One media member predicted Stanford will play for the Pac-12 football title at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Dec. 1.

That’s out of 52 possible votes in the preseason poll, which was announced Thursday.

If the Cardinal is to supplant Washington — favored to repeat as champ of the Pac-12 North with 49 first-place votes — it must answer multiple questions this fall.

The answers will begin to unfold Monday, when training camp commences in advance of the Aug. 26 season opener against Rice in Sydney, Australia.

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Here are three things to keep track of over the next month:

1. What’s the status of quarterback Keller Chryst?

The redshirt junior suffered a knee injury in the Sun Bowl that kept him out of spring practice. This allowed redshirt senior Ryan Burns and redshirt freshman KJ Costello to share the reps, though technically this was a competition for the backup gig.

Stanford coach David Shaw made it known there was no doubt who would line up under center — if healthy — during an interview in May with Sports Illustrated.

“For me, it is settled,” Shaw said. “All the guys know Keller is the quarterback. He’s set to come back healthy in training camp, so we don’t expect any changes.”

But is seven months enough time for Chryst’s knee to heal? Fans will find out soon enough if Palo Alto High graduate will be ready for a trip to Australia.

2. Who will be tougher to replace, running back Christian McCaffrey or defensive lineman Solomon Thomas?

Based on which players Shaw took to Los Angeles for Pac-12 Media Days, the answer is junior Bryce Love and senior Harrison Phillips, respectively.

But it’s not that simple.

Neither will be asked by himself to replicate the production of first-round talent in the NFL Draft, with McCaffrey going with the No. 8 pick to the Carolina Panthers, while Thomas was picked third overall by the San Francisco 49ers.

Love was held out of the Cardinal and White Spring Game, which allowed the coaching staff to show off its depth at the position with a pair of redshirt freshmen chomping at the bit to see some action in Trevor Speights and Dorian Maddox, not to mention redshirt sophomore Cameron Scarlett.

Expect all of them to carve out a role as an alternative to Love.

Meanwhile, the roster lists 10 defensive linemen. But it’s a raw bunch, with a quartet of redshirt freshmen who did not see any action last year joined by a pair of true freshmen.

Two years removed from a knee injury that wiped out his sophomore season, Phillips is coming off a season in which he recorded 46 tackles and 6½ sacks.

By comparison, redshirt sophomore Dylan Jackson and converted tight end Eric Cotton — the only two returning players with any experience in the trenches — combined for 18 tackles and one sack last year.

3. Will either Foster Sarell or Walker Little, both five-star recruits, anchor either side of the offensive line?

The two behemoths will land on The Farm with a ton of hype, much like the 2012 recruiting class that included offensive tackles Andrus Peat and Kyle Murphy, along with guard Joshua Garnett.

All three of those saw action as true freshmen, and it’s not hard to imagine Little (6-7, 310) and Sarell (6-7, 315) at the line of scrimmage ready to maul the defense, even if only in jumbo packages at an early stage.

For now, redshirt senior David Bright is firmly implanted at left tackle, with redshirt junior A.T. Hall at right tackle. But the injury bug plagued the offensive line last year, and if that happens again it will be interesting to see if the Cardinal will turn to one of the newcomers, who have only a month to integrate themselves into the system.