Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - Printable Version
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Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - msqueri - 08-31-2024
1. Not much has changed. We never win at home. Nobody goes to our games. We are decidedly worse than competent but not great teams. The coaches have instilled enough grit and resilience in the team to battle but not enough quality to finish. All that being said, the real upshot of yesterday is that it reinforces exactly where most people think Stanford's program is right now. There were signs of very incremental progress compared to last year. I view this game as an authentic representation of Taylor's theory of the case for improving the program: slow, plodding, unglamorous progress. The problem I am having is I feel like questions are mounting regarding whether that will be enough to dig out of our hole and regarding what kind of ceiling this staff can have. Yesterday felt pretty discouraging, more than a seven point loss to a solid program should feel.
2. Folks know I can't resist my mathematical/mechanical gauges of where we are, though I understand that so early in the season preseason models should be taken with a salt shaker. The late field goal barely beat the spread and, depending on whether one uses SP+ or Sagarin, the performance was befitting something like the #68 or #78 team in the nation. Last year's team would have been expected to lose to this TCU team by 12-15 points. Moreover, given Dykes' national title runner-up pedigree and fairly successful resume, there is at least as good a chance that the current expectation of TCU as a top 40 team underrates them as there is that they're overrated. The other hand weighs heavier for me though, which is that this does not feel like progress compared to even last year's opener at Hawaii and this game felt like the competitiveness of the score overstated our competitiveness with TCU. If we've made progress from last year it seems more subtle than transformational.
3. The score overstated our competitiveness because we were super lucky. It started with the chaotic and hilariously fortunate first drive and then continued with TCU indiscipline bailing us out at numerous junctures, including the fourth quarter drive extending unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Indeed, TCU gave up 100 penalty yards, the first time they've done that since 2021, and we were one of the least penalized teams to play so far this season (maybe that's an area of progress compared to last year). We created our own luck to a degree by winning the turnover battle (props to Bailey and Green, who both had quite bad games otherwise, for the kinds of punches that can change a game) but it's also the case that there is luck involved in whether fumbles become fumbles lost/recovered and in this game TCU had three fumbles and lost two while we had one fumble and did not lose it, a quite fortuitous bouncing of the balls for us. One of TCU's fumbles was at the goal line and deprived them of the opportunity for back-to-back possessions before and after the half to turn the momentum of the game. TCU also missed a fourth quarter field goal attempt from within 40 yards. We can hope that this was a sign of things to come in terms of being more disciplined than opponents, forcing turnovers, and having a special team edge over opponents but I also think it was just plain lucky to a large degree.
4. Yesterday was not an arrow up for Taylor's prospects to succeed as Stanford's coach. The offensive design/playcalling/effectiveness did not seem to match either his reputation or all that we return. His general preseason vibe seems potentially overly optimistic and at risk of being out of touch with where we are as a program. And the buck needs to stop with him for our continued inability to finish. Watching the post-game press conference with Taylor, Bernadel, and Daniels, I had the thought that there's a fine line between patient, process-oriented incrementalism and becoming inured to mediocrity. I still think our team's morale and attitude is better than it was the last several years under Shaw but I am starting to see risks in Taylor and Daniels' comments that their faith in the process may lead them to accept things that shouldn't be accepted. Taylor's culpability for failing to finish also stems from things he did in-game that did not improve our chances of winning. We can debate the shocking levels of aggressiveness on fourth down but I don't think there's much debate the fourth quarter choices did not do us any favors. For what it's worth, my view of the fourth down decisions is that the first quarter one in our own territory was a gutsy and effective nod to analytics (which Taylor claimed was behind the aggressiveness in general, basically disavowed responsibility by saying we just go by analytics), the third quarter one at the TCU 40 was a smart analytical decision even though it didn't pan out, the fourth and 5 from our own 35 early in the fourth quarter felt desperate and out of sync with the game's flow but maybe analytics say go for that, and 4th and 16 from your own 19 with more than two minutes remaining in a three point game in which your defense has been your relative strength is on the shortest lists of worst coaching decisions I can recall seeing at Stanford.
