08-24-2025, 11:56 AM
1. What a deflating loss. It wasn't surprising - indeed a 23-20 Hawaii win is very close to the 26-24 or 26-23 Hawaii win Vegas predicted - but it stung big-time considering how much hope the program and its fans have held out that the offseason changed the character of our team. We really hoped against hope that merely adding Luck and Reich would change everything. Sadly it turns out that still having a deeply flawed roster and essentially running back Taylor Era Year 3 minus the head man did not fundamentally change anything. Maybe/hopefully that's a premature conclusion but the balance of evidence from yesterday is sobering in the extent to which it suggests this is more or less the same team that will again be one of the worst teams in the country. Deflating may not be a strong enough word for staring down the barrel of wasting yet another year. As we have said all too many times in recent years, hopefully this is rock bottom.
2. Beyond just the fact of losing to a Group of Five team and giving them their first power conference win since 2019, this was dispiriting because we weren't even the better team. We scored more than a point less per drive than they did, gained almost a yard less per play, and were gifted over a third of our total points via an extremely boneheaded special teams play followed by a defensive touchdown set up by the duress caused by that gaffe. We shot ourselves in the foot with a very damaging unsportsmanlike conduct but on balance one can make a fair case Hawaii was hurt even more by penalties, and certainly the number and yardage of penalties were even and costly for both teams. In terms of luck we got the fumble to go our way and provide seven points, a five point swing from merely a bounce of the ball. In terms of injuries they had a hobbled QB much of the game. [To those trying to find silver linings in the trenches, four sacks by the defense is nice.....but we had six last time we played Hawaii; giving up one sack isn't bad.....but we gave up zero last time we played them.] It sucks to say it but the right team won, which is really depressing considering this is supposed to be our worst opponent. It would be surprising at this point for us to avoid once again having one of the worst teams in Stanford history.
3. The offense was especially bad. Our 1.44 points per non-garbage drive (excluding the end of the first half) looks really bad compared to Hawaii giving up 2.62 points per drive last year and only five defenses in the country last year being as stingy on a per game basis as we made Hawaii look. Our 3.92 yards per play is the exact same we started last season with against TCU (a much better defense of course) and almost a yard less than last year's average. In the last decade of Hawaii games, no power conference offense has done as badly, only three Group of Five offenses have, and five FCS offenses have done better (Delaware State, Duquesne, Portland State, Central Arkansas, UT Martin). Starting that way against our only non-power opponent is quite discouraging. The defense was more of a mixed verdict, with 2.09 points per drive worse than last year's Hawaii average of 1.85 points per drive (only 45 offenses in the country were as dynamic last year as we made Hawaii look) but giving up 4.78 yards per play is quite good, the second best we've done against an FBS opponent in the last three seasons (did better in 2023 against Washington State). Part of the per play defensive success is level of opponent and we shouldn't act like this was good defense - only three of Hawaii's nine post-pandemic Power Four opponents were less stingy on defense (Vanderbilt, our own 2023 Stanford team, Oregon State) but the defense delivered better than the offense.
4. It doesn't take this post for everybody to understand the cataclysmic failure came with the passing game. That was our lowest yards per attempt since 2016 Arizona and lowest passer rating since 2017 San Diego State (surprised the Jack West UCLA game edged out in both categories but it did). The eye test and the stats will agree that the most obvious thing about yesterday's game was that the passing game was atrocious. That rightly leads to a lot of heat coming Gulbranson's way, however I think most of the takes on him are overheated and assume way more upside in switching things up at quarterback than we're likely to experience. More on that below. Relatively speaking, the run game was of course a positive. As pleased as I was with Ford and Irvin's successes, I think this was more about their good efforts against a bad opponent than a sign of run game breakthrough. We had three better rushing games last year against Power Four opponents and we rushed for almost half a yard per carry better the last time we played Hawaii. We were half a yard per carry worse than Hawaii's average in any of the last three seasons, and that's against a Mountain West schedule (let that sink in). The unfortunate reality is that Hawaii likely has a terrible run defense and this game is not the sign of offensive line improvement some are calling it. Relative to opponent it may actually be an arrow down on hopes for our offensive line to open up these kind of holes against freaking Hawaii. My big hope for the run game coming out of this game is that Gulbranson's struggles stacked the deck against a defense that didn't have to respect the pass. In any case, the most we can say is that the jury is out on our run game and especially our offensive line.
