Breakout Cardinal Defender Takes Home MVP Honors

Stanford football capped off its 2025 season with a loss to Notre Dame over the weekend, and are now full swing into what will be a pivotal offseason. Improving off of four straight seasons of 3-9 finishes, the Cardinal will look to build off of the promise from this season and see even more growth in the first year under new head coach Tavita Pritchard.

And with the season now over for Stanford, the program is starting to announce its award winners for the 2025 campaign. A lot of promise was shown throughout the campaign for the Cardinal, who despite going 4-8, were able to beat Cal while being a very good team at home.

A big reason for the Cardinal's success at home was their defense, putting together a dominant game in the 31-10 victory over the Golden Bears. This year, the Cardinal's leader on defense was linebacker Matt Rose, who earned team's Defensive MVP honors.

A redshirt junior from Brecksville, Ohio, Rose spent the first two seasons of his career with a minimal role, redshirting as a true freshman before earning a role as a backup linebacker/special teamer as a sophomore in 2023.

In 2024, Rose finally started to earn significant playing time at linebacker, but was unable to crack the starting lineup with Tristan Sinclair and Gaethan Bernadel cemented as the starters.

After both Sinclair and Bernadel graduated following the 2024 campaign, it opened the door for Rose to start this season. Once he got the call, he has been a major impact player ever since.

Breaking out in a big way, finishing his first season as a starter with 106 total tackles, three passes defended, three sacks and a forced fumble in 12 games, Rose has proven himself as a star not only for the Cardinal, but in the world of college football, making his Defensive MVP win much deserved.

His best game of the season came in the win over Cal, where he made 14 tackles, a sack and recorded a fumble recovery. With one year of eligibility left, Rose will look to build off of this season so that he can firmly cement himself as an NFL Draft prospect.

A former three-star recruit out of Brecksville-Broadview Heights, Rose received a lot of interest from other prominent Division I schools in addition to Stanford, including Iowa State, Air Force, Akron, Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan among others, but chose to take his talents to The Farm.

The No. 26 ranked prospect in the state of Ohio according to ESPN, Rose was named First-team All-Ohio Division II and a First-team All-District selection as a senior, led his school to consecutive league titles as a sophomore and junior and left as the school's all-time leading solo tackler.

Stanford's defense was clearly a major bright spot on this season's team, and even though the program is bringing in an offensive minded head coach, the Cardinal will lean much more on their defense next season in order for them to not only compete for a bowl berth, but potentially compete for the ACC championship.