Manhattan Beach native Davis Warren will start at quarterback for Stanford when the Cardinal open the 2026 season against Hawaii on Saturday, Aug. 29, head coach Tavita Pritchard announced Wednesday.

It's the latest chapter in a remarkable journey for the sixth-year quarterback. Warren beat acute myeloid leukemia as a high schooler, tore his ACL in a bowl game and walked on at Michigan before earning a scholarship and a national championship ring.

Warren, 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, grew up in Manhattan Beach watching Pac-12 football. He transferred to Stanford in January after spending five seasons at Michigan, where he started nine games in 2024 before suffering a torn ligament in his right knee during the ReliaQuest Bowl win over Alabama on Dec. 31, 2024. He missed all of 2025 recovering from surgery.

"The things that stick out to me about Davis are he absolutely just loves football and he loves preparing," Pritchard told reporters, according to Fox Sports. "When you have players like that who are really in that space with you, it's energizing."

Warren was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia as a junior in high school. He underwent four rounds of chemotherapy and recovered without needing a bone marrow transplant. Stanford's official roster lists him as a cancer survivor who beat the disease in 2019. He attended the Peddie School in New Jersey, where he reclassified to the Class of 2021 and returned to football after playing just seven games across his sophomore and junior seasons.

He arrived at Michigan as a walk-on in 2021, recruited by then-coach Jim Harbaugh. Warren earned a scholarship and backed up J.J. McCarthy during the Wolverines' unbeaten 2023 national championship run. When he finally got his shot in 2024, he completed 64.1% of his passes for 1,199 yards with seven touchdowns and nine interceptions, helping Michigan beat Ohio State in Columbus.

Warren won the job.

He beat out four other quarterbacks on Stanford's roster: holdovers Charlie Mirer and Dylan Rizk, and freshmen Devin Mignery and Michael Mitchell Jr., the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He has a post-practice ritual of walking barefoot around the football field, something he calls "grounding," a decompression habit he shares with former Michigan teammate McCarthy.

Warren told the Mercury News on Aug. 13 that winning drove his transfer decision. He said he was looking for a place with "a vision for winning and to win a championship."

The Cardinal went 4-8 last season and haven't won more than four games since going 9-4 in 2018. Pritchard, a former Stanford quarterback himself, was hired in December 2025 alongside general manager Andrew Luck, another Cardinal QB alum. Stanford is ranked last in the 2026 ACC preseason coaches poll.

Warren was awarded Michigan's Austin Hatch Adversity Award in 2025, given to one student-athlete who has overcome life-altering obstacles. He is also a four-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree.

Stanford hosts Hawaii on Aug. 29 at 4 p.m. PT on ACC Network, then welcomes preseason No. 7 Miami on Friday, Sept. 4, in the Cardinal's first ACC matchup of the season.