5. While the run game has gotten some flowers on the boards, I may be the first to point out where I think we truly had an encouraging performance: pass defense. That was the lowest yards per attempt we've allowed in the last 33 games and 2024 Louisville and 2023 Washington State were the only games the last two years with a better defensive passer rating. I know it's a Group of Five opponent but considering the passing attack is supposed to be Hawaii's strength and we were playing without Wright and Edwards this was a shockingly good pass defense performance. Alejado had a very gutty performance but whether one looks at Total QBR, passer rating, yards per attempt, etc., this was the toughest sledding he's faced in his small sample of college play. Favorably comparing ourselves to New Mexico and Utah State is not where I want to be as a program, but we should acknowledge the fine pass defense performance yesterday. Run defense, in contrast, was extremely disappointing to me, as we had seven games last year stingier in run defense and this was a passing-oriented Group of Five team that is horrible at the run game. Hawaii was 125th in rushing last year and had 3.45 yards per carry and was 132nd (of 133) the year before and had 3.04 yards per carry. Reminder that in the first game of the April era we held Hawaii to negative 5 yards and negative 0.31 yards per carry. Yesterday's performance of 96 yards and 4.00 yards per carry feels like a horrible failure.
6. Normally I would spend some energy dissecting the coaching and there's plenty to dissect here, including areas well trod by others in terms of when pass/run plays were dialed up, the lack of use of timeouts, and so forth. To be honest, though, I am wrestling with how much energy to put into dissecting a lame duck coaching staff. Before the game, I had much more enthusiasm for treating this year as a unique one-time self-contained burst toward advancing Luck's goals, but now that having a good season seems exceedingly unlikely this really feels like a true lame duck staff not worth investing a lot of thought in. I really hope the next 11 games prove that to be an overly dour assessment. One thing I will point out on the positive side is that, with the caveat of a small sample against a bad opponent, that was a good performance in terms of high leverage third and fourth down conversions for the offense and stops on such downs for the defense (a lot less encouraging in the red zone). It may be the case that we do indeed have a competent professional playcaller but just couldn't see fruits because the QB play was so bad.
2. Beyond just the fact of losing to a Group of Five team and giving them their first power conference win since 2019, this was dispiriting because we weren't even the better team. We scored more than a point less per drive than they did, gained almost a yard less per play, and were gifted over a third of our total points via an extremely boneheaded special teams play followed by a defensive touchdown set up by the duress caused by that gaffe. We shot ourselves in the foot with a very damaging unsportsmanlike conduct but on balance one can make a fair case Hawaii was hurt even more by penalties, and certainly the number and yardage of penalties were even and costly for both teams. In terms of luck we got the fumble to go our way and provide seven points, a five point swing from merely a bounce of the ball. In terms of injuries they had a hobbled QB much of the game. [To those trying to find silver linings in the trenches, four sacks by the defense is nice.....but we had six last time we played Hawaii; giving up one sack isn't bad.....but we gave up zero last time we played them.] It sucks to say it but the right team won, which is really depressing considering this is supposed to be our worst opponent. It would be surprising at this point for us to avoid once again having one of the worst teams in Stanford history.