5. There was a bright spot in this game, which is that we showed enough on defense to hope that April and the defense are getting better, though we still need to see a lot more. It wasn't great by any stretch - my calculation of 2.83 points allowed per non-garbage drive is pretty ugly - but we did ok on defense. We gave up 6.01 yards per play, the sixth best we've done under April and the seventh best of TCU's last 13 opponents. That's respectable, reinforced by an adjustment for quality of opponent. If SP+ is right, this Dykes offense is the sixth or seventh best April has gone up against and will be the fourth or so best we face this year. The run defense was encouraging, one of the four best run defense games under this staff and one of the four worst TCU run performances in that span. Impressively, aside from playing the Philadelphia Eagles defense in the national championship game in 2022, last night was TCU's lowest yards per carry in a game since 2021 and the lowest an unranked team has held them to since 2018. I'm not ready to say our run defense has turned the corner as they had some nice moments last year too, but it's a start. The pass defense was totally middle of the road by how we've done under this staff and slightly worse than the defensive norm against Josh Hoover last year. I would have taken that going into the game. Hoover's stat line was eye-catching, but he's a good QB with a good primary weapon. This year is not like last year when we faced a murderer's row of QBs; I would actually guess Hoover is one of the toughest tests our pass defense will face. They did well enough to give us a chance. Alas....
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - msqueri - 08-31-2024
6. Such a disappointing offensive performance. With all that we return, Taylor's reputation, and TCU/Dykes team shortcomings on defense, I don't think many of us expected that level of struggle on offense. 3.90 yards per play is the third worst we've done in Taylor's 13 games and the the third best TCU's defense has done in that span. I expected much better than that. The passing game did not pass the eye test, to say the least. By the stats test, it was the second lowest yards per attempt and fifth lowest passer rating we've had under Taylor, and I don't think experts expect TCU to have a fearsome pass defense this year. The run game was generally in the range of effectiveness from last year (obviously not a compliment), almost exactly on the yards per game mark and below the yards per carry average, as well as 0.75 yards per carry worse than TCU allowed last year. It was especially discouraging to see so many negative plays. A team doesn't get 10 tackles for loss too often (in fact TCU has only done it one other time in the last three seasons). If there was one thing about this game that most troubled me it was that, the offensive line, play design, etc. not being able to avoid a massive number of negative plays. In the interest of nuance, I will point out that our points per non-garbage drive (2.25) was respectable and that at least in the view of SP+ TCU is the fourth or fifth or so best defense the Taylor staff has faced, so there are arguably mitigating factors here. But it's hard not to have an overriding view that we are counting on our offense, it fizzled in the first game, and we seem to again be at risk of foiling ourselves with negative plays due to being outmatched in the trenches.
7. After so much talk that we will finally be able to see Taylor's true offense, it sure looked more like last year's offense than like Sacramento State's offense. In the passing game, Daniels seems fixated on deep balls (and even there missed seeing some guys deep, including Roush, who otherwise had a very bad game, open for what would have been a touchdown). In the running game, the QBs continued to have more of the run plays than the RBs (19 to 15) and accounted for 74 percent of our rushing yards. We are fond of gadget plays that go nowhere (using Cisse instead of Farrell these times. The RB1 (Ford) stat sheet was very ugly, and PFF also thought he was terrible at pass blocking (though I agree with those who think he is intriguing....would be nice to see what's possible avoiding all those negative plays). Ayomanor remains far and away the guy we can count on, in this case 34 percent of the targets despite not being targeted for much of the game and 62 percent of our receiving yards. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Ayomanor (4), Daniels (4), Lamson (2), Ford (2), Harris (also drew a pass interference), Cisse, Irvin, Bachmeier] Daniels not targeting Ayomanor more earlier and instead forcing the ball to Harris may have been one of the (many) reasons we lost this game. Daniels did not have a good game and admirably owned it in the press conference (odd to put QB1 on stage after such a rough game but I suppose also shows faith in him and his leadership role to take the lumps in failure). Daniels is 33 of 37 QBs so far in Total QBR. Rough start. By the way, the talk of the boards is the impulse to give Brown a shot going forward. I would not expect that to go better. Brown has lots of talents but he is by far our least mobile QB and has by far the least experience with adversity. His major skills are tailored for game manager type success when surrounded by good support. It could get very ugly to ask him to do what Daniels was asked to do last night. Cal Poly will be a no pressure way to get the feet wet but I would be very nervous about asking Brown to compete against Syracuse or especially Clemson. I think it makes much more sense to give Daniels and Lamson the first month of the season and see where we are from there.
