In the run-up to the 2017 college football season, The Oregonian/OregonLive is previewing each of the opponents the Oregon State Beavers will meet this fall. Today, it's Stanford.
“Stanford is Stanford” has become a popular preseason descriptor for the Cardinal — and that’s generally a good thing. Despite losing two stars — do-everything dynamo Christian McCaffrey and defensive terror Solomon Thomas — off a 10-win team that “underachieved,” Shaw has built Stanford into a program that is expected to consistently contend in the Pac-12. The Cardinal is a preseason top-25 team and still likely Washington’s biggest challenger in the North, but it needs to take care of opponents like OSU in order to hold that distinction.