Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame

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RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Spiny_Norman - 10-17-2022

Here's an unexpected stat - Stanford is 20th in country (and tops in the P12) in 3rd down defense. Opponents only convert 30.8% of the time on 3rd down vs. Stanford (24 of 78 attempts).

Stanford does not fare as well on 4th down. 99th in the country at 62.5% (5 of 8 attempts).

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - martyup - 10-17-2022

I recall how I felt when we inexplicably beat Oregon last year. I really thought we had turned the corner after that game. I hope this is different.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - SamuelMcF - 10-17-2022

(10-17-2022, 07:27 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: Also, Tanner McKee may be the slowest QB in College Football. He pulled the ball once and I thought it was an easy 1st down and he got tackled for about 3 yards.

McKee is the last bastion of the "statuesque pocket-passing QB" recruiting archetype under Shawgren (Pritchard took over at OC in 2018, at which point McKee and West were already committed and about to sign). Every single QB we've offered under Tavita in more recent years - whether we signed them or not - has been able to pull it and run. It's a prerequisite for today's game.

Makes me think about whether "stripping down and adjusting the offense to our personnel" - i.e. the slow mesh RPO - is actually more suited for the next QBs on the roster, Patu and Daniels, who are at least credible run threats.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Jamesy - 10-17-2022

(10-17-2022, 01:44 AM)Austroturf Wrote: Great write-up, Matt.

As usual, I did not get to see the game live, as it started around 1:30 AM CET. Bama-Tennessee was just winding up, and I just managed to see the conclusion of that juggernaut (what a game!).

The Stanford-ND game (in replay) was naturally a much more tepid affair. Credit to the Stanford defense for making Notre Dame ineffective on offense, even though the stats from earlier games indicate that they can move the ball, at least sometimes. That said, the Irish are on their second QB this season (after benching Tyler Buchner in the wake of the Marshall loss); and Pyne may be a more effective passer than Buchner, but he looked very immobile and very indecisive. Notre Dame fans over on SB Nation (One Foot Down) were bemoaning their QB situation and took several shots at their OC, Tommy Rees, for his lack of creativity and inventiveness (sound familiar?). Interestingly, there were no calls for Freeman to be fired; but a few blamed Kelly for leaving the offense in such bad shape, particularly at the WR position.

As for Stanford's offense, it was again pitiful. If anybody had told me we would score 16 points and beat Notre Dame, I never would have believed it. The slow-mesh was so painfully slow: on a few plays, it appeared as if McKee and Filkins had bumped into each other in the backfield and couldn't decide what to do with the ball. Just excruciating to watch; and the commentators couldn't help but highlight this clumsy-looking ballet in the backfield. "Slow mesh, yeah, guess that's the new thing". In 60 minutes, we got into the endzone once -- and that was on our opening drive. If Karty had been any less reliable, we would be sitting at 1-5. He accounted for 10 of those 16 points.

But yes, let's celebrate the W. Bringing the Legend's Trophy home is always good; and in five years, nobody will ask us how we did it, or whether we were lucky or not. It's a Stanford victory over Notre Dame, and that is a fine thing.

In addition, if the defense has really improved, then we definitely have a shot at getting to the 4 or 5 (maybe even 6) win range. Not good, not acceptable, but not humiliating. Much still needs to change, particularly on offense. And we shouldn't let one unexpected win against a very mediocre Notre Dame squad lead us to believe all is right with the program. Does Shaw have what it takes to engineer the turnaround? Recent history says no, and he has yet to convince me.

Buchner is out for the season due to injury.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - JimD84 - 10-17-2022

(10-17-2022, 12:42 AM)CompSci87 Wrote:
(10-16-2022, 12:52 PM)JimD84 Wrote:
(10-16-2022, 12:45 PM)M T Wrote: But, speaking of poor calls, I thought the rule was that the receiver is considered inbounds if the defender pushes him out of bounds before he can get his foot down. Am I wrong, or did the refs get the call wrong where the Stanford receiver almost came down with a full foot inbounds. The defender was carrying him out as he came down.

I think you're thinking of the NFL, which has such a rule. AFAIK, the college game has no such provision. But, the college game only requires one foot in bounds, whereas in the pros it's two.

I think the NFL used to have that push-out rule long ago, but not any more. I don't know if college ever did. It would be super hard to officiate.