8. One of the best things about the game for us was that so many players on the defense ran to the ball and made positive plays. I counted eight players as making multiple positive plays in the box score (Wright and Sinclair with five each, Bernadel with four, Tafiti with three, and Patterson, Aybar, Edwards, and Green with two each). If that keeps up I think the defense will be much improved this season. Wright and the veteran inside linebackers had especially good games. Wright impacted the game very positively with multiple plays near the goal line as well as a fourth down play and in general corroborated the positive talk of him as a complete player who can cover, defend the run, and tackle. There was also a high degree of difficulty going up against Savion Williams, made all the more difficult by the refs not calling offensive pass interference on the touchdown Wright gave up. Sinclair and Bernadel had distinctly positive games as well, probably serving as the main reasons for the run defense successes I mentioned (though DL play a brobdingnagian role in that and are harder to assess) and Sinclair also had two of the biggest pass rush successes of the game, a third and goal hurry to force a field goal and a sack to start the fourth quarter. DL usage was super interesting in this game, likely portending an era of much more rotation and depth on DL than we are used to. Snap count: Franklin (47), Phillips (46), Rowell (44), Patterson (19), Buckey (13), Marceau-Olayinka (5).
9. Very happy for Kenney. His is the longest and least distinguished journey of any kicker I can remember ever playing for Stanford. He had a long time to think about his first college football field goal attempts, and he made both of them, including a 45 yarder in a must-make situation (albeit it turns out too little too late). You could tell Taylor noticed and was relieved. Great first start for Kenney and I am very happy for the guy. Flintoft's punts got less effective as the game went on, with net punts of 43 pre-penalty/53 post-penalty, 39 punting out of his own end zone, and 28 when we had an opportunity to flip the field late in the third. He has room to improve but I still like what he is doing relative to age. Farrell had a quiet game as a returner but started the game with a terrible decision to return the kick; he did make a good coverage tackle, as did several others who were solid in coverage (Kasemervisz, Porter, Morris, Green). This game is indicative of special teams being a relative strength for us. It would be disturbing were it not given our challenges elsewhere but good to get a solid first game in the books and especially for Kenney to taste success.
10. Game balls: Ayomanor, Wright, Kenney, D'Onofrio
11. It is sad to need to savor wins against bad FCS teams but that's where we are. For a team that never wins at home, next week will be a rare chance to see a Cardinal win. It won't mean anything but hopefully it can contribute to whatever it is this staff is trying to do to build resilience, confidence, and other winning habits. Fans will eagerly await whether that is the first we see Brown. I suspect it will be, in garbage time, which would be a source of intrigue for a program that has had little. Mostly I just want next week to be fun. There will be time later for assessing how far off track we are on the rebuild or if this may be exactly the sort of slow, plodding, unglamorous progress we were promised.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - needle - 08-31-2024
FWIW, Dykes in the opening remarks of his presser said Stanford ran an entirely new defensive scheme for which TCU had not prepared. Given that Phillips and Franklin did not show up on the stat sheet at all, I have to think that the general idea was to keep Bernadel and Sinclair as free from blockers as possible.
Was Mosley hurt? He did not play at all according to the stat sheet, which surprised me because TT had been pretty effusive in his praise for the freshman/spring enrollee.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - VB Card - 09-01-2024
(08-31-2024, 01:23 PM)needle Wrote: FWIW, Dykes in the opening remarks of his presser said Stanford ran an entirely new defensive scheme for which TCU had not prepared. Given that Phillips and Franklin did not show up on the stat sheet at all, I have to think that the general idea was to keep Bernadel and Sinclair as free from blockers as possible.
Was Mosley hurt? He did not play at all according to the stat sheet, which surprised me because TT had been pretty effusive in his praise for the freshman/spring enrollee.
