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Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - Printable Version

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Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - msqueri - 11-09-2025

1. Welp, a winless road campaign it is. This joins the ignominious list of winless road teams historically: 1901 (but we did tie the Olympic Club in a game at 16th and Folsom in the city!), 1921 (but that shouldn't count as we only played one road game, a tie at Washington), 1938, 1947, 1960, 1963, 1983, 1985, 1988 (though we at least tied Cal), 1989, 1994 (though we at least tied Northwestern), 2002, and now 2025. That's a brutal distinction. This was a bad game between bad teams and it belonged on the CW in a game called by the clownish Thom Brennaman. We continue to heap on the evidence we're the same level of terrible program we have been for the last half decade if not longer. So why don't I feel worse? Yesterday, as frustrating and ugly as it was, actually saw us play at a level somewhat better than our norm. We lost by five points in a cross-country road game (a milieu that has generally been brutal in our time in the ACC) where for defensible analytical reasons we left two extra points on the board and where our kicker had an uncharacteristic miss. Playing a Sagarin top 70 team somewhat evenly at their place is better than most of our games, sadly. We are now Sagarin #87, essentially equivalent with Shaw's last two teams and somewhat better than Taylor's first two. [Not all metrics are as charitable. SP+ condemns us at #114. By Sagarin we have had scoreboard outcomes befitting #71 (Hawaii has turned out to be one of the surprises of the season, great job by Timmy Chang), #116 (uncompetitive on the road against BYU), #67 (Boston College is terrible but that was a respectable margin for us), #160 (embarrassing on the road against Virginia), #127 (embarrassing to eke out a win against San Jose State), #102 (uncompetitive on the road against SMU), #23 (a bona fide great result against Florida State), #137 (embarrassing on the road against Miami), #102 (uncompetitive against Pitt), and #78 (the fourth best performance of the season on the road against North Carolina, basically the level I had hoped we would average this season).]

2. This was the latest game where we played an opponent tough and then let it slip away in the third quarter. In this one, it felt in real time and certainly in retrospect that the game hinged on Wright's inexplicable whiffed tackle coming forward to tackle a guy who couldn't see him or make a move, only to miss and have that guy turn up field, hurdle a defender, and get North Carolina moving on their first (and it turned out winning) touchdown. While individual botched defensive plays like that one and a few I'll get to below jump out vividly as dramatic crescendoes, the mood music for this game was the nine sacks. It's always going to be tough to win when you go backwards on nine passing plays and detract 73 yards from the rushing game due to the QB going down alone. One might even view it as a silver lining for the rest of the team that they averted garbage time and had a chance to win amidst such swarming of Brown. We are left, once again, with an impression of a team with a defense that gives us a chance and an offense that doesn't. In this one, the offense scored 1.25 points per drive, making the #46 points per drive defense look like #6. The defense was better, giving up 1.82 points per drive, making the #122 points per drive offense look like #97, but I think that snapshot is unfair and misleads in its impression of the defense. Three of the points we gave up were on a drive we held North Carolina to negative yardage; those points were fully on Brown and the pass protection for the strip sack. Another three points were on a drive we gave up only six yards; those points were fully on Brown for the interception. I would put the real calculation, adjusting for disadvantages caused by the turnovers, at 1.56, the equivalent of the #113 points per drive offense. That's not amazing considering how bad the Tar Heel offense has been this year, but it's better than our offense. In a nutshell, the defense played an awesome first half and not very good second half and the net result was playing North Carolina more or less straight up over the course of the game.

3. Even still, my weekly reminder that the enemy gets a vote applies as always. North Carolina's defense has been playing better of late and we actually, believe it or not, had more yards and yards per play than their last three opponents (Cal, Virginia, Syracuse). The defense gave up less yards and yards per play than North Carolina's average on the year, though that's distored by the Syracuse, Richmond, and Charlotte games so it bears noting that we did worse than Power Four teams generally do against North Carolina. Being better than Syracuse's defense is not a flex. So there is some degree to which our defense was/looked better than our offense simply because they had a much easier foe than the offense did. SP+ views there being a 67 spot gap between the UNC offense and defense, FEI says 42 spots, and traditional scoring says a whopping 85 spots. You can't analyze this game without realizing that any dynamic one thinks applies to Stanford's offense hamstringing the defense applies far more extremely for North Carolina. On closer analysis, I think what we really saw is each side took partial care of business but didn't play a complete enough game/do enough. On offense, there were all those damn sacks. On defense, it was big plays in the passing game.