Hmm... You're the second person to indicate that the NFL changed the rule, and I hadn't seen any indication of it. So, I took a quick trip to the NFL operations site:

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/nfl-video-rulebook/completing-a-catch/

And found the following:

"5. If a player, who is in possession of the ball, is held up and carried out of bounds by an opponent before both feet or any part of his body other than his hands touches the ground inbounds, it is a completed or intercepted pass...."

In other words, if a player is pushed out by a defender, the catch still stands.

Of course, the site could be out of date, but that's what the NFL is saying.

Anyway, my point was that the college game doesn't have such a rule (and AFAIK has never had one), so it doesn't apply here.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - needle - 10-17-2022

The phrase “held up and carried out” does not have the same meaning as pushing out.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - dabigv13 - 10-17-2022

Held up and carried out of bounds is very different from being hit and sent out of bounds.

Looks like this was changed ~15 years ago to make it more clear.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/16689-the-new-force-out-rule-trouble-ahead

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - old spanish trail - 10-17-2022

(10-17-2022, 01:01 PM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 07:27 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: Also, Tanner McKee may be the slowest QB in College Football. He pulled the ball once and I thought it was an easy 1st down and he got tackled for about 3 yards.

McKee is the last bastion of the "statuesque pocket-passing QB" recruiting archetype under Shawgren (Pritchard took over at OC in 2018, at which point McKee and West were already committed and about to sign). Every single QB we've offered under Tavita in more recent years - whether we signed them or not - has been able to pull it and run. It's a prerequisite for today's game.

Makes me think about whether "stripping down and adjusting the offense to our personnel" - i.e. the slow mesh RPO - is actually more suited for the next QBs on the roster, Patu and Daniels, who are at least credible run threats.

Yes, of course it's much more suited to them and I'm po'ed that they implemented it with a cannon arm, six six guy, who can run ok once he gets started, but takes forever to get started. It's mind boggling to me.

And, Sam, can you tell me who started on our OL vs ND. I've been looking for it.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - scorecard - 10-17-2022

It may have already been mentioned, but one thing I was happy to see this year is that Shaw actually deferred after winning the coin toss and chose to receive the ball in the 2nd half. As far as I can remember, he has always taken the ball first. That might be more reasonable if you have a smashmouth offense or a QB like Luck who can reliably go out and get you a lead. But in recent years, it always feels like you put a terrible offensive line up against a fresh fired-up defense ready to tee off on us, and then you start the game off losing momentum and giving the other team's offense great field position from the get-go. For me, it always feels better to go into half knowing that you'll get the ball again, especially when you can score on the last possession before the half and then get the ball right back.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - BostonCard - 10-18-2022

,

(10-17-2022, 08:25 AM)msqueri Wrote: Other teams use shovel passes and shovel draws too. Statistics don't totally capture every nuance but the things that can deflate the run game like not counting those plays or having sack yardage subtracted apply to everybody. If you start to say "but we had a good shovel pass" as an excuse for miserable run stats you will end up in a less accurate place than if you judge by the overall results.

I get that we want to avoid special pleading for every detail of the game, especially if it is a “heads I win/tails you lose scenario, but I do think it is reasonable to frame statistics with additional nuance. Stats are crude measures, and just because they are objective, doesn’t mean that they always accurately convey what happened in the game. If McKee had gotten sacked a half dozen times and lost 30 yards, I think it is reasonable to say that the running game isn’t as bad as the raw stats suggest, and that the passing game wasn’t as good as it seemed. As it happened, McKee only got sacked once, which is pretty good by most standards, so doing the additional math to account for the one carry and minus four or so yards doesn’t change the message much. If you were comparing games, you might even note that McKee got sacked less than he has in the past, to highlight that raw running numbers might be relatively worse than they seem compared to, say, the UW game.

On the other hand, the shovel passes do change the message somewhat. The two (I think) shovel passes were by far the most effective runs of the day, even though they counted as passes statistically they probably added 30 or so yards to Filkins total. 34 caries for about 120 yards isn’t great, or even good, but it’s a not a sub-3 YPC game. Moreover, it’s not like shovel passes have been a regular part of our offense so counting them today while not counting them in other games is making an apples to oranges comparison.

Noting that the shovel passes artificially inflated the passing stats and took away from the running stats isn’t an excuse to inflate run stats that leads to a less accurate picture, but important context to the stats that lead to better understanding of what happened. And the added context makes one think that the running game wasn’t as bad as the stats made it seem, even if, accounting for the shovel passes, it wasn’t that good. In some ways it’s not much different than noting that Filkins fumbled twice and we were lucky to recover both of them, even though the stats show Stanford with zero fumbles lost.