Yes, Mosley missed out due to injury.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - msqueri - 09-01-2024
Sadly Mosley is always hurt. No reliable track record of being a football player. With Bonner we ended up getting one good year, with Ungar it appears we never will, but when somebody simply cannot stay healthy as a football player you have to drastically reduce your expectations. Sadly I think this is where we are with Mosley. He has the talent to do big things and I very much hope he will but that will be a bonus to me given the injury history.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - fullmetal - 09-01-2024
Cheers for the sound analysis. After some time to reflect, I agree with you that the defense deserves much credit for doing what they could with what they had. Sometimes we call the turnover battle a matter of luck, but I do think that the defense made some of that luck.
I was disappointed at how they covered TCU's Bech on their final go-ahead TD play. It looked like the our corner stayed home while our safety thought otherwise and then had the inglorious honor of chasing Bech five yards from behind for that end zone corner TD. Seemed like an ordinary, preventable red zone playcall. Nothing tricky.
What the offense didn't do that the defense did was maximize their chances in light of the talent and matchups present on the field. If you know your OL is struggling, you have to stop waiting for the deep shots and go to a short, quick game (hint: sweeps and reverses don't work when the OL/blocking is struggling) with a healthy dose of misdirection. Tunnel screens, QB option plays out of the spread, etc...triple option would have been interesting too.
Daniels needs to get comfortable throwing in tighter windows and making much quicker assessments of separation/speed. Do we not have hot routes and quick reads in the playbook? If our WRs were blanketed by a quick TCU secondary, why weren't there crossing routes, wheel routes, stacks, etc designed to free up WRs? Why wasn't there even a little bit more play action (don't remember much) to get Roush involved?
Honestly, when things are this bad, you gotta try to get the ball to your playmakers who are more likely to win their matchups. I'm sure TCU was scheming to shut down Ayomanor and Roush, but surely Troy Taylor knows that there are ways to break his guys open.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - msqueri - 09-01-2024
Good post, but I would not mention Roush as one of our playmakers. Ayomanor absolutely should be force-fed. Much higher chance of moving sticks, drawing penalties, etc. than force-feeding Harris. But Roush has been a bad player every year he has played at Stanford. I am not giving up on him but I think it's only objective to look at his results the last two years and one game and think he is very much not an asset.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - MV72018 - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 10:43 AM)fullmetal Wrote: Cheers for the sound analysis. After some time to reflect, I agree with you that the defense deserves much credit for doing what they could with what they had. Sometimes we call the turnover battle a matter of luck, but I do think that the defense made some of that luck.
I was disappointed at how they covered TCU's Bech on their final go-ahead TD play. It looked like the our corner stayed home while our safety thought otherwise and then had the inglorious honor of chasing Bech five yards from behind for that end zone corner TD. Seemed like an ordinary, preventable red zone playcall. Nothing tricky.
What the offense didn't do that the defense did was maximize their chances in light of the talent and matchups present on the field. If you know your OL is struggling, you have to stop waiting for the deep shots and go to a short, quick game (hint: sweeps and reverses don't work when the OL/blocking is struggling) with a healthy dose of misdirection. Tunnel screens, QB option plays out of the spread, etc...triple option would have been interesting too.
Daniels needs to get comfortable throwing in tighter windows and making much quicker assessments of separation/speed. Do we not have hot routes and quick reads in the playbook? If our WRs were blanketed by a quick TCU secondary, why weren't there crossing routes, wheel routes, stacks, etc designed to free up WRs? Why wasn't there even a little bit more play action (don't remember much) to get Roush involved?
Honestly, when things are this bad, you gotta try to get the ball to your playmakers who are more likely to win their matchups. I'm sure TCU was scheming to shut down Ayomanor and Roush, but surely Troy Taylor knows that there are ways to break his guys open.
