With the regular season drawing to a close this Saturday against Notre Dame, No. 8 Stanford finishes the season in extremely good health.
“We’ve been able to get everybody back in a short time,” said head coach David Shaw. “We also augment our practice schedule…just the wear and tear of the season, this being game 12 and week 13. We try to be smart because it’s all about getting to Saturday.”
The contest against the Irish has little postseason impact for the Cardinal; now that a BCS at-large berth is out of the picture, out-of-conference results will not determine Stanford’s destiny. Despite the lack of postseason implication, the Cardinal hopes to have its players at full health to give Notre Dame its best shot.
“Alex Carter practiced full go today, it was great,” Shaw said of the sophomore corner, who was held out against Cal. “Jordan [Williamson] kicked. As far as I know everything went well. We will see how he feels tomorrow but all things are positive.”
“All anticipation is [that Williamson is] just about 100 percent. Still won’t do kickoffs but he’s doing really well, which is good to see.”
Since suffering an injury to his knee in one of his best games of the season against UCLA, junior wide receiver Devon Cajuste has seen only limited action as he continues to battle through the injury. Cajuste will play this weekend, as he has for the past several games, despite lingering effects from the injury.
“I don’t know that we’ll get there to 100-percent [health] before the bowl game,” Shaw said of Cajuste. “But [Cajuste is] fighting through it. He still runs well. I don’t know if he will be at 100 percent, but he’s doing really well.”
With the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Stanford will alter its practice schedule to allow players to enjoy the afternoon with their families and friends.
“We’ll have a lot of families in,” Shaw said. “We’ll go early [on Thursday], get off the field early. Any family that’s around is welcome…they can come in and be involved in our team dinner. Some guys will eat, some guys will take a to-go plate, some guys won’t eat at all because they have some place else to eat. But at the very beginning we start as a team and we have a quick Thanksgiving moment together before everybody disperses.”
Stanford will kick off against Notre Dame at 4 p.m. on Saturday in its regular season finale and potentially its last game of the season at Stanford Stadium, depending on the outcome of the Arizona-Arizona State clash Saturday night.
Contact Michael Peterson at mrpeters ‘at’ stanford.edu.