In the end the total offense adds up to 385 yards and 16 points, which is not good. On most days that would not be enough to win a football game. So, big picture, whether you consider the shovel passes runs or passes doesn’t change the conclusion that this is a concern going forward, but it might move me more away from thinking that this was primarily a running problem.

BC

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Austroturf - 10-18-2022

(10-17-2022, 01:09 PM)Jamesy Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 01:44 AM)Austroturf Wrote: Great write-up, Matt.

As usual, I did not get to see the game live, as it started around 1:30 AM CET. Bama-Tennessee was just winding up, and I just managed to see the conclusion of that juggernaut (what a game!).

The Stanford-ND game (in replay) was naturally a much more tepid affair. Credit to the Stanford defense for making Notre Dame ineffective on offense, even though the stats from earlier games indicate that they can move the ball, at least sometimes. That said, the Irish are on their second QB this season (after benching Tyler Buchner in the wake of the Marshall loss); and Pyne may be a more effective passer than Buchner, but he looked very immobile and very indecisive. Notre Dame fans over on SB Nation (One Foot Down) were bemoaning their QB situation and took several shots at their OC, Tommy Rees, for his lack of creativity and inventiveness (sound familiar?). Interestingly, there were no calls for Freeman to be fired; but a few blamed Kelly for leaving the offense in such bad shape, particularly at the WR position.

As for Stanford's offense, it was again pitiful. If anybody had told me we would score 16 points and beat Notre Dame, I never would have believed it. The slow-mesh was so painfully slow: on a few plays, it appeared as if McKee and Filkins had bumped into each other in the backfield and couldn't decide what to do with the ball. Just excruciating to watch; and the commentators couldn't help but highlight this clumsy-looking ballet in the backfield. "Slow mesh, yeah, guess that's the new thing". In 60 minutes, we got into the endzone once -- and that was on our opening drive. If Karty had been any less reliable, we would be sitting at 1-5. He accounted for 10 of those 16 points.

But yes, let's celebrate the W. Bringing the Legend's Trophy home is always good; and in five years, nobody will ask us how we did it, or whether we were lucky or not. It's a Stanford victory over Notre Dame, and that is a fine thing.

In addition, if the defense has really improved, then we definitely have a shot at getting to the 4 or 5 (maybe even 6) win range. Not good, not acceptable, but not humiliating. Much still needs to change, particularly on offense. And we shouldn't let one unexpected win against a very mediocre Notre Dame squad lead us to believe all is right with the program. Does Shaw have what it takes to engineer the turnaround? Recent history says no, and he has yet to convince me.

Buchner is out for the season due to injury.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought he had been benched after his two INTs against Marshall.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - gailtate - 10-18-2022

(10-17-2022, 11:14 PM)scorecard Wrote: It may have already been mentioned, but one thing I was happy to see this year is that Shaw actually deferred after winning the coin toss and chose to receive the ball in the 2nd half. As far as I can remember, he has always taken the ball first. That might be more reasonable if you have a smashmouth offense or a QB like Luck who can reliably go out and get you a lead. But in recent years, it always feels like you put a terrible offensive line up against a fresh fired-up defense ready to tee off on us, and then you start the game off losing momentum and giving the other team's offense great field position from the get-go. For me, it always feels better to go into half knowing that you'll get the ball again, especially when you can score on the last possession before the half and then get the ball right back.

Q:How many YEARS did it take Shaw to figure this out?
A: WAAY too many.

Takeaway: Yet another reason he must go.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Ohiocard - 10-18-2022

(10-17-2022, 09:06 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 01:01 PM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 07:27 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: Also, Tanner McKee may be the slowest QB in College Football. He pulled the ball once and I thought it was an easy 1st down and he got tackled for about 3 yards.

McKee is the last bastion of the "statuesque pocket-passing QB" recruiting archetype under Shawgren (Pritchard took over at OC in 2018, at which point McKee and West were already committed and about to sign). Every single QB we've offered under Tavita in more recent years - whether we signed them or not - has been able to pull it and run. It's a prerequisite for today's game.

Makes me think about whether "stripping down and adjusting the offense to our personnel" - i.e. the slow mesh RPO - is actually more suited for the next QBs on the roster, Patu and Daniels, who are at least credible run threats.