I like Troy Taylor but he gets an D- for his offensive (in both senses) play calling in this game. That last drive starting at 3:13 left in Q4 was pathetic: 2 long, low probability passes to Harris and Bachmeier on 1st and 2nd downs, a 3rd down sack for a loss of 6 after a totally blown block by #71, McLaughlin, who double blocked the D lineman being blocked by the O lineman next to him and left the rusher opposite him with a free path to Daniel, and then a desperation far-too-high pass to Ayomanor on 4th down. There was ample time for us to march downfield with short passes, even if only to the 30-or-so yard line for a tying FG (it was TCU 27-SU 24 at the time). TT's reputation as a clever O play caller was seriously called into question by this drive.
I might add that TT's post-game presser was MASSIVELY BORING, REPLETE WITH PLATITUDES, VERY LOW ENERGY, AND UNENLIGHTENING! All in all, an impressive performance by TT. But other coaches deserve slices of the blame pie. For you would think that by this time...
1. the O line would have its pass-blocking assignments down pat;
2. our tackling on D wouldn't be so poor that it took 7 or 8 guys grabbing him above the waist to bring down Richardson on his gain of 34 to our 27 during their next-to-last TD drive;
3. our DBack pass coverage wouldn't be so poor that on the go-ahead 4 yard TD pass to Bech, he was wide open in the north endzone, with #4 (Manley) being in a different zip code (9-10 feet away) when Bech caught the ball!
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - JohnR34231 - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 09:27 AM)msqueri Wrote: Sadly Mosley is always hurt. No reliable track record of being a football player. With Bonner we ended up getting one good year, with Ungar it appears we never will, but when somebody simply cannot stay healthy as a football player you have to drastically reduce your expectations. Sadly I think this is where we are with Mosley. He has the talent to do big things and I very much hope he will but that will be a bonus to me given the injury history.
Seems like we have more than our share of players like that.
Maybe just my imagination though.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - jonnyss - 09-01-2024
(08-31-2024, 12:00 PM)msqueri Wrote: 8. One of the best things about the game for us was that so many players on the defense ran to the ball and made positive plays. I counted eight players as making multiple positive plays in the box score (Wright and Sinclair with five each, Bernadel with four, Tafiti with three, and Patterson, Aybar, Edwards, and Green with two each). If that keeps up I think the defense will be much improved this season. Wright and the veteran inside linebackers had especially good games. Wright impacted the game very positively with multiple plays near the goal line as well as a fourth down play and in general corroborated the positive talk of him as a complete player who can cover, defend the run, and tackle. There was also a high degree of difficulty going up against Savion Williams, made all the more difficult by the refs not calling offensive pass interference on the touchdown Wright gave up. Sinclair and Bernadel had distinctly positive games as well, probably serving as the main reasons for the run defense successes I mentioned (though DL play a of immense proportions role in that and are harder to assess) and Sinclair also had two of the biggest pass rush successes of the game, a third and goal hurry to force a field goal and a sack to start the fourth quarter. DL usage was super interesting in this game, likely portending an era of much more rotation and depth on DL than we are used to. Snap count: Franklin (47), Phillips (46), Rowell (44), Patterson (19), Buckey (13), Marceau-Olayinka (5).
i saw at least 2 highlight-reel plays by david bailey - chasing down the receiver and forcing the fumble - and that's just the plays that were really obvious.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - fullmetal - 09-01-2024
Yeah, Taylor absolutely needs to be accountable for not changing the playcalling to suit the match up. I'm happy to hear reasons why my amateur playcalling suggestions wouldn't work, but whatever the philosophy was Friday night definitely didn't work either.
The defense -- I do remember those plays, and I mentioned Bech's TD reception. But the defense did make some nice 1:1 tackles in space, and the energy resulting in recovered fumbles cannot go overlooked. Given the talent of Savion Williams, I think the defense correctly focused on shutting him down, though two other TCU receivers were able to step up. The run defense contained TCU (no TCU rush longer than 12 yds, only 104 yds combined rushing), but that soft underneath middle was the vulnerability Stanford couldn't protect. The defense did alright. I'm not counting the garbage time, short field TD.
