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A Few Thoughts on the First Game - AncientCityIndian - 09-02-2016

1:  I`m hopeful Phillips injury is not serious.
2:  I was unimpressed with Casey Tucker and most of the O Line play
3:  I thought Shawgren called way too conservative a game and did not utilize Irwin, Rector or the TE`s to stretch the field much making a good K State front 7 twice as effective.
4:  The Big 12 officiating crew did not call 3 very obvious PI`s against us that could have changed the outcome of the game.  Had they not been called against our receivers, I would have gone ballistic. We were given gifts we did not deserve.
5:  I though the OLB`s played well and the DB`s hit very hard all night.
6:  We were totally unprepared for the successful onsides kick.
7:  We need plan B when teams do not kick to McCaffrey on kickoffs.
8:  We need wider splits when we play teams like K State and we do not throw the ball downfield to stretch the D.  Shawgren could have gotten McCaffrey killed tonight.
9:  Grateful we won vs. last year and hope the improvement will be adequate between now and game 2 to defeat a USC team that will be seasoned by playing Alabama and will not be too impressed by our performance tonight................
10:  The D Line was impressive for most of the evening but we need a healthy Phillips or we will be stressed against the good running teams.
11: Burns showed great poise and potential.
12:  Thomas appeared to play only when KSU crossed our 50 in the 4th quarter.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - CowboyIndian - 09-02-2016

(09-02-2016, 09:59 PM)AncientCityIndian link Wrote:Good takes.

2:  I was unimpressed with Casey Tucker and most of the O Line play
AMEN!

3:  I thought Shawgren called way too conservative a game and did not utilize Irwin, Rector or the TE`s to stretch the field much making a good K State front 7 twice as effective.
SEE YOUR OWN POINT #2. That pocket was collapsing on him in a hurry. I thought he did a great job getting those balls off with as much accuracy as he showed and no sacks (that I recall).

4:  The Big 12 officiating crew did not call 3 very obvious PI`s against us that could have changed the outcome of the game.  Had they not been called against our receivers, I would have gone ballistic. We were given gifts we did not deserve.
I don't know what they were thinking on that one before the half but I thought with the other two it could be argued our guy was going for the ball....and he can do that.

5:  I though the OLB`s played well and the DB`s hit very hard all night.
Yup.

6:  We were totally unprepared for the successful onsides kick.
Oh....Mr. Alama-a-a-a-r!!


Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - amartinsu13 - 09-02-2016

Shaw just took the ball out of Burns hands in the second half. Only threw 7 pass attempts in the 2nd half.

A lot of:
1st down - stuffed run
2nd down - stuffed run
3rd down - don't convert
in the second half.

My biggest takeaway: Like I predicted, OL was my biggest worry, and for good reason. Our whole offense depends on good OL play, and in the second half, they were trash except for the one CMac TD when Fainaka and Wilson blew open a massive hole.

Great defense, except from Hoffpauir pretty much. Hopefully all these Holder uncalled PI's don't get called against USC.

If Phillips is out, that will cost us 1-2 games this year. He was looking that good today.

Burns was VERY impressive to me. No delay of games, made 3rd down throws, beautiful deep ball to Rector. I hope he gets to play the whole game against USC.

I suspect our play calling will be a lot more interesting once we have Bryce Love back. I'm praying he's back for USC.

Looking at the box score, it's a wonder how we won this game....

http://www.espn.com/college-football/matchup?gameId=400869094

It really was a tale of two halves.

First half, we had 10 first downs. End of the game, we only had 13 first downs...

First half, we dominated time of possession. End of the game, they beat us in time of possession. (That's not Stanford Football at all)

They also out gained us 335-272.

Only 105 rushing yards for our team today. Not nearly good enough. OL, that's on you.

What did win us the game?
8 Sacks
2 Picks
A solid 17 point effort by the offense in the first half led by Burns.
4 of 5 punts inside the 20 by Bailey, who should be the MVP.
No delay of game
Only 4 penalties

We Only Had Possession for 17 Minutes the Final 3 Quarters - AncientCityIndian - 09-02-2016

Ouch.................KSU actually had possession over 30 minutes to our 29 something after we held the ball 12 minutes in the first quarter alone.  Kudos to our D but if we do that against a great O, we will get annihilated.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - needle - 09-02-2016

Quote:Our whole offense depends on good OL play, and in the second half, they were trash except for the one CMac TD when Fainaka and Wilson blew open a massive hole.

Overly harsh, but on the C-Mac touch those were pretty, pretty blocks. Thanks for answering my (unasked) question. I wanted to know who was outside Fanaika and had a great seal block on that play.

Here's something that jumped out to me: Stanford's offense had only two third-and-shorts the entire night (and went one-for-one). Meaningless stat? Maybe. But I also think that would have been a surprise to the coaches going into the game.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - amartinsu13 - 09-02-2016

Overly harsh? We only had 3 first downs the entire second half.  That starts and ends with the OL.  CMac can only make so many guys miss on one play.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - needle - 09-02-2016

The participation report looks even messier than usual, with Jordan Watkins as the starting RT.

http://www.gostanford.com/boxscore.aspx?path=football&id=16692#starters

Besides Robinson, any other freshmen play tonight?

The OL Was Mediocre But It Is Difficult To Block - AncientCityIndian - 09-02-2016

when the opposing D brings 7 or 8 each play because they know what is coming and who is going be involved due to ultra conservative play calling.  I would rather play to win than to play not to lose but I am not the most successful HC in Stanford football recent history. 

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - needle - 09-02-2016

Quote:Overly harsh?

