Stanford’s third week of fall camp brought a noticeable edge.
Across five practices, the Cardinal pushed closer to game-day tempo and did it with more contact, more urgency and more intensity than they’d shown earlier in camp. That was the point, too. Tavita Pritchard said the message around the program has stayed steady since spring: keep your eyes on the next rep, then the next practice, and keep building from there.
That approach has shown up most clearly on defense. Week after week, that group has looked like the tone-setter in camp, and the increased team periods during the third week only sharpened that picture. They’ve been flying to the ball, staying attached to plays and stacking impact snaps in a way that fits the way Stanford wants to practice.
For Cardinal fans, that kind of defensive activity probably doesn’t come out of nowhere. Stanford made real progress on that side of the ball a year ago, finishing top-15 nationally in opponent red zone touchdown percentage at 50%. The Cardinal also gave up just 119.3 rushing yards per game, their fewest since 2014, and allowed their lowest points per game since 2018.
The new man in charge of that unit, Kris Richard, has a background that makes this all feel pretty familiar. Stanford’s Willie Shaw Director of Defense and Defensive Backs Coach helped guide Seattle’s “Legion of Boom,” then spent three seasons as the Seahawks’ defensive coordinator, including 2015 when the team finished second in the NFL in total defense.
Richard said the group is responding the right way.
“The effort and attitude have been fantastic. There’s no blinking.
No one’s wavering. We just continue to press on with improvement.”
Two veteran leaders on the defense are seeing the same thing. Matt Rose is in his fifth season at Stanford and his second as a starting inside linebacker.
He broke out last year, finishing with the most tackles by a Cardinal in more than a decade and landing top-25 nationally in that category. Just last week, he was added to the Butkus Award watch list.
Braden Marceau-Olayinka is also in a key spot. The senior defensive lineman, Stanford’s nominee for the Wuerffel Trophy, spent previous seasons in a rotational role but is now expected to start after making his first three starts a year ago.
Both veterans said Richard’s system has raised the standard in the room and sharpened the competition across the defense.
“I love our mindset and how we attack each and every day,” Rose said. “At the end of the day, we’ve executed well, but the main thing is that we’re playing hard, ruthlessly, and relentlessly, which are some of the staples that Coach Richard talks about daily.”
“We talk about ‘T.R.I.B.E.’ on defense, and that ‘E’ stands for ‘Earn.’ Everything we have, everything we want, we have to go earn it,” mentioned Marceau-Olayinka.
That same idea has carried over to an offense that is still sorting out plenty of jobs. Stanford returns 62% of its defensive production from last season, but the offense brings back only four of its 11 starters, with Micah Ford the lone returning skill-position starter.
One of the players trying to carve out a bigger role is tight end Benji Blackburn. He started alongside current Chicago Bears tight end Sam Roush last season and looks positioned for a larger workload in 2026. Phil Steele’s preseason watch list already slotted him as a Preseason All-ACC Fourth Team selection, and his size and skill set point toward the next standout Stanford tight end.
Blackburn said part of his growth this camp has come from seeing the offense differently, not just through the tight end lens.
“In previous years, I’ve been more focused on the tight end position and not the ‘X’ or the ‘Z,’ per se,” Blackburn explained. “Now I’m looking at the offense in its entirety, so I get to learn more about my position because I know what other people are doing on the same play. It gives me a more nuanced perspective on what’s really happening on each play and makes me a better football player.”
That broader understanding has helped the offense, too. Davis Warren said the group has shown more explosiveness in camp, something he believes can define the unit.
“When people think of Stanford, they might not think ‘explosive,’ but I think that’s something we’ve been this camp,” said Warren. “We’re looking to take shots, and we’re looking to generate big plays in the run game”
Warren arrived at Stanford from Michigan, where he made nine starts after the Wolverines’ 2023 national championship. He missed the entire 2025 season because of injury and now finds himself in a quarterback battle with no one in the room having made a start for Stanford.
That lack of experience can make the position feel isolated at times, Warren said, but he still believes the room is in a strong place.
“We know that whoever’s out there on the field is a product of all the work that we’ve put in,” he explained. “The way we’ve set the quarterback room up, it’s been everyone pushing each other to be the best versions of themselves, and that makes it really fun.”
Stanford’s final week of training camp begins the week of Aug. 17, before the team shifts into Hawai’i week preparation.