4. Nine sacks will give anybody a sour taste in thinking about our prospects on passing plays, but we shouldn't lose sight of the somewhat surprising fact that we did well when we weren't sacked. We did better than our norm in all passing stats and also did better than North Carolina's norm in each respect. I don't want to make a brobdingnagian deal of this as North Carolina is only the sixth ranked of the ten pass efficiency defenses we have played, but I do think we should credit the Brown-led passing game with a relatively good performance. Only Clemson did better in passing yards, only Clemson and TCU did better in yards per attempt, and only those two and UCF did better in passer rating. Our pass game was a bright spot....except for the sack. A quite big caveat. North Carolina has an awesome run defense but we did even worse than could be expected against the #11 yards per carry defense, worse than any team except Charlotte has done this year. This is the seventh time this season we have been held to a piddling amount on the ground. As a result, we are 135th out of 136 in rushing and dead last in yards per carry. There is no sugarcoating worst in America. This state of affairs is remarkable given that Ford and Tabb both average over four yards per carry on the season and, among the 35 most prominent ACC running backs, PFF grades Ford ninth and Tabb 16th. We have a flat-out good running back room, one of seven ACC teams to have two of the top 16 backs (a concentration of teams that strongly suggests line play has something to do with it, meaning our guys overcome headwinds others don't). We all know what's going on. First, the offensive line is an abomination. Second, sacks count as rushing in college so the line's troubles are a double whammy for rushing stats. Third, our quarterbacks can't avoid sacks to save their lives and that makes it all that much worse. It's remarkable to have one of the better running back rooms in the ACC and be the worst rushing team in America but that's where we are.

5. The defense's version of Jekyll and Hyde was run defense/pass defense. North Carolina has a terrible run game but even still we did an awesome job in that phase. We tied TCU for the lowest rushing yards allowed, did better than all but TCU in yards per carry allowed, and joined UCF as the only teams to keep the Tar Heels ground game out of the endzone. This is the most we've stifled any run game in 19 games going back to last year's Syracuse game. Pass defense was less pleasant. North Carolina has a worse passing offense this season than we do, in fact the worst on our entire schedule. Doing worse than our norm in pass defense against a passing offense that horrible is really bitter. Syracuse and its equally as bad as Stanford pass defense is the only team to do worse. The emblematic plays of how bad this pass defense was were Wright's whiffed tackle allowing the receiver to hurdle another defender for the turning point play of the game, Rose's subsequent inability to cover the running back out of the backfield on the touchdown pass, and Green falling down on the 55 yard back-breaking touchdown. Because of those three plays this was a flat-out bad day by the pass defense. The glass half full way to look at it is that those plays show how close the game was to going our way. We were arguably two plays away from not giving up a touchdown all game. But ultimately you are what you put on tape.

RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - msqueri - 11-09-2025

6. On February 6, 2024, when I posted my four dimensional analysis of Bear Bachmeier, I posited that, based on my extensive study of both, Elijah Brown presented as a cool, calm, and collected game manager who can be accurate and distribute the football and Bachmeier presented as a more dynamic off-platform improvisor. My ultimate conclusion was "Personally my gut feeling is that Brown is who you want if you have a well-oiled machine and supporting cast but Bachmeier may have a shot of being what we will need in a gritty, tortuous rebuild." Unfortunately, it may be the story of this moment in Stanford football if I was right about that. Brown, like Gulbranson, utterly lacks the ability to avoid sacks. That's a rough trait to have when you play in an offense that can't block. I don't know how many more words we need to describe the Stanford offense when that's the case. What makes this not just pathetic but somewhat tragic for Brown is that he may have the skill set to be the QB some other offense needs. As highlighted above, our pure passing in this game was far more effective than some seem to be suggesting. Brown was dead last 106th in the nation this week in the sacks dimension of Total QBR and even still mustered an overall mark of 74th of 106 quarterbacks nationally in Total QBR. He was able to do that because strictly on the passing dimension he was good - 34th in the nation this week, even with the interception. A case can be made that Brown could be effective with competent line play. But of course we don't have competent line play. With the team he actually has to play with this year, Brown has been consistent - consistently bad, but consistent, and not abysmal. Among 12 Gulbranson or Brown games this year, Brown's games have been the fifth, sixth, and seventh best performances this year, and five and six (Florida State and yesterday against North Carolina) were tightly bunched around Brown's season average. In other words, what we saw yesterday was the typical level of play for Brown and for our QB room this season. He has yet to show either Gulbranson's peaks or valleys this season. I think we have what we have with Brown and it's not a workable skill set for one of the worst blocking teams in the nation. If we can overhaul the line next year I am open to the idea Brown could have a role, but my instinct is that we need somebody with some elusiveness.

7. We have an underrated complement of skill position players. I mentioned earlier the startling stat that PFF has Ford and Tabb among the top 16 ACC backs despite playing in the worst run game. I mentioned last week that Williams is a top 10 receiver in the ACC and Roush is pacing conference tight ends, and both are maintaining that pace after yesterday (gorgeous connection between Mater Dei buddies in the endzone yesterday, by the way). High's game yesterday was his second hundred yard game of the season and double his Stanford high in catches. I am a little but surprised he is only fourth on our team in receiving but, with Williams, Roush, and Farrell gone in three weeks, High could be the guy next year (along with potential wild cards Pantelis and Hall and anything via the portal)....if he doesn't continue his pattern of transferring to a higher level every season. I don't want to be the Gloomy Gus about all the potential body blows we could face in the transfer portal, but we have not put forward a great football argument for why guys like Ford, Tabb, and High should be at Stanford. Hopefully we can keep them along with the other key retention priorities among upperclass linemen and second level defenders. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: High (6), Ford (6), Williams (4, also drew a pass interference), Tabb (2), Blackburn, Marcus Brown, Roush, Farrell] Not so much underrated is our offensive line. Sheesh. We have had a parade of first and second year linemen this year that should simply be viewed as unplayable. We can't let this happen in future years if we are going to have pretenses of competing. I am indignant about Ugorji being a 17 year old this fall and having his college future crapped on by pointlessly wasting a redshirt year just so he can have his confidence battered serving as a turnstile. So far Williams seems to be holding up a lot better. I worry about tempting fate with that as I have seen young linemen get beat up and lose confidence too many times to get overly cocky about what Williams is doing, but it should be noted that so far he has not failed to the same extent as his fellow youngsters. One random positive about the offense yesterday: we had a great third and fourth down conversion game, with 56 percent conversions on third down and getting our only fourth down attempt. I did not have looking like Ohio State or Indiana on high leverage situations on my bingo card, though North Carolina being bad in those situations played a role.

8. A full dozen guys on the defense showed up positively multiple times in the box score: Tafiti, Rose, Galvan, Staples, Green, Eckhardt, Patterson, Franklin, Barth, Wright, Marceau-Olayinkia, Dubre. It frustrates me that it doesn't happen more often, but this was the second time this season Tafiti has had a stud game. He especially made a mark with his tackle for loss and hurry on the series after the strip sack to keep the damage to a field goal and he also had a third down stop to force a punt, red zone sack, and several other good plays. Difference-maker for us yesterday. Rose would have contended for the game ball as he also directly led to the ball changing hands (especially the strip sack to force a brobdingnagian turnover but also a third down hurry to force a punt) and also made several other good plays, but the second touchdown was on him and that was a big play in the game. I thought watching the game that Galvan (my new favorite player?) was quieter than we've gotten used to....and then in the box score I see a tackle before the sticks to force a punt, two tackles for loss one of which forced a punt, another stop to force a punt, and several other good plays. Staples has been an inconsistent player for us but I'm intrigued, and with our massive amount of old man eligibility expiring at DL we will be leaning on him next year. I am not sure Patterson is quite as good as PFF thinks he is but I do think he is an object lesson in the power of very old guys in the trenches; we're on 80+ PFF gade watch for him, a rare distinction in recent years of Stanford football. In the final analysis this was a subpar game for Wright, though the very significant pass interference called against him seemed like a tough call.

RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - msqueri - 11-09-2025

9. A solid special teams day got marred by Kenney missing a 41 yard field goal, made all the more painful by how close the game ended up being and how that likely changed the complexion of some coaching decisions (e.g., failed two point conversion attempts. He made a 38 yarder but ultimately that's a bad day at the office to cost us like that. Flintoft had net punts of 42 to the 31 (solid but owes Black one on that tackle), 32 to the 9 (really good situationally), 49 to the 19 (great but also credit to Pulsipher on the tackle), 45 to the 5 (excellent situationally), 42 to the 35 (ok but Libman's illegal motion made it disappointing). Really nice day at the office for Flintoft. Thorpe generally calls for a fair catch or lets the punt go, seems like we give up yards in the punt return game. Black and Pulsipher had those nice coverage tackles whereas Dubre got called for a hold. Darrius Davis took advantage of a muffed kick return to pin North Carolina at the 10. High had a 20 yard return to the 24 that gave up a yard compared to a fair catch but was explosive enough that it set a fine tone to start the game, but the other kick we decided to return, Chris Davis Jr.'s 16 yard return to the 16, not only gave up nine yards of field position but also gave North Carolina a jolt with the massive arm tackle hit.

10. Game balls: Caden High, Tevarua Tafiti, Aidan Flintoft, Malcolm Agnew

11. This era of Stanford football sucks and this season, despite the energy Luck brings to the program, is more of the same. We have just about exactly a 50 percent chance of this being our fifth consecutive 3-9 season. But now we get a bye and a classic Big Game to try to salvage our season in the eyes of some. Big Game will be a mediocre team on one side trying to build on a season it wants to pretend is doing something respectable going against a bad team trying to salvage its season with a win in the most important game of the year. I personally do not subscribe to the idea Big Game is all that more important than other games, but the salient fact for us is that Andrew Luck and the program have been posturing all year that Big Game is a big deal and, now, we face a situation where our main goal (a bowl, as acknowledged by Reich in his post-game press conference alluding to our goals being crushed yesterday) is gone and what's left is winning this game. Coming back home to C-House with a week off to prepare, I have no doubt we will put it on the line against Cal. That circumstance, this being at Stanford, and Cal being super mediocre (with home field advantage Sagarin pegs this a true tossup) make me believe this is a game that really could go either way. We are playing to end the bleak streak of 3-9 seasons. Let's go guys, four wins.

RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - martyup - 11-09-2025

Kal beat Louisville yesterday, getting their 6th win and earning bowl eligibility.  I wonder how this will affect their motivation in Big Game?

RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - Goose - 11-09-2025

(11-09-2025, 04:20 PM)martyup Wrote:  Kal beat Louisville yesterday, getting their 6th win and earning bowl eligibility.  I wonder how this will affect their motivation in Big Game?
My guess is it won't lessen their motivation much, but it will take a lot of pressure off them. They are already bowl eligible even if they lose. Of course, there still is quite a bit of "Fire Wilcox" sentiment running through the Kal faithful. Losing the Big Game might be enough to make that happen, the Louisville victory non-withstanding. 6-6 is not what the fans expected. IMO taking the pressure of the Kal team is more of a net negative for Stanford than any reduction in motivation because of bowl status. Having them be "tight" while we have nothing to lose would have been a positive.

RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - Giants - 11-09-2025

Both teams are motivated to win for the same reason they have been motivated to win most Big Games in history - because both teams are lousy and they see this game as an opportunity to salvage a disappointing season.

RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - North Carolina - qwerty49 - 11-10-2025

Great analysis as usual, Matt.

I was not aware #71 was only 17 yrs old. Hopefully he will watch a lot of film as most of his mistakes in footwork and technique can be corrected - with the right coaching.

I was thinking we are in the territory where negative game balls can be awarded but I’m a complainer by nature so I’ll leave that alone.