STANFORD, Calif. — NC State spent the week trying to get its body clocks to California. Stanford spent Friday night giving its fans a reason to check the bowl calendar.
One adjustment worked considerably better than the other.
The Cardinal’s 31-28 win over the Wolfpack brought Stanford to 4-4, two victories from bowl eligibility with four games remaining. For a program that last appeared in the postseason at the 2018 Sun Bowl, that qualifies as a fairly significant development. Especially in Tavita Pritchard’s first season as head coach, with former teammate Andrew Luck helping direct the rebuild as general manager.
Six wins is a conversation Stanford has earned the right to have. And much of the credit belongs to what keeps happening at home.
The Cardinal is 4-1 at Stanford Stadium this season and 9-3 in its last 12 games there. Friday made it three consecutive home games scoring at least 30 points, something Stanford had not done in the same season since 2017.
Apparently, the library has extended its hours.
“We can’t control, people want to call it the library, how many people show up, anything like that,” quarterback Davis Warren said afterward. “Doesn’t matter to us. What matters is defending our home turf.”
Then came the part visiting teams might want to underline.
“They have to pay the price of admission to come in here to Stanford stadium and play us.”
NC State certainly paid for the trip.
According to someone familiar with NC State’s preparations, then-head coach Dave Doeren shifted practices to 10:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to mirror Friday’s scheduled kickoff before the Wolfpack traveled to California on Wednesday, October 21. Players were instructed to sleep from 1 a.m. to 10 a.m.
The approach was inspired by a study Doeren had read about NFL teams struggling the week after cross-country travel. The idea was to help players adjust. Instead, they could only really be described as exhausted and drained on the field. And as with nay team visiting the Golden State, there were rumored late-night In-N-Out runs during the California stay.
Body-clock management, with a side of fries.
Whether the altered schedule contributed to Friday’s performance cannot be established from the result. But the early defensive returns were ugly: Stanford marched 84 and 86 yards for touchdowns on its first two possessions, building a 14-0 lead before NC State had settled into the game.
Whatever the Wolfpack’s internal clocks were saying, Warren had time.
He finished with 303 passing yards and a career-high four touchdown passes. Micah Ford supplied 150 rushing yards and another 58 receiving yards. Caden High caught nine passes for 103 yards and a touchdown, while Nico Brown caught two scores.
Stanford had a 300-yard passer, 100-yard rusher and 100-yard receiver in the same game for the first time since November 2015 against Oregon. The names then were Kevin Hogan, Christian McCaffrey and Michael Rector.
More useful than the nostalgia was how Stanford produced those numbers. All four touchdown drives covered at least 84 yards. There were no turnovers by either team, no collection of short fields that required the offense to do only the last little bit of the work. Stanford moved the ball the long way.
“I feel like when I have time and our receivers have time to go get open, I can put the ball where it needs to be,” Warren said.
Friday offered a convincing demonstration.
It also offered a rebuilding team something more valuable than an early lead: a response when that lead disappeared.
NC State tied the game at 14 in the second quarter. Stanford took possession at its own 10 with less than two minutes before halftime and went 90 yards in seven plays. Warren found High for a 26-yard touchdown with 25 seconds remaining.
That drive changed the feel of the night. Stanford had watched the Wolfpack erase a two-touchdown deficit, then answered with a touchdown of its own before anyone could carry the tie into the locker room.
“I thought we punched first,” Pritchard said. “Then I think the focus showed in our ability to sustain through the ebbs and flows of that game.”
There were more of those to navigate. An offensive pass interference penalty wiped out an NC State touchdown on the opening possession of the third quarter. Stanford followed the ensuing punt with an 84-yard touchdown drive, capped by Brown’s second scoring catch.
The Wolfpack kept coming. Stanford still needed Emmet Kenney’s fourth-quarter field goal to create a 10-point cushion, and an onside-kick recovery after NC State pulled within three with 1:20 remaining.
This was a three-point win that required finishing. Calling it merely a sleepy visitor’s bad night would let NC State’s preparation consume a story Stanford’s players did the work to earn.
The aftermath in Raleigh was substantial: NC State dismissed Doeren the following day. But on The Farm, the relevant question is what Stanford can do with the opportunity it created.
The bowl math is straightforward. The route is less accommodating.
Stanford’s final four games are at Louisville, at Virginia Tech, at Cal and home against SMU. Three consecutive road games stand between the Cardinal and its final chance to add to that home record.
Stanford has lost 14 straight road games. Its last road win came at Syracuse in September 2024. This season’s three road trips have produced three losses by a combined score of 150-17.
A home-field identity has made six wins possible. To reach six, Stanford will have to prove at least some of that identity travels.
Asked how to carry Friday’s performance into the road stretch, Pritchard did not pretend to have a tidy explanation.
“If I could explain it, I think it would be a lot better than it is,” he said.
He pointed instead to the daily work of becoming a team that performs regardless of venue or circumstance. And while the rest of us are allowed to count potential wins, Pritchard said he and Luck are not assessing their progress through bowl eligibility right now.
“I do my best to not put limits on myself,” he said. “I do my best to not put limits on our team and what we can accomplish.”
That leaves room for a December trip, even if nobody inside the building is booking one just yet.
Stanford has made its own stadium a place where it expects to win again. Friday gave that expectation some substance, along with meaningful football still to play in November.
Now it needs two more wins. And at least one will have to come with a boarding pass or a bus ride.
“We’re going to have to go on the road and bring our own juice,” Warren said. “We’ll be ready to go.”
The library can wait. Stanford has some road work due.