As for the offensive line, it looks like there are two co-OL coaches, one recently from Northern Arizona, and one recently from Yale (both reprise their roles from last season). I don't know what's going on in that position group, but they need to figure something out quickly. I'll need to find some game film to have a more informed opinion.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - msqueri - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 01:19 PM)jonnyss Wrote:(08-31-2024, 12:00 PM)msqueri Wrote: 8. One of the best things about the game for us was that so many players on the defense ran to the ball and made positive plays. I counted eight players as making multiple positive plays in the box score (Wright and Sinclair with five each, Bernadel with four, Tafiti with three, and Patterson, Aybar, Edwards, and Green with two each). If that keeps up I think the defense will be much improved this season. Wright and the veteran inside linebackers had especially good games. Wright impacted the game very positively with multiple plays near the goal line as well as a fourth down play and in general corroborated the positive talk of him as a complete player who can cover, defend the run, and tackle. There was also a high degree of difficulty going up against Savion Williams, made all the more difficult by the refs not calling offensive pass interference on the touchdown Wright gave up. Sinclair and Bernadel had distinctly positive games as well, probably serving as the main reasons for the run defense successes I mentioned (though DL play a of immense proportions role in that and are harder to assess) and Sinclair also had two of the biggest pass rush successes of the game, a third and goal hurry to force a field goal and a sack to start the fourth quarter. DL usage was super interesting in this game, likely portending an era of much more rotation and depth on DL than we are used to. Snap count: Franklin (47), Phillips (46), Rowell (44), Patterson (19), Buckey (13), Marceau-Olayinka (5).
i saw at least 2 highlight-reel plays by david bailey - chasing down the receiver and forcing the fumble - and that's just the plays that were really obvious.
If this is meant to dispute the quoted part from me, Bailey had one positive box score play. The play chasing down the receiver was very impressive and great hustle but a 43 yard play is not a positive play for Stanford. The positive box score play are things like run stops, passes defended, tackles for loss, turnovers, etc. Bailey only had one play he showed up in the box score and the play itself was a good result for Stanford. That's what I'm trying to measure with the counting of box score plays. But yes, Bailey had two very good plays in this game.
Bailey played fewer snaps than Tafiti, again, despite Bailey being ostensibly the starter. We also continue to drop Bailey in coverage an absolutely insane percentage of the time. Bailey's effort in this game seemed far better than what he gave us last year, but he's still an enigmatic player who doesn't seem to be used very well by April.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - qwerty49 - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 10:43 AM)fullmetal Wrote: Cheers for the sound analysis. After some time to reflect, I agree with you that the defense deserves much credit for doing what they could with what they had. Sometimes we call the turnover battle a matter of luck, but I do think that the defense made some of that luck.
I was disappointed at how they covered TCU's Bech on their final go-ahead TD play. It looked like the our corner stayed home while our safety thought otherwise and then had the inglorious honor of chasing Bech five yards from behind for that end zone corner TD. Seemed like an ordinary, preventable red zone playcall. Nothing tricky.
What the offense didn't do that the defense did was maximize their chances in light of the talent and matchups present on the field. If you know your OL is struggling, you have to stop waiting for the deep shots and go to a short, quick game (hint: sweeps and reverses don't work when the OL/blocking is struggling) with a healthy dose of misdirection. Tunnel screens, QB option plays out of the spread, etc...triple option would have been interesting too.
Daniels needs to get comfortable throwing in tighter windows and making much quicker assessments of separation/speed. Do we not have hot routes and quick reads in the playbook? If our WRs were blanketed by a quick TCU secondary, why weren't there crossing routes, wheel routes, stacks, etc designed to free up WRs? Why wasn't there even a little bit more play action (don't remember much) to get Roush involved?
Honestly, when things are this bad, you gotta try to get the ball to your playmakers who are more likely to win their matchups. I'm sure TCU was scheming to shut down Ayomanor and Roush, but surely Troy Taylor knows that there are ways to break his guys open.
Hoover has the talent (and obviously the training) to nail all those quick slants and patterns. Watching him execute vs watching Daniels was like night and day. TCU was just so much more quicker off the ball.