Got whipped on a few plays, sure. Mainly just not a fan of the way you expressed it.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - amartinsu13 - 09-02-2016

Here's that holder PI play non-Stanford fans were mad about: https://vine.co/v/5itVJ6rv6AM

The dude basically stiff-armed Holder in the face, and then their legs got tangled up.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - stupac2 - 09-02-2016

So, uh, we won this game, right? Beat the spread? After our second possession it was a one-score game for like 5 seconds? All that happened and there's this much grousing?

Did it go perfectly? No, but did anyone really expect it to? Burns looked really good in the first half, then fumbled and airmailed 3 throws in the second. Our offense wasn't great in the second but it had, what, 4 possessions? Shaw got kind of conservative but it's the first game, the defense was dominating, and we had a two-score lead. I don't really mind handing it off to McCaffrey and seeing if he can bust one, it eventually did work.

I also think KSU might surprise on the upside this year. A lot of the stuff our visitors said looked fairly prescient, if a few things go right for them they could notch a big upset or two and be in the race. How different will this win look if that happens?

Also, from the stands those PIs looked like good no-calls, the defenders were turning and making plays for the ball. I was expecting flags because Pac-12 refs sure love to call them some PI, but if I were given a choice I'd sure rather have "let them play" vs the typical "HE TOUCHED THE WR [throws 500 flags]".

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - jacketree - 09-02-2016

Spread I saw was 15 so no, but whatever. Being allowed to tackle receivers while the ball is in the air does make defense easier. Beat a good opponent with a B game so that's good. Every year isn't going to be 2010 or 2011. Sparty played essentially the same game as Stanford tonight, but against Furman. Not too worried. Hope Phillips is OK.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - dabigv13 - 09-03-2016

It was 12.5 at game time.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - Rando - 09-03-2016

I got the -9.5 at about -157

Anyway, I'm glad we got the W. Burns looks real solid. Want to see more of him.

I think we'd have a better offense if we had better playcalling. More aggression.

But I like Shaw. It is what is is. We live and die with the strategy. Having a sick D helps.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - JJJ - 09-03-2016

I don't think we won too many style points but am not at all unhappy with how things played out.
We now have two weeks (and a day) for the coaching staff to iron out wrinkles and gameplan for USC.
I am looking forward to being there in person to help our home field advantage! 8)

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - 81alum - 09-03-2016

If we recall our past patterns, the defense is always ahead of the offense early in the season, it always takes a few games for changes in the offensive line to jell, and no quarterback plays to his full potential in his first game.  Given all of that, I think we did reasonably well, and Burns did extraordinarily well.  The offensive line needs to keep tuning up its coordination and get better; we now have an obvious starting quarterback who can focus more on the opponent than on his competition; Shaw will have two weeks and twice as much gametape to use to prepare us against USC as they will have of us. 

I do think tonight's success in the first half probably made him more conservative in the second half.  I've been critical of Shaw for his play calling over the last many years--going back to when he was offensive coordinator.  But there comes a point where I have to say that his overall success validates what he does.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - washingtonismoney - 09-03-2016

(09-03-2016, 06:07 AM)81alum link Wrote:I do think tonight's success in the first half probably made him more conservative in the second half. 

So I had the perception that Shaw could've called more passes on first and second down, which I think fits in with your (and others') critique. Does that really stand up?

In the three drives immediately after halftime,* there was roughly a 66-33 split in favor of the run on first and second down. That compares to last year's average of 70.3% (http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/7/7/12105892/stanford-football-2016-preview-schedule-roster), so not markedly different.

Of course, it's a different team and a different situation this time around -- I think there were some strong reasons to prefer throwing more (K-State's seeming determination to all-out run blitz, etc.) but also some reasons to prefer running (Burns's relative inexperience, Christian McCaffrey being Christian McCaffrey, etc.) And keep in mind that Burns did miss some makeable throws -- it wasn't as if, during the second half, he was deadly but disused. Still, I think we'll need to get into a state where we feel comfortable letting the QB put up 30+ passes if the offensive situation begs for it.** Something to watch out for.

* I counted the first three drives because time wasn't a brobdingnagian factor. But once you have 5:00 or so minutes left, leading by double digits, it's fair to start thinking about running down the clock.

** I was going to say, "like Hogan's game against N.D. last year.' But he only threw 21 times! I thought that was an error on Shaw's fault at the time.


Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - paloalto - 09-03-2016

http://www.gostanford.com/news/2016/9/2/football-mccaffrey-electrifies.aspx

Title:  McCaffrey Electrifies

Quotes:

“the rest of the Stanford team beyond McCaffrey combined for minus-21 rushing yards Cameron Scarlett was the only other running back to get a carry, and he lost seven yards on a pair of outside running plays.”

“I wanted him to get in in the third quarter," Shaw said of Chryst. "But we sputtered so much, I didn't want to throw a new quarterback into the mix there. But he'll continue to play.”

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - stupac2 - 09-03-2016

One thing that I wanted to say last night but probably didn't quite get across is that this was a old-school fast football game. Each team only had about 9 meaningful drives, we scored every single time we had the ball and it was a one-score game. Would it have been nice to blow them away? Yeah, sure. But it's hard to come away with that without thinking we have a solid base to build on for the rest of the season.

Re: A Few Thoughts on the First Game - Hulk01 - 09-03-2016

Until you know what Burns' three play options were on a play, you cannot attribute good or bad play calling to the head coach.  Should he have checked off?  Did he check off into the play that failed? 

Damned if we know, but I am sure no one will remember this as Burns' best-called games.  It's likely he will be very good at it, but not in his first at bat.