Eight months ago, Keller Chryst was carted off the field of the Sun Bowl with a torn ACL in his right knee. On Tuesday, Stanford head coach David Shaw felt confident enough in the senior quarterback’s recovery process to name him the starter for the Cardinal’s season opener against Rice in Australia at the end of the month.

“We feel pretty good about that,” Shaw said. “He’s shown us no signs of any issues at all physically, there are no limitations on him right now, so we feel good about him getting ready to go play in Sydney.”

According to Shaw, Chryst has been ahead of his recovery schedule since spring. There was some hesitation, though, because the injury occurred in Chryst’s plant leg. Shaw first needed to see the quarterback push off on that leg in traffic before making any decisions. After two weeks of training camp, Chryst looks ready to go.

“He’s been able to drive off it since Day 1,” Shaw said. “There have been no issues, no setbacks. He’s been doing really, really well. We’re excited about where he is.”

Chryst, who took over the starting job in midseason from senior Ryan Burns and won all six starts, threw for 905 yards and 10 touchdowns last year.

“I'm still shaking some rust, but that should come off soon,” Chryst said Sunday.

Alfieri out: Linebacker Joey Alfieri missed the second half of Tuesday’s practice after leaving Sunday’s practice early. Shaw said that the senior was dealing with an “upper-body issue” and that he didn’t think the injury would be too serious.

“We don’t think it’s that bad,” Shaw said. “We just kept him out of contact for probably today and tomorrow.”

Alfieri participated in the individual and footwork portions of Tuesday’s non-padded practice, but was not on the field for contact drills. Stanford’s fourth-leading tackler last season as an outside linebacker, Alfieri has been seeing snaps at inside linebacker during training camp. He’s expected to be one of Stanford’s leading tacklers again this season.

“We’re going to be cautious, especially with our older players who have played a lot of football,” Shaw said. “If they get something dinged up, we’ll keep them out for a couple of days.”

Shaw disagrees with Rosen: UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen told Bleacher Report, “Football and school don’t go together.” Shaw, who played at Stanford before his coaching career, disagreed with that assessment.

“There are plenty of examples of guys playing at a high level and still staying up with their academics,” Shaw said. “Not just staying eligible, but excelling in academics. So I think that’s an unfortunate comment that does not really apply to most places.”

Everett Cook is a freelance writer.