Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - Printable Version
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Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - msqueri - 11-13-2022
1. Make it stop. Every week is the same. We don't belong on the field with real teams. We're no more of a test than Louisiana, UAB, or Weber State would be. Injuries and the transfer portal can't explain that. Things have gotten so bleak that one has to ask what the point even is. This is not fun for anybody. If a school is going to field a football team it really owes it to itself (not to mention the players and fans) to at least try to have a product that has some purpose. That's the fundamental thing that bothers me about the most unambitious sentiments: even if one were to grant that Stanford can never again be competitive (which is BS), what's stopping us from trying to give the program/players/fans a chance at something that isn't joyless?
2. I was glad to hear Muir was in Rice-Eccles for the carnage. The tv broadcast did no favors to those of us who care about Stanford football and have some standards. The clueless announcers (we know they were clueless because they didn't know the slow mesh was an intentional/core part of Stanford's offense, didn't mention that Gabe Reid was a former Stanford player, and generally added very little color) all but waved the white flag on Stanford ever having a relevant program again. Any Shawpologist or surrender monkey watching would have felt entirely vindicated by supposedly expert commentators taking it as a given that this isn't Shaw's fault and it will be up to him to dig Stanford out of its hole and by those commentators then aggressively managing expectations with assertions that the transfer portal makes it impossible for Stanford to compete. This narrative may be the greatest threat to the future of Stanford football. So many people inside and outside the program seem to have succumbed to the defeatism. This narrative needs to be punctured. For what it's worth, here are the win totals (listed parenthetically) for the 11 Power Five programs with three or fewer incoming transfers this past off-season: Ohio State (10), Michigan (10), Clemson (9), Penn State (8), Oregon State (7), NC State (7), Iowa (6), Baylor (6), Iowa State (4), Texas A&M (3), Stanford (3). We are no more incapable of competing in major college football than Oregon State, NC State, or Iowa. That we do not compete under Shaw is about Shaw.
3. For several years Shaw's teams have reminded me of the Teevens/Harris teams. That's the level we are right now, at best (in terms of the team's overall competitiveness it's an insult to Teevens to compare 2019-2022 Shaw to Teevens). Two of the parallels in some of our recent games have been a spirited defense that fights for a while before being beaten down as it has no chance given the offensive ineptitude, and an ostensibly NFL talent quarterback getting sacked every few drop backs and increasingly looking like a shell of himself. This game had those parallels in spades. As usual, it added up to a totally uncompetitive game in which the defense battled to a point but eventually crumbled and the offense deserves more of our scorn. Utah has now scored 42+ points in four of their seven conference games, so other defenses have been scorched too, but there are zero Pac-12 teams that had failed to score 13+ points on Utah until Stanford did it. And seven points may overstate the offense's quality yesterday as the long Higgins catch in the first quarter was the only way we had a prayer of scoring at all. After all, including the first half touchdown we only had three first downs in the first half! [This week's moving the chains (first down) leader board: Higgins (3), McKee (2), Hawkins, Humphreys, Leigber (Tremayne drew a pass interference)] Utah had two individual players with more total offense than Stanford's entire team combined! As bad as Shawfense always is, Utah has a way of bringing out special levels of ineptitude - for the second straight year Utah is the one team against which Stanford can't even muster 4 yards per play.
4. While the strongest derision should be directed at the offense, we shouldn't overstate the quality of the defensive performance. That was the most yards per play we've given up since USC and the most Utah has had against any FBS opponent. The run defense continues to perform (horrific) wonders, this time giving up 7.75 yards rushing per carry (nearly two yards more than the next worst all season against Utah). That's three games in a row giving up more than 7 yards per carry. On the season, we are 128th in the country after being 127th last year and 112th in 2020. Pass defense is sometimes a relative bright spot and relatively speaking it was again as at least we held Utah under their average in yards per attempt and passer rating, but even then it was our worst pass defense game in five games by most metrics and Utah's best in the last three games. Combining stats with the eye test it's clear that what actually happened is that Rising has been slumping for nearly a month and Utah knew well that they didn't need him or anybody else to be crisp to beat us by 35 points. The quality of our pass defense, as usual, is an irrelevance in the broader context of the overall system failure.
