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Jim Harbaugh met with the Supreme Court

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On that April morning, Harbaugh had been strolling the halls of the nation’s highest court, where he says he scored meetings with five justices. It was a tour that every law student dreams about. Harbaugh shook hands with Justice Anthony Kennedy. He snagged a picture with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "Very dynamic speaker," Harbaugh said in an interview last week. He gave Justice Elena Kagan his heavily underlined book about legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant. She then asked him to sign it. Harbaugh also sat down in the office of Chief Justice John Roberts. "He showed me the Declaration of Independence written in stone," he said. "Very memorable."

Jim Harbaugh Huddles With the Supreme Court - WSJ

A tough schedule may be the Cardinal's undoing

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A non-conference slate of Northwestern, UCF, and Notre Dame is commendable, but a tough compliment to the already brutal Pac-12 gauntlet. Last season started with the physical 13-10 loss to USC, and the Cardinal make the return trip in Week 3. I have this pegged as a loss with another coming in either the Arizona, UCLA, or California home games. The North will be decided on November 14th as Oregon comes to The Farm, but I expect Oregon to defend the North title.

2015 Pac-12 North Division Preview - Pick Six Previews

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Vegas hates Clemson and Notre Dame and loves Stanford and Oklahoma.

How Vegas ranks the Top 25 teams in college football

Stanford picked for 2nd place

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STANFORD was picked to finish second in the Pac-12 North Division, collecting 231 points with eight first-place votes. The Cardinal garnered one vote as the Pac-12 Champion. In the South Division, UCLA was picked to finish third with 180 points and collected six first-place votes, ahead of reigning South Division winner ARIZONA, which tallied 155 votes for fourth place.

USC chosen to win Pac-12 in preseason media poll | Pac-12

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"You look at the way we finished the end of the year, we played as well as any team in college football," Shaw said. "Kevin [Hogan] played as well as any quarterback in college football at the end of the year; he was outstanding. He still didn’t throw the ball 30 times in any of those games, but what he was was efficient. He made great plays with his arms and his legs, he controlled the game, he operated in the pocket unbelievably."

Stanford shares high expectations for 2015 at Media Day | Stanford Daily

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"Even if something were to happen where the offense or defense is terrible, we're still going to be all together as a unit no matter what happens," Martinez said. "We're never going to go back to where we were 5-5 and blaming each other about things."

Stanford enters the season a well rounded group on both sides of the ball | NCAA.com

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Also, he revealed that there was division between the offense and defense while the team was struggling, with defensive players expressing frustration over the inconsistency of the offense. "We weren't together as a whole unit. We were like, alright, defense -- we're gonna go do our thing. Offense -- hopefully you'll do your thing. We didn't have that camaraderie as a unit. If the offense did something wrong, we were like, screw them, we'll get it done. It was never, we got your back."

The Pac-12 Media Circus - Go Mighty Card

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Lance Anderson (DC), Duane Akina (secondary) and Randy Hart (D-line) are some of the absolute best coaches in the business and have proven track records. I’m sure the defense will have its growing pains at the start, but I don’t think it will regress by much.

Offseason Q&A: Stanford | Inside the Irish

The Utes

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"Thankfully," said Stanford head coach David Shaw, whose Cardinal were beaten in consecutive years by Kyle Whittingham's Utes. "Two years in a row, just about the most physical game that we played," Shaw said at Pac-12 media days on Thursday. "Two teams that are very similar, two teams that recruit similar types of guys, similar kinds of personalities. They want big, physical, mature men, and that's what we want, too. Both teams walked out of those games knowing that they were in a pretty tough battle."

Pac-12 Notebook: Stanford coach David Shaw relieved to avoid hard-hitting Utes | The Salt Lake Tribune

headed to Italy

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Stanford’s headed to Italy, where they’ll play six games against Italian pro teams (two play in Lega Basket Serie A, and two others play in Serie A2) between August 25 and September 2.

Italy trip comes at good time for young Stanford team | CollegeBasketballTalk