Senior linebacker Shayne Skov was officially reinstated to the Stanford football team with a one-game suspension on Friday, five months to the day after the former standout was arrested for driving under the influence near his on-campus residence.
Skov will miss the Cardinal’s season opener against San Jose State on Aug. 31. Though the incident was only expected to prompt a suspension of one to three games, Stanford fans will be relieved that Skov is eligible to play against projected Pac-12 champion USC, which comes to the Farm on Sept. 15 in the Cardinal’s third contest.
Head coach David Shaw had made clear all along that, to avoid distraction, the length of Skov’s suspension would not be announced until after spring practice.
After leading the squad with 84 tackles in 2010, Skov injured his knee in the third game of the 2011 season at Arizona and missed the rest of the year.
The team could have used his fierce presence in each of its two defeats in 2011: a 53-30 loss to Oregon that saw the Ducks pile up 232 rushing yards, and a 41-38 overtime loss to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl in which Stanford recorded only one sack. Skov’s finest moment in Cardinal was a 12-tackle, three-sack effort in the Orange Bowl a year earlier.
His recovery is going well, according to Shaw, and Skov is expected to be available for Stanford’s home contest against Duke on Sept. 8.