Yes, of course it's much more suited to them and I'm po'ed that they implemented it with a cannon arm, six six guy, who can run ok once he gets started, but takes forever to get started. It's mind boggling to me.

And, Sam, can you tell me who started on our OL vs ND. I've been looking for it.

I believe it was:
LT - Miles Hinton
LG- Drake Metcalf
OC- Drake Nugent
RG- Jake Hornibrook
RT- Jack Leyrer

So from our original 2-deep we did not have Walter Rouse, Levi Rodgers, Barrett Miller, and of course Branson Bragg. Not a bad performance for a group held together by duck tape.

I believe Leyrer went down at some point in the 4th and either Fisher Anderson or Logan Berzins went in. The Leyrer injury is not devistating if Rouse is back next week.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - Maple Leaf - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 09:03 AM)Ohiocard Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 09:06 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 01:01 PM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(10-17-2022, 07:27 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: Also, Tanner McKee may be the slowest QB in College Football. He pulled the ball once and I thought it was an easy 1st down and he got tackled for about 3 yards.

McKee is the last bastion of the "statuesque pocket-passing QB" recruiting archetype under Shawgren (Pritchard took over at OC in 2018, at which point McKee and West were already committed and about to sign). Every single QB we've offered under Tavita in more recent years - whether we signed them or not - has been able to pull it and run. It's a prerequisite for today's game.

Makes me think about whether "stripping down and adjusting the offense to our personnel" - i.e. the slow mesh RPO - is actually more suited for the next QBs on the roster, Patu and Daniels, who are at least credible run threats.

Yes, of course it's much more suited to them and I'm po'ed that they implemented it with a cannon arm, six six guy, who can run ok once he gets started, but takes forever to get started. It's mind boggling to me.

And, Sam, can you tell me who started on our OL vs ND. I've been looking for it.

I believe it was:
LT - Miles Hinton
LG- Drake Metcalf
OC- Drake Nugent
RG- Jake Hornibrook
RT- Jack Leyrer

So from our original 2-deep we did not have Walter Rouse, Levi Rodgers, Barrett Miller, and of course Branson Bragg. Not a bad performance for a group held together by duck tape.

I believe Leyrer went down at some point in the 4th and either Fisher Anderson or Logan Berzins went in. The Leyrer injury is not devistating if Rouse is back next week.

Hornibrook was at left guard and Metcalf was at right guard.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - SamuelMcF - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 09:22 AM)Maple Leaf Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 09:03 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: I believe it was:
LT - Miles Hinton
LG- Drake Metcalf
OC- Drake Nugent
RG- Jake Hornibrook
RT- Jack Leyrer

So from our original 2-deep we did not have Walter Rouse, Levi Rodgers, Barrett Miller, and of course Branson Bragg. Not a bad performance for a group held together by duck tape.

I believe Leyrer went down at some point in the 4th and either Fisher Anderson or Logan Berzins went in. The Leyrer injury is not devistating if Rouse is back next week.

Hornibrook was at left guard and Metcalf was at right guard.

Correct. Hinton - Hornibrook - Nugent - Metcalf - Leyrer/Anderson.

Our original 2-deep would likely also have had James Pogorelc, who went down before the season. So from the original pre-season 2 deep we're technically down 5 guys. Very Carberry 2019-esque in terms of OL decimation.

Notable that Logan Berzins has come in as an Ogre, and was doing so even earlier in the season before some of these injuries.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - TriangleTree - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 01:25 AM)BostonCard Wrote:
So, big picture, whether you consider the shovel passes runs or passes doesn’t change the conclusion that this is a concern going forward

BC

I think that's a bit harsh. I just rewatched the compressed game and the running game in the first half was extremely good (mind-boggling frustrating fumbles aside). Most runs went for 5 yards +, we kept control of the ball and moved it well. Second half clearly not as good, but interpreting run success from average can be very misleading.
Consistent 3.5 YPC with no big gains (which is what we were getting on Saturday until we started eating clock) gets you the same average as 0-1 YPC with a 25-30 yard run every 10 turns (which is the 3 and out recipe from last year).
Let's just say that a lot of ND fans in the stands became very familiar with (expletive) Filkins by the end of the game.

