Kevin Schimmelmann has been ready for whatever opposing offenses have brought his way all season long

Check out what the junior linebacker had to say in his Thursday chat session.

Stanford, Calif. - Junior inside linebacker Kevin Schimmelmann hit the gostanford.com chat room on Thursday, November 4 (11:00 am, PST) to continue a series of weekly chats with Cardinal football players throughout the 2004 campaign. The chat series is one element of the in-depth, detailed and exclusive coverage of the 2004 Stanford Football team featured on the Cardinal Commitment page of gostanford.com. Other features on the page include press releases, a behind the scenes look at the Stanford Athletics Department staff, promotion and ticket information, Buddy Teevens' press conferences, player reports, assistant coaching reports, and of course, Gameday Central every Saturday for all Stanford Football games.

Look below to see what "Schimmy" had to say. Playing in the fourth position of his Stanford career as an inside linebacker this season, Stanford's leading tackler in 2004 has been a key component in a much-improved Cardinal defense that has given up just 16.8 points per game to rank third in the Pac-10 and 21st in the nation in scoring defense. In addition to leading the team with 56 total tackles, he also paces the club with 34 solo stops and co-leads the squad with 22 assisted tackles while having started all eight games. He is also one of three players that shares the team lead with a pair of forced fumble, while adding 3.0 tackles for loss (12 yards), one sack (five yards) and four pass breakups. Schimmelman got in the interception act when he recorded the first of his career at UCLA last Saturday. His top game came when he made a season-high 10 tackles against USC on September 25 that were just one shy of his career-high. He has also made nine tackles twice this season at Notre Dame (October 9) and versus Oregon (October 23). Schimmelmann was also honored by College Sports Television as its Student-Athlete of the Week on September 21 after he had made seven tackles, while adding a sack and a forced fumble in a convincing 37-10 win over Brigham Young on a CSTV national telecast ten days earlier.

Schimmelmann spent his sophomore campaign in 2003 as an outside linebacker, where he started the first six games of the year and played in all 11. He finished the season with 49 total tackles and eight tackles for loss (16 yards), which was tied for second best on the team, while also adding one forced fumble, one quarterback sack and two pass breakups. Schimmelmann's top game of the season came against Washington when he had a career-best 11 total tackles, along with two tackles for loss. In addition, he excelled in the classroom, earning First Team Academic All-Pac-10 and Second Team District-8 Academic All-America honors.

Schimmelmann saw his first action in a Cardinal uniform as a redshirt freshman in 2002, earning a letter as a backup strong safety and special teams player who appeared in 10 games and finished the season with seven tackles. He also earned the first of his two First Team Academic All-Pac-10 career honors.

In 2001, Schimmelmann redshirted during his true freshman year as a free safety.

All told, Schimmelmann has made 112 total tackles in his career with exactly half of them coming in the first eight games of the 2004 campaign, while adding 11.0 tackles for loss (28 yards), two sacks (15 yards), six pass breakups and three forced fumbles. He has played in 29 games with 14 starts.

The Political Science major, a native of Marietta, GA, was born on December 21, 2002. He spent his prep career at Lassiter High School, where he was a two-way standout at free safety and wide receiver. In his senior year, he was named All-Southeast Region and All-Dixie by Prep Star, as well as First Team All-State when he had 70 tackles and two interceptions on defense to go along with 51 receptions for 800 yards and five touchdowns offensively. Schimmelmann finished his prep career as a three-time First Team All-County selection on both offense and defense. He was also a two-year letterwinner in track. In the academic world he also had a tremendous amount of success as a member of the National Honor Society and a National Merit Commended Scholar.

Schimmelmann and his Stanford teammates are looking to get back on track for a possible bowl berth when Stanford (4-4, 2-3 Pac-10) plays at Arizona State (6-2, 3-2 Pac-10) in a game to be televised live by Fox Sports Net this Saturday, November 6 (4:30 pm, MST; 3:30 pm, PST). The Cardinal, who has lost back-to-back games for the first time this season in its last two outings versus Oregon and at UCLA, needs to win two of its final three regular season contests to reach the six-win mark and become bowl-eligible. Arizona State leads the all-time series over Stanford, 12-8, but the Cardinal has won four of the last five contests played between the squads, including last year's 38-27 win at Stanford Stadium. The only Arizona State victory over the Cardinal in the last five meetings between the teams came the last time the club met at Sun Devil Stadium in 2002 with ASU winning 65-24.

In addition to the Fox Sports Net telecast of the contest, live audio broadcasts can also be heard on the Stanford flagship station KNEW 910-AM, KZSU 90.1 FM and gostanford.com, as well as on the Stanford Football Radio Network (KFIA ... 710 AM, Sacramento ... KPSI 920 AM, Palm Springs ... KUIK 1360 AM, Portland).

If you would like to ask your questions for Kevin ahead of time, please feel free to post them now, and we will save them for his arrival on Thursday.

Getting To Know Kevin