David Shaw excited for new season coming off of 'terrible' 2021 campaign

Stanford head coach David Shaw knew the Cardinal needed to change tack following a 2021 season he termed “terrible.” Speaking with Paul Finebaum recently, the 12th-year head coach explained how Stanford turned the page heading in to 2022.

Shaw does an end-of-year review of his own coaching and program leadership, he told Finebaum. And this last offseason, following a 3-9 regular season (which came on the heels of two four-win seasons, albeit one was the six-game 2020 season), Shaw said he expanded the year-end review to encompass the entire Cardinal program.

“I look at the schedule, I look at our practice schedule, I look at our daily schedule. I look at decisions that I made in-game, before games, and try to comprehensively look and see what I did and what I can do better. This past year I did, top-to-bottom, the entire program, all of our strength and conditioning, all of our health and safety issues, all of our scheduling, and then our scheme. I looked at all of our schemes and the things we were doing and I feel great about where we are because we didn’t add a whole lot. We streamlined,” Shaw said.

Honing and updating the scheme might pay the most dividends for the Cardinal right away, based on what Shaw said. After eight-straight seasons of winning eight games or more to start his tenure as Stanford’s head coach, Shaw’s Cardinal teams haven’t reached that mark since 2018. Something was amiss and needed reworking.

“And I got this advice from someone a while ago,” Shaw said, “when you’re in one place for a long time, sometimes you take some things for granted. And you carry a lot forward as opposed to saying ‘Hey that was seven years ago, we don’t need that anymore.’ So we chopped a lot of things, we streamlined what we were doing to make sure that it fit our current players, our current program. And I feel great about where we are.”

Stanford’s offseason rejuvenation under Shaw will still be put to the test when games finally start in a few weeks, but the head coach seems bullish the prospects for his team in 2022. The Cardinal bring back highly-touted quarterback Tanner McKee and Ben Yurosek at tight end — both of whom could be in the NFL a year from now — along with eight other starters on offense.

“So far so good,” Shaw said. “We had a terrible year last year. I did a bad job. We had injuries. Had all kinds of things. I think Stanford is such a special place. We had a lot of guys who could’ve transferred, they didn’t. We had a lot of guys who could’ve gone to the NFL. They did not, they came back. So, now, offensively, we’ve got an exciting group with the potential — one of the top quarterbacks in America, one of the top receiving groups and tight ends in America. A much improved offensive line. And one of the top defensive backs in America in Kyu Kelly. I think we’ve got a fun group to watch and it should be some exciting football here in the west.”