Stanford Football starts training camp with a healthy roster

Stanford's football team opened up their fall training camp this past Friday, and they did so with an almost fully healthy roster.  

While this may not seem like significant news, the Cardinal have been struggling with injury issues over the past few seasons and it is one of the many reasons that the program has been struggling as much as it has been.

In an interview with 247Sports, head coach David Shaw expressed how refreshing it was to have this many available bodies saying:

“This is probably the healthiest our team has been in three years,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said. “High percentage participation. We’ve got a couple of guys that will be joining us in the next couple of days. Only a couple of long-term that we’ll have to see with offseason surgeries. But for the most part, we’re a healthy team, excited team and mature team. We’re off to a good start.” 

The overall health and return to normalcy in the world, also was another major component Shaw spoke about saying:

“It’s been two years since we felt normal,” Shaw said. “Also normal coming off a normal offseason where the guys got winter, spring and summer to train. We’re bigger, faster and more explosive football team than anytime in the last two years. And we’re healthier than we’ve been. We’re going to be smart, we’re going to compete and see if we can get to Game 1 healthy.”

The health and return to normalcy will be something that Shaw and company hope will help the team, as Stanford ended 2021 with a seven game losing streak in what ended up being their second sub .500 season in the last three years. The Cardinal have a slew of returners on offense, and a new defensive scheme that may better  highlight their strengths and prevent opposing offenses from gashing them weekly. 

The most important thing for this team in 2022 is maintaining health, as Tanner McKee, the offensive line, receivers, and even some of the defense were all banged up in 2022.