5. That's the reality we're again cruelly reminded of: this is comprehensive, system-wide, catastrophic failure. Looking at it from the vantage of this game, we had 0.7 points per drive and Utah had 4.2 points per drive, meaning that we made the #57 points per drive defense look like the #1 defense in the nation (Michigan at 0.87 is the only defense that gives up less than a point per drive) and we made the #14 points per drive offense look like the #1 offense in the nation (Oregon at 4.12 and Ohio State at 4.03 are the only offenses that get more than four points per drive). As happens all too often, that's a mark of failure that bears re-reading: on both offense and defense we let Utah play at a level that would be tops in the nation. Looking at all this from the vantage of the full season, it's similarly bleak as we are 111th in scoring offense and 114th in scoring defense. We'll see where FEI ends up, but heading into this game (obviously our rankings will drop further once algorithms update) we had the #98 Offensive FEI and #78 Defensive FEI. There's nothing worth saving. Full-on system failure.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - msqueri - 11-13-2022
6. I am beyond weary of assessing individual offensive performance as if the players even have a chance. We have no idea how good/bad these players are. They play in Shawfense, a soul-sucking vortex that is starting to look as hopeless as the Teevens years. To my naked eyes, McKee looked really bad yesterday, the human anti-presence in the pocket. We had the lowest yards per attempt Utah has given up in Pac-12 play this year and Oregon State is the only team they've even remotely stifled in the passing game like this. On the season we are 98th in passer rating and 86th in yards per attempt. But is this McKee's fault? Beats me, I just know he doesn't have a chance with the coach/offense he has. Just as we saw last week, advanced stats suggest he's the least of our problems, with PFF giving McKee the top grade on the offense yesterday and Total QBR ranking him #57 of 125 QBs nationally. Similarly, is Higgins an NFL WR? How would I know? For what it's worth, his 100 yard game yesterday is his third in two years, surpassing Fehoko and Wilson for the most by a Stanford player in the last four years. In the run game, 22 yards rushing and 0.8 yards per carry is our worst rushing game since the 2019 Washington State fiasco, but Utah did similar things to Arizona State, Washington State, and Southern Utah. An offense with a pulse might have been able to do what Shaw talks about - take what the defense gives you by passing when the run isn't there and vice versa - but our offense doesn't have a pulse.
7. There is again more nice to say about individual defensive players. The thing that struck me, though, was how the three best games by Stanford defenders were all guys who would be core players in 2023 for a team players were excited to play for but may be unlikely to come back to play for Stanford. Damuni had a dominant, career game (all the sweeter for doing it at home in Utah) - a tackle for loss on 3rd and 4, three stops right at the line of scrimmage and a fourth for a one yard gain, and a forced fumble (not his fault we didn't recover). As his fifth year comes up, will he follow Gabe Reid and Houston Heimuli's footsteps and play in his home state rather than be the best inside linebacker in a woeful corps for Stanford? McGill had two consecutive pass breakups to force a punt, an interception in the end zone, and a run stop, and as usual is a source of energy and fire in addition to his playmaking. As his fifth year comes up, will he decide that another football experience or degree is preferable to running it back for Stanford? Bonner came back from injury and immediately contributed a run stop and a pass breakup. A sixth year for him may be even more of an ask than the others returning. Overall, it's hard to see the defense improving if the LB and DB corps are both rebuilding. (I also am getting pessimistic about the interior DL next season as those guys are playing poorly enough right now that they'll probably still be bad even with year-to-year improvement next year) We have lots of players who could return, but will they? The one area that seems certain to be improved and something to be very excited about is the edge group. We know about Bailey and Cooper (two more nice plays in this game) but Keneley had a career game with numerous tackles for loss. Herron is a luxury for next year given the strength of this position group and we may even be better off without him.
