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1980 Stanford Cardinals football team

American college football team season

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ16981362 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1980 Stanford Cardinals football team represented Stanford University in the Pacific-10 Conference during the 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season. Following the surprise resignation of Rod Dowhower after one season in January, Stanford's new head coach was alumnus Paul Wiggin, and he led the Cardinals to a 6–5 record (3–4 in Pac-10, tied for sixth). Home games were played on campus at Stanford Stadium in Stanford, California.

Hired in February, Wiggin was a former star defensive end at Stanford (All-Pacific Coast in 1955, 1956), played 11 years in the National Football League (NFL), was a head coach for three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs (1975–1977), and most recently was the defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints.

After the season in December, offensive coordinator Dennis Green became the head coach at Northwestern in the Big Ten Conference, and receivers/backs coach Jim Fassel was promoted. Green returned to Stanford as head coach in 1989.

Schedule

Game summaries

At California

Two costly fumbles and being stopped on the goal line with 1:07 left, ended Stanford's season on a sour note, and knocked them out of possible Peach Bowl consideration.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1980 Stanford Cardinals football team” as american college football team season. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Stanford, Cardinals and football.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 1955, 1956, 1975—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Stanford, Cardinals and football providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1980 Stanford Cardinals football team”, the useful work is to connect “american college football team season” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16981362. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1955, 1956 and 1975.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1980 Stanford Cardinals football team”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1980 Stanford Cardinals football team primary sources, 1980 Stanford Cardinals football team archive and Stanford research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1980 Stanford Cardinals football team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.