With shelter-in-place still in effect, we're taking a look at the nine opponents the Bears will face in 2020 that they faced in 2019.

Today, we're looking at Stanford, who will be the penultimate game for the Bears in Berkeley on November 21st

Previous Installments: Utah | Washington State | USC | Oregon

Before we dig into this column, it’s important to note this author’s stance – that in the event no 2020 football season occurs, the Axe should remain with the last team that was never beaten to lose possession of it. (Similarly, congratulations to the Golden State Warriors for their sixth straight Western conference title at the moment.)

Stanford completed half of their spring practices before closing down due to COVID-19, and due to a relative scarcity of Stanford sports coverage (or interest in), any insights we’ll be able to bring you here are even more limited than usual.

The conclusions I’m able to stitch together here mostly come by way of interview transcripts:

- LBs Ricky Miezan and Jacob Mangum-Farrar should be key players for the Cardinal, after being lost early last season. The former began to participate in spring ball, the latter sounds a little further off. Shaw told reporters that they were being extra cautious with Mangum-Farrar

- WR Colby Bowman appears to be one of the redshirt freshmen in line to play.

- Shaw acknowledged injuries took a big toll on the 2019 team a lot. (This is my own conjecture, but it’s fairly obvious that this is a pivotal season for him, since the program has stagnated a bit.)

- Treyjohn Butler and Paulson Adebo have been on spring track and field, which has given way for the Zahran Manleys of the roster to get some playing time this spring.

- QB Tanner McKee is back from his mission.

Also, for those of you guys who wanted to figure out what happened with Palo Alto Portalgate -- while the raw numbers leaving the program were far more numerous, the biggest and most substantial departures for the Cardinal ended up being:

QB KJ Costello - Mississippi State

DL Jovon Swonn - Indiana

DB Obi Eboh - UCLA

DL Michael Williams – SMU

Other Key Losses:

TE Colby Parkinson - NFL Draft

LB Andrew Prytz - graduation

DE Casey Toohill - graduationn

RB Cam Scarlett - graduation

Key Returners

WR Michael Wilson

OL Walker Little

LB Curtis Robinson

DB Kyu Kelly

RB Austin Jones

Preseason projection: win

After limited spring practice data: No change