8. One particular aspect of defensive failure that deserves a separate comment: Utah's fourth down conversions (both as an offense and the fake punt) were obviously a key part of the first half. On the season, we are dead last in the country in this, allowing opponents to convert on an incredible 84.21 percent of fourth downs. That's the most any Power Five defense has given up in the last seven years aside from ourselves in 2020 when we didn't get a single fourth down stop in the short season (but many fewer data points). It's really hard to compete when other teams have four downs to get a first down and you have three.
9. Another miserable week, another joyless game in which we don't even get to see Karty chase awards or hit long field goals. Playing in the altitude and you pass up not one but two chances for a long field goal? Bummer for fans. I somewhat question Karty's distance if we won't give him these opportunities, but I mainly blame Shaw. In the punting game, this seemed like a quintessential Sanborn game - tons of punts, mostly competent, really not that great. He had net punts of 34 (to the 48), 41 (to the 31), 48 (to the 23), 25 (to the 150, 33 (to the 44), 52 (to the 28), and 28 (to the 12). On the season we are 65th in net punting, right smack dab average. That seems about right. I'd want more given all the scholarships we offer specialists. The most entertaining play in the punting phase was Parsons' big tackle on the 48 yard net punt after Sanborn outkicked his coverage, and then Parsons' penalty-risking exuberance. I don't blame the long snapper one bit for celebrating a career highlight. On returns, Thompson very rarely gets past the 25 and if he qualified would be sixth of eight Pac-12 kick returners, raising the question of why we don't just call for the fair catch (and if he's not adding any value why we're burning his redshirt).
10. Game balls: McKee, Damuni, Parsons, Sanders
11. It's tragic-comic to even mention it but it must be said: that loss eliminated us from bowl contention. There can now be no doubt what kind of season this is: a bad, losing, irrelevant season with no December payoff. Fans can only hope that the payoff comes in the form of a new coaching staff. There will be scant hope of that if the team puts lipstick on the pig with a win either of the next two weeks, and these upcoming games are both pitiful enough opponents that it's legitimately possible. I know many fans cannot stomach rooting against Stanford in any game and especially Big Game and I respect that. I wouldn't say I'm rooting against Stanford, but I don't want anything that could be used to defend this trainwreck. It's system failure. Burn it all down.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - old spanish trail - 11-13-2022
As usual, brilliant! Thanks.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - newguy - 11-13-2022
(11-13-2022, 11:31 AM)msqueri Wrote: 1. Make it stop.
my sentiments exactly.
Please.............
MAKE IT STOP!!!
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - Austroturf - 11-13-2022
What's particularly damning about this most recent disaster of a game is the scorecard of Shaw vs. Wittingham since the inception of the Pac-12. First, Whittingham is the Pac-12 coach with the longest tenure: he is in his 18th season at the helm of the program and successfully transitioned Utah football from the Mountain West to the Pac-12, despite a few bumps at the beginning as the in-conference competition became suddenly much rougher.
In 2011 and 2012, Utah was a middle-of-the-pack South division team, finishing 4-5 in 2011 (3rd) and 3-6 in 2012 (5th). Stanford was a dominant force in Pac-12 play during these years. But in 2013, #5 Stanford (5-0) went into Salt Lake City as heavy favorites and belly-flopped 21-27 vs. the 3-2 Utes, who would again be 5th in the Pac-12 South at 2-7 (just ahead of Colorado, another recent addition to the conference). Stanford again lost to the Utes at home in double overtime 20-17 during the 2014 season.
Shaw's only win against Whittingham came in 2017 with Bryce Love in the backfield. Since that time, we have suffered another three losses (2018, 2021, 2022), all blow-outs. In the meantime, Utah has become a mainstay among Pac-12 powers, while Stanford has become irrelevant.
Whittingham's coaching philosophy has always been predicated upon a strong defense and a solid run game. Hmmm, sounds somehow familiar. During Shaw's glory years, there was debate about who the best coach in the Pac-12 was, and two names frequently mentioned were Shaw and Whittingham. I think that debate is now settled.
