Stanford will make the cross-country trek from California to Chapel Hill Saturday afternoon to take on the Tar Heels in Kenan Stadium. The game is the first meeting between the two programs since 2016, and also the first meeting as conference foes. The Cardinal come into Saturday’s game 3-6 overall and 2-4 in ACC play, having dropped their last two games to Miami and Pittsburgh.
Here’s more on Stanford:
Head coach: Frank Reich is a football lifer, having played collegiately at Maryland and professionally for the Buffalo Bills and several other NFL franchises. Reich’s coaching career began in 2006 with the Indianapolis Colts, and he eventually served as head coach with both the Colts and the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers fired Reich just 11 games into his tenure in 2023, and he was out of football in 2024 before Stanford hired him as head coach. The job is Reich’s first in college football.
What’s the history? As mentioned earlier, Saturday’s meeting is the first between the Tar Heels and Cardinal since 2016. That game turned out to be the beginning of the end of an era for Carolina football, as Stanford defeated UNC 25-23 in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, TX, to finish off the 2016 season. It was the last game of quarterback Mitch Trubisky’s career with the Tar Heels, as well as the final bowl game appearance for the program under head coach Larry Fedora. Fedora would win just five games over his next two seasons before being fired. Overall, Stanford has won two of three games against UNC; the teams split a home-and-home series across the 1997 and 1998 seasons, with the Tar Heels winning in Chapel Hill in 1997 and Stanford winning in Palo Alto in 1998.
Luck is on their side: Stanford made headlines last November when it hired program legend and former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck as its general manager. Luck, who was just 35 at the time of his hiring, had announced his shocking retirement from the Colts in 2018 and mostly been out of the spotlight since. After being hired as GM, Luck fired head coach Troy Taylor in March and hired Reich, who had coached Luck in Indianapolis.
Stanford general manager Andrew Luck, center, stands on the sideline during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Florida State, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Punching above their weight: While Stanford is generally regarded as one of the weakest teams both in the ACC and across major college football, the Cardinal have shown the ability to compete with teams which have so-called “talent advantages.” One of Stanford’s two ACC wins this season came against Florida State, a one-time Top-10 team and ACC favorite. The Cardinal stifled a powerful Seminole offense and won 20-13 in Palo Alto, despite neither of the Stanford quarterbacks passing for more than 90 yards and the offense as a whole going scoreless in the fourth quarter.
Take the under: Saturday’s game likely won’t be a shootout. UNC and Stanford rank as the ACC’s bottom two teams in both scoring offense and total offense. The Tar Heels and Cardinal are the only two teams in the conference averaging fewer than 20 points per game, with Stanford sitting at a particularly dreadful 17.8. It’s an appealing matchup for a hot Carolina defense, which didn’t allow an offensive touchdown against Syracuse last Friday (the third time it’s done so this season) and is allowing just 15.7 points per game across its last three games. The Tar Heels rank fifth in the ACC in total defense, allowing only 321 offensive yards per game.
What are the odds? At the time of publication, UNC is an 8.5-point favorite in the game.
Featured image via Associated Press/Godofredo A. Vásquez
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