3. The offense was especially bad. Our 1.44 points per non-garbage drive (excluding the end of the first half) looks really bad compared to Hawaii giving up 2.62 points per drive last year and only five defenses in the country last year being as stingy on a per game basis as we made Hawaii look. Our 3.92 yards per play is the exact same we started last season with against TCU (a much better defense of course) and almost a yard less than last year's average. In the last decade of Hawaii games, no power conference offense has done as badly, only three Group of Five offenses have, and five FCS offenses have done better (Delaware State, Duquesne, Portland State, Central Arkansas, UT Martin). Starting that way against our only non-power opponent is quite discouraging. The defense was more of a mixed verdict, with 2.09 points per drive worse than last year's Hawaii average of 1.85 points per drive (only 45 offenses in the country were as dynamic last year as we made Hawaii look) but giving up 4.78 yards per play is quite good, the second best we've done against an FBS opponent in the last three seasons (did better in 2023 against Washington State). Part of the per play defensive success is level of opponent and we shouldn't act like this was good defense - only three of Hawaii's nine post-pandemic Power Four opponents were less stingy on defense (Vanderbilt, our own 2023 Stanford team, Oregon State) but the defense delivered better than the offense.
4. It doesn't take this post for everybody to understand the cataclysmic failure came with the passing game. That was our lowest yards per attempt since 2016 Arizona and lowest passer rating since 2017 San Diego State (surprised the Jack West UCLA game edged out in both categories but it did). The eye test and the stats will agree that the most obvious thing about yesterday's game was that the passing game was atrocious. That rightly leads to a lot of heat coming Gulbranson's way, however I think most of the takes on him are overheated and assume way more upside in switching things up at quarterback than we're likely to experience. More on that below. Relatively speaking, the run game was of course a positive. As pleased as I was with Ford and Irvin's successes, I think this was more about their good efforts against a bad opponent than a sign of run game breakthrough. We had three better rushing games last year against Power Four opponents and we rushed for almost half a yard per carry better the last time we played Hawaii. We were half a yard per carry worse than Hawaii's average in any of the last three seasons, and that's against a Mountain West schedule (let that sink in). The unfortunate reality is that Hawaii likely has a terrible run defense and this game is not the sign of offensive line improvement some are calling it. Relative to opponent it may actually be an arrow down on hopes for our offensive line to open up these kind of holes against freaking Hawaii. My big hope for the run game coming out of this game is that Gulbranson's struggles stacked the deck against a defense that didn't have to respect the pass. In any case, the most we can say is that the jury is out on our run game and especially our offensive line.
5. While the run game has gotten some flowers on the boards, I may be the first to point out where I think we truly had an encouraging performance: pass defense. That was the lowest yards per attempt we've allowed in the last 33 games and 2024 Louisville and 2023 Washington State were the only games the last two years with a better defensive passer rating. I know it's a Group of Five opponent but considering the passing attack is supposed to be Hawaii's strength and we were playing without Wright and Edwards this was a shockingly good pass defense performance. Alejado had a very gutty performance but whether one looks at Total QBR, passer rating, yards per attempt, etc., this was the toughest sledding he's faced in his small sample of college play. Favorably comparing ourselves to New Mexico and Utah State is not where I want to be as a program, but we should acknowledge the fine pass defense performance yesterday. Run defense, in contrast, was extremely disappointing to me, as we had seven games last year stingier in run defense and this was a passing-oriented Group of Five team that is horrible at the run game. Hawaii was 125th in rushing last year and had 3.45 yards per carry and was 132nd (of 133) the year before and had 3.04 yards per carry. Reminder that in the first game of the April era we held Hawaii to negative 5 yards and negative 0.31 yards per carry. Yesterday's performance of 96 yards and 4.00 yards per carry feels like a horrible failure.
6. Normally I would spend some energy dissecting the coaching and there's plenty to dissect here, including areas well trod by others in terms of when pass/run plays were dialed up, the lack of use of timeouts, and so forth. To be honest, though, I am wrestling with how much energy to put into dissecting a lame duck coaching staff. Before the game, I had much more enthusiasm for treating this year as a unique one-time self-contained burst toward advancing Luck's goals, but now that having a good season seems exceedingly unlikely this really feels like a true lame duck staff not worth investing a lot of thought in. I really hope the next 11 games prove that to be an overly dour assessment. One thing I will point out on the positive side is that, with the caveat of a small sample against a bad opponent, that was a good performance in terms of high leverage third and fourth down conversions for the offense and stops on such downs for the defense (a lot less encouraging in the red zone). It may be the case that we do indeed have a competent professional playcaller but just couldn't see fruits because the QB play was so bad.
