Stanford Comes In At No. 16 In 247Sports' ACC Power Rankings

The Stanford Cardinal are heading to the ACC in 2024, and they are expected to underwhelm at first

The Stanford Cardinal headline the three new programs that will be joining the ACC following what was a whirlwind of a year thanks to conference realignment. 

With USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington off to the Big Ten and Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah off to the Big 12, Stanford and Cal were the last two Pac-12 programs to be swooped up. It happened seemingly moments before Stanford took the field at Hawaii for their opening game of the season, and provides them and Cal stability, at least for now.

On top of revealing that they'd be joining a new conference, the 2023 season also marked the beginning of the Troy Taylor era after David Shaw stepped down. The former Sacramento State head coach is in the process of rebuilding a program that went from being one of the more dominant programs on the West Coast, to people questioning if it still had a place in modern college football. Taylor and his staff put together a solid first recruiting class amid a 3-9 season to start his tenure, with a roster that was among the most inexperienced in the country. 

Now, with a bit more experience and the roster actually at or around the scholarship limit there could be improvement from year one to year two. However, 247Sports' Brad Crawford is expecting another down year, as he ranked the Cardinal as the No. 16 team out of 17 in his latest ACC power rankings.

Troy Taylor and QB Ashton Daniels  / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

Crawford revealed that in order to compete in their new conference, the Cardinal needs to bolster their recruiting efforts even more, develop the young talent, and by any means necessary feed Elic Ayomanor.

"To compete for a conference championship down the road in its new league, Stanford will have to enhance its recruiting efforts under Troy Taylor. He went 3-9 in Year 1 last season and there's various holes on the roster he's going to need to fill ahead of September. Player development is a Taylor staple and like a few other programs in the conference, he's not portal-centric. The Cardinal need to do everything in their power to get Elic Ayomanor the football after he averaged 16.3 yards per catch last season with a team-best six touchdowns," wrote Crawford.

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If Stanford can improve across the offensive line that would be a major lift for the offense. Taylor revealed a handful of times throughout the season that the line's performance limited what the offense could do as a whole. There are also things such as an impending quarterback battle, defensive line improvement, and simply cutting down on costly mistakes that can help Stanford move forward.