We know what to expect from Daniels and Lamson. If Brown is as immobile as msqueri implies, we're in for a dreary season.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - Goose - 09-01-2024
IMO TT's decision to rely on the long pass almost exclusively tells us he has no confidence in his team's ability to reliably execute a "West Coast" dink and dunk game plan, at least not against TCU. In particular his choice near the end of the game when there was just over 3 minutes left argues for that conclusion. In that situation you can be sure the TCU defense was instructed to keep all the plays in front of them. It is often easy to take what the defense is giving you and get down the field relatively quickly. All we needed was a field goal. The fact we didn't try tells me TT didn't think we could do it.
The decision to go for it on 4th and 5 from our own 35 at 13:46 in the fourth quarter has been called "aggressive play calling". On first down Stanford completed a pass for 5 yards. That yields a manageable down and distance situation. On second down we throw an incomplete long pass. OK, that could be considered just being "aggressive" and hoping TCU would expect a shorter pattern. It didn't work however. On third down, we do the same thing. IMO that was just dumb. It is fine to have a receiver going deep to open up a shorter route but making the "bomb" your primary target was silly. Get the first down! So on 4th down and 5 we go for it. The message that sent to me wasn't aggression, it was rather desperation. It says "The offense and defense are so bad we can't possibly figure a way to get 3 points in the next 13:46 and must convert here, all or nothing". In the event the result should have been the "nothing" option :-). TCU was unable to get the TD and missed the FG. Our defense played that drive pretty well, but that doesn't mean TT made a good decisions on the previous possession.
On the next drive starting at 11:43 TT called three straight short passing plays where we gained 11, 5, and 8 yards. Any one of these plays would have yielded a first down in the previous series. This makes the two previous long attempts even harder to fathom. Anyway, we then attempted to run wide and lost 7 yards, making it 2nd and 17. That wasn't IMO a bad play call. A TCU player came through apparently unblocked. That isn't the play call but rather its execution. We were now behind the sticks. On the next play we completed a 3 yard pass which would have left us with a third and long. However, a TCU penalty gave us another 15 yards bailing us out of a bad situation. Daniels then ran for 8 yards. Daniels then threw a short pass that was incomplete. On the next play TT went aggressive again and Daniels threw a 29 yard pass to Ayomanor. Being aggressive there payed off, but even if it hadn't we would have 4th and 2 from the TCU 36. It was therefore a very defensible call. A very long FG, so we would have gone for it. Only needed 2 yards.
As far as TTs other play calling, it was IMO "aggressive" not because he felt we had so much skill we could do as we wished but rather because we had so little skill we are better off with "high risk, high reward" plays. In other words, we need to get lucky. We often did because TCU played a very undisciplined game. We scored 3 TDs. Two of them were aided by 1 or more TCU 15 yard penalties. The other one was a very short field starting on the TCU 20 (TCU fumble). It is difficult IMO to give Stanford's offense much credit for generating those points. We did not seriously attempt to run the ball, so obviously TT didn't think we could. He also didn't think we could execute a short passing game and play possession football, because we didn't try to do that either. It must be said that play action passes cannot work if you have no running game. It is difficult to run wheel routes if you have to use your backs in pass protection most of the time. You can't run anything wide if the defense is in your backfield before the ball carrier even reaches the tackle box boundary. You also are going to have trouble completing long passes if your receivers don't get separation and your OL can only sometimes protect the QB.
It is in a way ironic that Dykes gets his first win against Stanford with us playing such an "aggressive" game. When Dykes was at Kal and had Goff at QB, Stanford generally played a "bend but don't break" defense and challenged Kal to make long sustained drives. Kal would play great on most of the plays, but invariably somebody on Kal would make a mistake. Kal would have an incomplete/dropped pass and get behind the yard markers. That often led to a punt. Stanford's somewhat Fabian strategy on defense (against KAL and many others) often drove the fans nuts, but the fact was that few college teams can execute consistently enough to win on a series of long sustained drives. TCU showed signs of that with their flurry of dropped/poor passes on several drives.
TT OTOH obviously believed we couldn't even imagine executing long many-play drives so he didn't try that much. Throw the ball up and hope. TCU bailed us out several times which makes the score less lopsided than the game actually was. Last year TT experimented with lots of things, some of which worked. He was somewhat persistent with the experimentation even when things didn't work the first time. I am hoping his apparent one-dimensional, no running game at all, few short passes approach he took to the TCU game isn't actually indicative of what he believes we must do in general. If it is, it will be a very long year
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - fullmetal - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 04:46 PM)Goose Wrote: The fact we didn't try tells me TT didn't think we could do it.
