The good news for Stanford faithful: the brand new football stadium is beautiful and basketball season is only two months away.

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Alvin Chow

Senior safety Brandon Harrison returns a kick during last Saturday’s 37-9 loss to Navy. The Cardinal fumbled a pair of kickoffs in the game, each leading to a Midshipmen touchdown.

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Adrian Gaitan

Senior QB Trent Edwards reacts to the playing of the Stanford alma mater after Stanford's 37-9 loss to Navy Saturday.

The bad: the product on the field needs a lot of work. Saturday night, Stanford opened up the new football stadium in front of an excited crowd of 44,022 with a disappointing 37-9 drubbing at the hands of Navy.

Navy 37 Stanford 9

“Obviously we all feel terrible that [this is how we opened the stadium],” Coach Walt Harris said. “We have such a great venue that we have an opportunity to play in. We have a lot of work and improvement to do.”

Perhaps most overmatched was Stanford’s young defensive front seven, which made fans question whether Navy sported a rushing attack that better resembled 1994 Nebraska or 1979 USC. The same Navy squad that squeaked past D-1AA Massachusetts by one point and East Carolina by five the past two weeks looked in control from start to finish against the Card.

And with a ground-based option attack that entered the game fourth nationally in rushing, Navy’s intent to pound the ball into the heart of the Stanford defense was clear. Yet Stanford proved powerless defensively, as Navy racked up 368 yards on 69 carries, including a career-best 121 yards on 26 carries by fullback Adam Ballard. Quarterback Brian Hampton and slotback Reggie Campbell each rushed for two touchdowns.

“We had some good things done on defense tonight,” Harris said. “But they are a very good rushing team and we weren’t able to pursue their guys like we should have. They’re a tough team-that’s why they were fourth in the nation rushing coming into the game. Watch them all year. They’ll be a good team.”

Stanford’s rush defense has now yielded an incredible 1,008 yards over its first three contests, 76 more than the next-worst team in the country. Not surprisingly, opponents have scored 48, 35, and now 37 points against the Card.

But the bigger shock was that offense also struggled mightily, as it has for five of its six halves this season. With 10 of 11 of last year’s starters returning and an All-Conference candidate in senior quarterback Trent Edwards, the optimistic thought was that the unit could be among the best in the conference.

Instead, Edwards had arguably the worst half of his Stanford career, repeatedly throwing high throughout the first two quarters en route to an 0-for-5 start and a second-quarter red zone interception. Though he would end the game with a respectable stat line — 23-of-35 for 226 yards and an interception — much of that yardage came with the game out of reach, and Edwards made no bones about his play.

“During the first few series, I missed a couple of throws here and there and we had a few dropped balls,” Edwards said. “That’s all part of the game. What we have to do is convert on third down as and keep our defense off the field. Unfortunately we turned the ball over and that allowed Navy to stay out on the field.”

Amazingly, despite all of the offensive struggles, the Cardinal trailed by just one score at halftime, 10-3. But on the opening kick off of the second half, the Midshipmen took the ball out to the Stanford 41-yard line and scored on the ensuing possession. From that point forward, Navy was in control.

Throughout the evening, the Cardinal failed to execute the basics. The defense missed dozens upon dozens of tackles, the kickoff return team lost two fumbles, Edwards was lucky to escape with just one interception, and sophomore kicker Aaron Zagory hooked an extra point wide left.

“As long as we continue to turn the ball over, we guarantee that we have no chance to be successful,” Harris said. “We need to take care of the football, and when we do that, it will give us a chance to win a football game.”

Harris did not escape scrutiny either. In the closing seconds of the first half, Stanford marched to a 1st-and-goal from Navy 2-yard line, trailing 10-0 with six seconds left on the clock and a timeout. Harris eschewed a shot at the end zone, instead having Edwards center the ball to set up a Zagory field goal.

“I didn’t want to head into the locker room with nothing on the board,” Harris said. “We’re pretty young and we haven’t had a whole lot of success, so we needed some positives to happen. With the amount of time that we had left I thought that was the best way to go. And it got a little momentum on our side.”

This Saturday’s 2 p.m. visit from Washington State is one of Stanford’s best remaining shots at keeping a difficult season from deteriorating into a nightmarish one. If the Card cannot pull out a win against the Cougars, their only realistic shot at victory between now and mid-November comes October 14 versus Arizona. Stanford visits UCLA and Notre Dame the two weeks before Arizona’s visit, and must travel to USC and Arizona State the two games after. Those four teams are a combined 9-1, and all rank in the Top 30.