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead at Boston College in a lose 34-27 loss. While that loss can be excused because BC finished with six more wins than Stanford that year, the loss to Wake Forest in 2009 cannot be ignored. Even with Luck and Gerhart, Stanford still fell in Winston Salem 24-17. Wake Forest would finish the year with a 4-8 record while the Cardinal would go 8-5.
Hopefully, Luck and the Cardinal keep the 2009 Wake Forest loss fresh in their heads as they go on the road to face yet another underdog ACC opponent. Even though Duke lost to FCS school Richmond last week, none of the Cardinal players want to have their BCS bowl hopes dashed by losing a very winnable game. Against Richmond, the Blue Devils had no passing touchdowns and they got shut out in the first and fourth quarters. That means you can look for the Stanford defense to capitalize on Duke’s static offense and possibly hold Duke to a single digit score.