On an unrelated note, did anyone catch Freeman's press conference. He must have said the problem was execution about 857 times. Heads here would have exploded.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - gailtate - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 10:46 AM)TriangleTree Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 01:25 AM)BostonCard Wrote:
So, big picture, whether you consider the shovel passes runs or passes doesn’t change the conclusion that this is a concern going forward

BC

I think that's a bit harsh. I just rewatched the compressed game and the running game in the first half was extremely good (mind-boggling frustrating fumbles aside). Most runs went for 5 yards +, we kept control of the ball and moved it well. Second half clearly not as good, but interpreting run success from average can be very misleading.
Consistent 3.5 YPC with no big gains (which is what we were getting on Saturday until we started eating clock) gets you the same average as 0-1 YPC with a 25-30 yard run every 10 turns (which is the 3 and out recipe from last year).
Let's just say that a lot of ND fans in the stands became very familiar with (expletive) Filkins by the end of the game.

On an unrelated note, did anyone catch Freeman's press conference. He must have said the problem was execution about 857 times. Heads here would have exploded.

How do you know they're not exploding in Irish Nation? BTW, don't think for a nanosecond that Stanford fans are anywhere near as demanding as their cohorts at any of the blue-blood schools. Hint: it's not even close. And BC's point is well taken.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - TriangleTree - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 11:28 AM)gailtate Wrote: How do you know they're not exploding in Irish Nation? BTW, don't think for a nanosecond that Stanford fans are anywhere near as demanding as their cohorts at any of the blue-blood schools. Hint: it's not even close. And BC's point is well taken.

Oh heads are definitely exploding over there. I just thought he took it to a whole other level, watch it for 1 minute and you'll see what I mean.

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - old spanish trail - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 09:58 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 09:22 AM)Maple Leaf Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 09:03 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: I believe it was:
LT - Miles Hinton
LG- Drake Metcalf
OC- Drake Nugent
RG- Jake Hornibrook
RT- Jack Leyrer

So from our original 2-deep we did not have Walter Rouse, Levi Rodgers, Barrett Miller, and of course Branson Bragg. Not a bad performance for a group held together by duck tape.

I believe Leyrer went down at some point in the 4th and either Fisher Anderson or Logan Berzins went in. The Leyrer injury is not devistating if Rouse is back next week.

Hornibrook was at left guard and Metcalf was at right guard.

Correct. Hinton - Hornibrook - Nugent - Metcalf - Leyrer/Anderson.

Our original 2-deep would likely also have had James Pogorelc, who went down before the season. So from the original pre-season 2 deep we're technically down 5 guys. Very Carberry 2019-esque in terms of OL decimation.

Notable that Logan Berzins has come in as an Ogre, and was doing so even earlier in the season before some of these injuries.

Thanks alot, guys. I thought Hinton played very well. He was trucked once on a run play but otherwise more than held his own. I'm wondering whether he's more suited to the left side than right. I know Rouse is effective at LT, but maybe next year. Hinton has been at rt since his arrival. And, definitely kudos to the whole group. Wasn't ND DL supposed to be one of their strengths?

RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Notre Dame - gailtate - 10-18-2022

(10-18-2022, 02:02 PM)old spanish trail Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 09:58 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 09:22 AM)Maple Leaf Wrote:
(10-18-2022, 09:03 AM)Ohiocard Wrote: I believe it was:
LT - Miles Hinton
LG- Drake Metcalf
OC- Drake Nugent
RG- Jake Hornibrook
RT- Jack Leyrer

So from our original 2-deep we did not have Walter Rouse, Levi Rodgers, Barrett Miller, and of course Branson Bragg. Not a bad performance for a group held together by duck tape.

I believe Leyrer went down at some point in the 4th and either Fisher Anderson or Logan Berzins went in. The Leyrer injury is not devistating if Rouse is back next week.

Hornibrook was at left guard and Metcalf was at right guard.

Correct. Hinton - Hornibrook - Nugent - Metcalf - Leyrer/Anderson.

Our original 2-deep would likely also have had James Pogorelc, who went down before the season. So from the original pre-season 2 deep we're technically down 5 guys. Very Carberry 2019-esque in terms of OL decimation.

Notable that Logan Berzins has come in as an Ogre, and was doing so even earlier in the season before some of these injuries.

Thanks alot, guys. I thought Hinton played very well. He was trucked once on a run play but otherwise more than held his own. I'm wondering whether he's more suited to the left side than right. I know Rouse is effective at LT, but maybe next year. Hinton has been at rt since his arrival. And, definitely kudos to the whole group. Wasn't ND DL supposed to be one of their strengths?

Y'know, as the weeks pass, ND seems more and more like Stanford. Hoo-boy, this must really chap some rear-ends in Irish Nation.