As usual, thanks to Matt for the post mortem. I have long since given up dissecting statistics, because it all feels so futile.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - gailtate - 11-13-2022
(11-13-2022, 11:32 AM)msqueri Wrote: 6. I am beyond weary of assessing individual offensive performance as if the players even have a chance. We have no idea how good/bad these players are. They play in Shawfense, a soul-sucking vortex that is starting to look as hopeless as the Teevens years. To my naked eyes, McKee looked really bad yesterday, the human anti-presence in the pocket. We had the lowest yards per attempt Utah has given up in Pac-12 play this year and Oregon State is the only team they've even remotely stifled in the passing game like this. On the season we are 98th in passer rating and 86th in yards per attempt. But is this McKee's fault? Beats me, I just know he doesn't have a chance with the coach/offense he has. Just as we saw last week, advanced stats suggest he's the least of our problems, with PFF giving McKee the top grade on the offense yesterday and Total QBR ranking him #57 of 125 QBs nationally. Similarly, is Higgins an NFL WR? How would I know? For what it's worth, his 100 yard game yesterday is his third in two years, surpassing Fehoko and Wilson for the most by a Stanford player in the last four years. In the run game, 22 yards rushing and 0.8 yards per carry is our worst rushing game since the 2019 Washington State fiasco, but Utah did similar things to Arizona State, Washington State, and Southern Utah. An offense with a pulse might have been able to do what Shaw talks about - take what the defense gives you by passing when the run isn't there and vice versa - but our offense doesn't have a pulse.
7. There is again more nice to say about individual defensive players. The thing that struck me, though, was how the three best games by Stanford defenders were all guys who would be core players in 2023 for a team players were excited to play for but may be unlikely to come back to play for Stanford. Damuni had a dominant, career game (all the sweeter for doing it at home in Utah) - a tackle for loss on 3rd and 4, three stops right at the line of scrimmage and a fourth for a one yard gain, and a forced fumble (not his fault we didn't recover). As his fifth year comes up, will he follow Gabe Reid and Houston Heimuli's footsteps and play in his home state rather than be the best inside linebacker in a woeful corps for Stanford? McGill had two consecutive pass breakups to force a punt, an interception in the end zone, and a run stop, and as usual is a source of energy and fire in addition to his playmaking. As his fifth year comes up, will he decide that another football experience or degree is preferable to running it back for Stanford? Bonner came back from injury and immediately contributed a run stop and a pass breakup. A sixth year for him may be even more of an ask than the others returning. Overall, it's hard to see the defense improving if the LB and DB corps are both rebuilding. (I also am getting pessimistic about the interior DL next season as those guys are playing poorly enough right now that they'll probably still be bad even with year-to-year improvement next year) We have lots of players who could return, but will they? The one area that seems certain to be improved and something to be very excited about is the edge group. We know about Bailey and Cooper (two more nice plays in this game) but Keneley had a career game with numerous tackles for loss. Herron is a luxury for next year given the strength of this position group and we may even be better off without him.
8. One particular aspect of defensive failure that deserves a separate comment: Utah's fourth down conversions (both as an offense and the fake punt) were obviously a key part of the first half. On the season, we are dead last in the country in this, allowing opponents to convert on an incredible 84.21 percent of fourth downs. That's the most any Power Five defense has given up in the last seven years aside from ourselves in 2020 when we didn't get a single fourth down stop in the short season (but many fewer data points). It's really hard to compete when other teams have four downs to get a first down and you have three.
9. Another miserable week, another joyless game in which we don't even get to see Karty chase awards or hit long field goals. Playing in the altitude and you pass up not one but two chances for a long field goal? Bummer for fans. I somewhat question Karty's distance if we won't give him these opportunities, but I mainly blame Shaw. In the punting game, this seemed like a quintessential Sanborn game - tons of punts, mostly competent, really not that great. He had net punts of 34 (to the 48), 41 (to the 31), 48 (to the 23), 25 (to the 150, 33 (to the 44), 52 (to the 28), and 28 (to the 12). On the season we are 65th in net punting, right smack dab average. That seems about right. I'd want more given all the scholarships we offer specialists. The most entertaining play in the punting phase was Parsons' big tackle on the 48 yard net punt after Sanborn outkicked his coverage, and then Parsons' penalty-risking exuberance. I don't blame the long snapper one bit for celebrating a career highlight. On returns, Thompson very rarely gets past the 25 and if he qualified would be sixth of eight Pac-12 kick returners, raising the question of why we don't just call for the fair catch (and if he's not adding any value why we're burning his redshirt).