If that's true, I wonder what he's been coaching the team to do since the end of the 2023 season. A West Coast offense has to be within the capability of any decent college team. I would say it's the coaches' job to make sure the team can do the things that a fundamentally sound team should be able to do.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - needle - 09-01-2024
Quote: We did not seriously attempt to run the ball, so obviously TT didn't think we could.
Well, yes and no. In the first half, I counted 15 run plays involving the running backs, Cisse or Lamson. That number dropped to 4 in the second half, at least by my count.
The obvious reason why that number went down is that the running game did not look good at all. But if we as fans entered the game doubtful that a slew of freshmen RBs and still-not-yet-fully-mature O-line would lead to a consistent running game right out of the gate, surely TT had the same thought. I was surprised at the number of running plays in the first half, and maybe TT thought that handing the ball off early and (relatively) often would surprise TCU as well.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - fullmetal - 09-01-2024
My guess is that TT wanted to give the OL a fair shake to see if the lightbulb would click for the unit. Not this game, unfortunately.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - Goose - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 05:01 PM)fullmetal Wrote:I am going to disagree with that statement. Many college teams don't recruit players that are well suited to the West Coast offense. These teams don't run that offense. Their players would be lost doing it. One attribute of the West Coast offense is that the players must get the right read and do the "right thing" each and every time. The margin for error is slim. Pro teams can practice as much as they need to to make that happen. College teams cannot. In addition, many college athletes simply do not have the required discipline. The get it right 90% of the time and that is the best they will ever do. That isn't enough and you end up punting. These are some of the reasons the West Coast offense has fallen out of favor in college football. Chip Kelly was a major factor in this movement. Simplify everything so the players don't have to think at all.(09-01-2024, 04:46 PM)Goose Wrote: The fact we didn't try tells me TT didn't think we could do it.
If that's true, I wonder what he's been coaching the team to do since the end of the 2023 season. A West Coast offense has to be within the capability of any decent college team. I would say it's the coaches' job to make sure the team can do the things that a fundamentally sound team should be able to do.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - cctop - 09-01-2024
I don’t think anyone has mentioned that we finally saw the wildcat work.
Of course TCU was the team who called it, but let’s not quibble.
RE: Saturday morning thoughts - TCU - GK3 - 09-01-2024
(09-01-2024, 10:43 AM)fullmetal Wrote: Cheers for the sound analysis. After some time to reflect, I agree with you that the defense deserves much credit for doing what they could with what they had. Sometimes we call the turnover battle a matter of luck, but I do think that the defense made some of that luck.
I was disappointed at how they covered TCU's Bech on their final go-ahead TD play. It looked like the our corner stayed home while our safety thought otherwise and then had the inglorious honor of chasing Bech five yards from behind for that end zone corner TD. Seemed like an ordinary, preventable red zone playcall. Nothing tricky.
What the offense didn't do that the defense did was maximize their chances in light of the talent and matchups present on the field. If you know your OL is struggling, you have to stop waiting for the deep shots and go to a short, quick game (hint: sweeps and reverses don't work when the OL/blocking is struggling) with a healthy dose of misdirection. Tunnel screens, QB option plays out of the spread, etc...triple option would have been interesting too.
Daniels needs to get comfortable throwing in tighter windows and making much quicker assessments of separation/speed. Do we not have hot routes and quick reads in the playbook? If our WRs were blanketed by a quick TCU secondary, why weren't there crossing routes, wheel routes, stacks, etc designed to free up WRs? Why wasn't there even a little bit more play action (don't remember much) to get Roush involved?
Honestly, when things are this bad, you gotta try to get the ball to your playmakers who are more likely to win their matchups. I'm sure TCU was scheming to shut down Ayomanor and Roush, but surely Troy Taylor knows that there are ways to break his guys open.
Your comments on the offense really hit the nail on the head. Not much more to say other than we suck offensively. Run game defense deserves Kudos, Run game offense deserves to go sit in the penalty box.