Why Stanford Football's Quarterback Play Could Ruin Promising Season

Stanford football has a major problem at its most important position. Entering the season with minimal expectations—with head coach Troy Taylor fired before spring practice and replaced by an experienced interim in Frank Reich—the Cardinal have their sights set on improving week by week in order to set up a future filled with success.

But through the first two games of the Reich/Andrew Luck Era, the Cardinal are still winless despite showing major promise. A big reason for that is the inconsistent quarterback play from starter Ben Gulbranson.

Named the starter ahead of Stanford's Week 0 contest against Hawaii, beating out guys like Elijah Brown, Myles Jackson and Dylan Rizk for the starting job, expectations surrounding Gulbranson started to get higher. After all, he did win the job and questions started to arise as to whether or not he could be the answer for this season. But he quickly showed that he wasn't.

Losing 23-20 to Hawaii, in a game that saw Stanford's defense make a lot of great plays, the offense faltered in many instances, especially late in the game when it had the opportunity to drive down the field and score to win the game.

But, completing only 50% of his passes during the game with no touchdowns, Gulbranson threw a late game interception that sealed the win for Hawaii. Had Gulbranson made the right read and protected the ball, Stanford could have been staring at 1-0.

Heading into week two against BYU following the bye week, despite Stanford being 20.5 point underdogs, another strong outing from the defense kept the Cardinal in the game for all four quarters, but another rough night from Gulbranson prevented the offense from getting anything going, with the Cardinal only managing to score three points.

Throwing a pair of interceptions and also losing a fumble, Gulbranson once again did not protect the ball and struggled to drive the Cardinal down the field.

While there is still time for Stanford to rebound from being 0-2 with 10 games left, Gulbranson's rough go of things to begin the year suggest that the Cardinal desperately need to make a change at quarterback if they want to see any success this season. Defensively, the team is on point and making plays, which is vital in an offense-heavy ACC.

But if you can't score, especially when playing the top teams such as SMU, Miami, Clemson and Notre Dame, you won't win and Stanford really needs to win some this season— especially after four straight 3-9 seasons.

Just like how it is in the NFL, the teams that have good quarterbacks will always have a shot but if you have inconsistent quarterback play, wins will be hard to come by, regardless of how good the rest of the team is.

And for a program that needs to prove that it can compete in order to attract a top tier long-term head coach and high level on-field talent, Stanford will want to weigh all of its options to ensure it is making the right decisions at QB.

Looking to rebound after another loss, the Cardinal will play their home opener on Saturday, Sept. 13 when Boston College comes to town. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. (PT) and will air on ESPN.