10. Game balls: McKee, Damuni, Parsons, Sanders
11. It's tragic-comic to even mention it but it must be said: that loss eliminated us from bowl contention. There can now be no doubt what kind of season this is: a bad, losing, irrelevant season with no December payoff. Fans can only hope that the payoff comes in the form of a new coaching staff. There will be scant hope of that if the team puts lipstick on the pig with a win either of the next two weeks, and these upcoming games are both pitiful enough opponents that it's legitimately possible. I know many fans cannot stomach rooting against Stanford in any game and especially Big Game and I respect that. I wouldn't say I'm rooting against Stanford, but I don't want anything that could be used to defend this trainwreck. It's system failure. Burn it all down.
Your analysis is eerily reminiscent of the warnings issued by the legendary (!) poster Teejers not long after the 2016 Rose Bowl. He was the Oracle of Delphi who foretold it all. You embellish it. Shaw is Icarus who flew with the wings Harbaugh gifted him. Gotta wonder if EUTM knew the wax would eventually melt...
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - marchballer - 11-13-2022
My only nit would be that Higgins should get the game ball over McKee. In a night full of disappointing performances, I felt like Higgins was the lone bright spot on offense.
Otherwise yes it was a train wreck.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - msqueri - 11-13-2022
(11-13-2022, 04:34 PM)marchballer Wrote: My only nit would be that Higgins should get the game ball over McKee. In a night full of disappointing performances, I felt like Higgins was the lone bright spot on offense.
Otherwise yes it was a train wreck.
Confession: in the same way Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp have somewhat ruined me for organic/personal/unorthodox reviews (or at least made me less searching/adventurous than I was before the aggregators were around), PFF has made the selection of game balls for these posts much more rote and non-creative than they were before. When the player at the most important position grades out the highest, it's hard for me not to go with him. Thus McKee has gotten several game balls this year even though I haven't particularly been a fan of his work this year. Against Utah, PFF graded McKee a 73.2, Rouse a 69.7, Higgins a 67.0, and Nugent a 65.4. Those were our four good offensive players and the rest was ugly. On Higgins specifically, 10 of his 37 snaps were run blocking and PFF thought he did a subpar job at that. Hard for me to give a 37 snap player a game ball over a 51 snap player with a better grade. But I hear you. If I had the courage of my convictions I probably would have recognized the 100 yard receiving game over the non-descript passing game/seven sack struggle fest. But for what it's worth PFF thought McKee was better than Higgins.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - winflop - 11-13-2022
(11-13-2022, 11:31 AM)msqueri Wrote: 1. Make it stop.
The end is nigh. Only 13 days.
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - Treebound - 11-13-2022
Thank you Matt. Another well written review of the program. "Make it stop" is entirely apropos. True fans are dropping each week. It's past time for something to be done. We will continue to lose fans. and funding if this is allowed to continue. I've seen too many colleagues give up their season tickets and their donations. If Shaw is truly a Stanford man then he should admit defeat and step down. I thank him for his guidance, but he's not the right person to lead this program and it's obvious to EVERYONE. I thank him for his efforts, but would ask him to look in the mirror and admit he's not the right person to lead the program into the future. If he's as intelligent as he thinks he is, then he should have known this long ago. Thank you David, and goodnight!
RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Utah - BostonCard - 11-15-2022
[tweet]https://twitter.com/pff_college/status/1592534638395904001?s=46&t=6T-LTSfUj1fRxwwQUF8yAQ[/tweet]
Hard to salvage anything from that stinking pile of garbage that was our game against Utah, but happy that Danumi got some recognition.
BC