Stanford vs Hawaii Odds & Picks: Bet Friday’s Late-Night Over

Stanford vs Hawaii Odds

The feel good college football story of 2023 may have already started before Week 1.

Dealing with heavy variables off the field from the Maui fires that have personally touched so many in the program, Hawai’i represented the island respectfully with a close loss to Vanderbilt in Week 0.

The Rainbow Warriors covered nearly every minute of the game, continuing a hot covering streak dating back to October 2022.

Entering his second season as head coach, Timmy Chang has been aware of the outside noise talking about low expectations around the program. With a near upset of an SEC team, Hawaii now returns home to a renovated Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex to face off against another Power Five program.

After failing to win more than four games over the past four seasons, Stanford will go in a new direction with the resignation of head coach David Shaw. Troy Taylor is now set to coach his first game for the Cardinal after previously spending time as the head coach of Sacramento State.

Taylor has spent the majority of his 30-year coaching career in the state of California with other stops as offensive coordinator at Utah and Eastern Washington.

Taylor won three Big Sky titles, along with two Big Sky Coach of the Year awards. With a 30-8 record at the FCS level, Taylor will now revamp a Stanford roster into new personnel and schemes in an attempt to match the offensive success he achieved at previous stops.

Stanford achieved success for many years under Shaw, implementing heavy personnel groupings with man-blocking schemes. The Cardinal’s success relied on a grizzled offensive line, along with towering tight-end targets that could win any 50/50 ball.

Shaw preferred as many players in the box as possible, opting for a pro-style scheme that involved the fullback.

Taylor enters with an updated flavor of offense, similar to TCU and Tennessee in running a stretch Air Raid. The quarterback and wide receiver RPO he utilized at Sacramento State will now be a staple of the Stanford playbook.

As training camp came to an end, Taylor elected not to name a starting quarterback.

Syracuse transfer Justin Lamson has the inside track to starting under center at Hawaii after he never saw the field behind Orange starter Garrett Shrader.

Running back E.J. Smith missed most of last season with injury but showed elusiveness in 2021, averaging 4.6 yards after contact.

There’s been plenty of high praise for Taylor’s offense coming out of camp, using tempo with pre-snap motion and counters to create chunk plays. Sacramento State averaged 23.6 seconds per play last season, a number that would be a top-15 pace in FBS play.

Taylor named Bobby April the Willie Shaw Director of Defense last…