Mark your calendars -- for 2019. Stanford and Northwestern announced that they will begin a four-year football series with the first game slated for Evanston on Sept. 14, 2019. Stanford will return to Evanston in 2021. The Wildcats will visit Palo Alto in 2020 and 2022.
Nerd jokes have commenced. (Duke is already on Stanford's schedule for the next two seasons, while Vanderbilt is one of Northwestern's future nonconference opponents. This nerd round robin idea might have some legs.)
Stanford is 3-1-2 all-time against Northwestern. The Cardinal and Wildcats played to a 41-41 tie in Evanston in 1994. Two years earlier, Stanford defeated Northwestern 35-24 at home. Dennis Green, who served as NU's head coach from 1981-1985 after cutting his teeth as an assistant at Stanford, was the Cardinal's head coach for both of those games.