Stanford's Future Looks Brighter, But Can They Deliver Another Victory in 2025?

Through the first five games of the 2025 season, the Stanford Cardinal have shown a lot of promise. Despite having three losses, the Cardinal have picked up two big wins and have shown that they have the pieces to be a competitive program in the near future.

Needing to establish an identity so that they can return to dominance and go back to being one of college football's best programs, the Cardinal have used 2025 as a stepping stone towards sustainable success.

And now sitting at 2-3 heading into a bye week, the Cardinal have used this week to rest, recover and regroup before facing what will be a gauntlet of a schedule. With their next three games being against SMU, Florida State and Miami, Stanford will learn a lot about its program in the coming weeks. But that begs the question: will the Cardinal win another game in 2025?

There are no more easy wins left on the schedule.

SMU, Florida State and Miami are all teams that are ready to compete for a championship right now, with SMU coming off of a season in which they made the college football playoff, and Miami currently ranked No. 3 in the nation and sitting at 4-0. No. 18 Florida State, a team that went 2-10 a season ago, is back to being a relevant program and are playing with a major chip on their shoulder.

All of those programs have been powerhouses in recent seasons and with all the talent on those rosters, Stanford figures to go into each of those matchups as heavy underdogs.

And while anything is possible, a rebuilding program like Stanford is unlikely to see success against those types of teams. But after facing those three teams, the foot gets taken off the gas a little bit when Stanford faces Pittsburgh, a program that despite being up and coming, still has some work to do before they are ready to compete for an ACC title.

That game is winnable, and given how good Stanford has played at home, could end up being a game where Stanford gets the upper hand by the final whistle.

But Stanford has also had trouble defending good quarterbacks, and Pittsburgh has a very good quarterback in Eli Holstein. That could make the game tougher for Stanford. After facing Pittsburgh, the Cardinal will go on the road to face North Carolina—a program that has been rather disappointing in 2025 considering all the hype surrounding the Tar Heels going into the season.

But, UNC head coach Bill Belichick is a proven winner, and could have something up his sleeve in that one. It's still over a month away, and with Belichick's track record, they could be a completely different program by the time Stanford rolls into town.

Rounding out the schedule are two consecutive home games against Cal and Notre Dame, both of which are intense rivalries. Cal is 4-1 on the season, but its lone loss was a 34-0 blowout to San Diego State.

Cal has yet to prove that they are a super competitive program this season, and while their record suggests otherwise, they have some tough games coming up that will show exactly who they are. Notre Dame, the 2024 national runner-ups, are not as dominant as last season, but are still Notre Dame and are never a team to take lightly.

Overall, it is hard to pick a definitive game on the rest of the schedule where Stanford should be the clear-cut favorite, but if the Frank Reich/Andrew Luck led Cardinal have taught us anything, it's that they are resilient and will go out there and compete against anybody.