Micah Ford was watching the Netflix series “Receiver” when he heard tight end George Kittle tell his 49ers teammates before last season’s NFC Championship Game: “Inhale confidence, Exhale fear.”
Ford took Kittle’s pregame message to heart when he was named the starting running back for Stanford as a true freshman this season.
“Just being in that stage as a freshman, not a lot of people get the chance to do that,” Ford said. “So I don’t want to take it for granted. I play every snap my hardest and just go out there for a fight and be ready for anything thrown at me.”
Ford had a breakthrough performance last Saturday against Clemson in Death Valley, running for 122 yards on 15 carries.
Because of an injury to starting quarterback Ashton Daniels, Stanford (2-2, 1-1) will likely need another big performance from Ford if it hopes to beat Virginia Tech on Saturday (12:30 p.m., ACC Network) in its first conference home game as a member of the ACC.
Ford became the first Cardinal running back in 25 games to eclipse 100 yards, and the first freshman to do it since Kenneth Tolin in 2001.
Ford said it took a bit to get used to the speed of the college game, the protection schemes and even the lengthy names of the plays, which could sometimes be limited to one word in high school. But after running for 14 yards in 13 carries in his first two starts, he had 47 yards at Syracuse – with his dad in attendance since the game was about a 4.5-hour drive from his hometown of Toms River, N.J.
Then came the big game against Clemson, as the Cardinal outran the Tigers 236-150.
“I feel very encouraged with our team and where we’re at physically and how hard we play,” coach Troy Taylor said. “We were in a tough environment and we were right there. Our offensive line played very well against an elite defensive line, we ran the ball well and I thought we protected well and we were really good on third down.”
The Cardinal hopes to have more success Saturday. Virginia Tech (2-3, 0-1) is allowing 177.8 rushing yards a game, which ranks 102nd in the FBS.
Stanford might need it because of the uncertainty at quarterback. Daniels appeared to suffer an ankle injury during a QB sneak at Clemson and needed help getting off the field. Taylor said that Daniels might be able to play Saturday, though the oddsmakers certainly don’t think so – the line moved from Virginia Tech favored by four points to eight points during the week.
Freshman Elijah Brown has also missed the past two games with an undisclosed injury, leaving junior Justin Lamson as the only remaining healthy option if Daniels can’t go. Lamson has completed 43 of 97 passes (44.3 percent) for 560 yards with two TDs and two INTs in his two seasons at Stanford, though he has been productive as a short-yardage runner.
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Taylor said that Lamson gets half the reps in practice, even when Daniels is healthy.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in him,” Taylor said. “He knows the system well so it will not affect playcalling at all.”
While Stanford has only one senior on offense – center Levi Rogers – Virginia Tech has seven fourth- or fifth-year players in its starting defense. That experience may help the Hokies recover from a devastating loss last week.
Virginia Tech threw a Hail Mary at the end of its game at No. 8 Miami that was originally called a game-winning touchdown, but it was controversially ruled incomplete after video review.
“I have my opinions, other people have their own opinions,” Stanford linebacker Gaethan Bernadel said about the overturned call. “But the big thing is that they were playing a good Miami team and the game could have gone either way. Virginia Tech is a really good team.”
