In Walsh's last year at Stanford, the Cardinal was only 3-7-1. Although Stanford was a good offensive team, averaging about 30 ppg, they couldn't stop anyone, giving up an almost unbelievable 33 ppg. (N.D.'s weak 1994 team beat Stanford 34-15.) The offense was also pass-heavy with senior Steve Stenstrom at Q.B. and senior Justin Armour catching 67 passes for 1092 yards. Although there clearly was some talent remaining on the Farm, it was pretty easy to understand Walsh's decision to leave.

So, Willingham clearly had his work cut out for him. Job one was to settle on a starting Q.B. with Stenstrom gone. His choices were basically between two fairly highly recruited (but not all world) prospects: Tim Carey and Mark Butterfield. Butterfield had a grand total of 19 college passes and Carey had none. Butterfield got the starting job and Carey transferred (sound familiar?).

Stanford's defensive improvement in Willingham's first year was pretty amazing. (I don't mean to suggest that it was always sunshine on this front, as Willingham had two bad defensive teams in his third and fourth years, though he then hired Baer and the defense improved considerably in years 5 through 7). Stanford gave up only 25.6 ppg. in 1995. The Cardinal's opponents' per carry average declined from 4.4 to 4.3 and yards per pass attempt declined from 7.8 to 6.3. A similar improvement in N.D.'s defense this year would produce quite remarkable results as last year N.D. gave up 19.5 ppg, 3.5 per carry and 6.9 per pass attempt.

On offense, Willingham did quite a good job of replacing Stenstrom and Armour. One very noticeable shift was that Stanford ran the ball a lot more in Willingham's first year than in Walsh's last. In Walsh's last year Stanford threw 422 times and ran 409, which works out to about 49% rushes and 51% passes. In Willingham's first year, Stanford ran 469 times and passed 337, which works out to 58% runs and 42% passes. By way of reference, the NCAA average is about 55% rushes and 45% passes; N.D. was about 70-30 rush to pass last year and Stanford was about 60-40. Stanford improved on every rushing statistic: yards per carry went from 3.7 to 3.9; yards per game from 139 to 166. Stanford's two leading backs were much more productive: Anthony Bookman went from 577 yards and a 4.5 per carry average to 872 yards and a 4.8 per carry average and Mike Mitchell went from 323 yards and a 7.5 per carry average to 593 yards and a 4.6 per carry average. By way of comparison, N.D.'s two leading rushers last year were Jones and Holiday, who were both right around 700 yards with per carry averages of 4.3. N.D.'s team average was 3.9 per carry and per game average was 188 (though N.D. had to rush the ball almost 50 times per game to produce this total.)

Stanford's passing game was the only aspect that declined, but it stayed quite good. In Walsh's last year with Stenstrom, Stanford averaged 8.0 per attempt and 306 yards per game. Stenstrom, who threw the huge bulk of the passes, completed 65% with 16 Tds against 6 ints. (Eventual Nebraska transfer Scott Frost threw 5 ints in only 77 passes.). With the untested Butterfield, in 1995 Stanford averaged 7.6 per attempt and 231 yards per game. By way of comparison, N.D. in 2001 averaged 5.1 per pass (worst in Division I-A), exactly 50% completions and 101 per game. Butterfield completed an impressive 58% of this passes with 19 Tds against 9 ints. (Holiday was about 51% completions with 3 Tds and 7 ints.) Butterfield's receiving crew was also not the strongest group in Stanford history. Armour had graduated; Troy Walters would not appear until the next year. Eventual 49ers TE Greg Clark did catch 23 passes; the leading receivers were wideouts Mark Harris and Brian Manning.

Stanford's regular season record finished at 7-3-1 before a 19-13 Liberty Bowl loss to East Carolina.

Of course, none of this is conclusive as to anything that will happen this year at N.D. But if I'd been a Stanford fan in 1995, I would've thought that 7 wins would be a pretty fortunate outcome in the upcoming season.