[CTcard]

Unless I am mishearing, it seems both teams have the same mysteries heading into the season; OL and QB. I am hesitant to be confident, but I know our OL will be strong by BIGXII play. I very much expect growing pains in the first game. Hopefully our OC and Snyder have a scheme with that in mind.

There are superficial similarities between some of the personnel issues on both KSU and Stanford. Both are still looking for their starting QB, both have substantial new faces on the OL, and both see the strength of their defense as a pretty deep defensive backfield.

I am not so sure that those similarities go all that deep. AT KSU the QB prospects include one guy who played for a year and one guy who already won a competition for the starting job but got injured before he could do much. At Stanford the two guys in competition have barely played due to a very stable previous quarterbacking situation, but are big strong mobile guys who have been in the system for several years now (one entering fourth year, the other third).

On the OL, Stanford is looking at guys who have played quite a bit because of our use of 6-7-8 OL on lots of downs, but still will have 3 of 5 who have never been in the key starting group. Don't know much about the KSU situation other than they are replacing 4 of 5, with apparently new positions for all five.

QB: Jesse Ertz (Jr. QB 6'3" 212 lbs) - One of the top prep quarterbacks coming out of high school in 2013 who earned the starting nod for the 2015 season opener but suffered a season-ending injury on the first play from scrimmage.

Just to put some definition on "One of the top prep quarterbacks coming out of high school in 2013", he was rated:
Rivals: no position rating, no national rating, #9 player from Iowa, two star
Scout: #90 QB rating, #18 Midwest QB rating, #2 QB from Iowa, two star
247Sports Composite: #43 ranked pro style QB, #1072 player nationally, three star

He's the same year as: Christian Hackenberg, Jared Goff, Ryan Burns, Max Browne.
[For extreme ends of the "how much they have played so far" scale.]

Defenses won't stack the boxes because it hasn't worked: Mac averaged more yards per carry against eight or larger boxes last year than he averaged against standard sets. 

Defenses will stack the box against Stanford because:
1. That's what defenses do against Stanford
2. Everyone is most worried about McCaffrey as a RB
3. We will have a new starting QB - whom no one will fear until he makes them
4. They generally don't know what else to do.

I am not so sure it is a good idea, but I am fairly sure Stanford will see a lot of stacked boxes this season.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't have that much concern about the OL. Sure, they need to gel (2014 is evidence that talent doesn't overcome chemistry/communication defficiencies), but the guys have been in the program and our use of the ogre means they have experience even if not starting.

I am worried for a couple of reasons.
First of all, by default I am worried about an OL with three new starters.
Secondly, reports out of fall camp are somewhat worrying. This from Drukarev (free article)

"You saw the ones start out really slow," Bloomgren said. "You never want that. ... we couldn't get Christian a little bit of running daylight.  ... I don't want to say too much before I watch the film, but it sure didn't look like there was too much room to run."

https://stanford.rivals.com/news/scrimma...he-offense

Also from those watching the scrimmage.
FrankO noted,

both Burns and Chryst under pressure when they were in, also we had several blitzes in the D package that also caused pressure... QBs had to scramble a lot

http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php?...#msg167993

That doesn't sound like a strong OL performance to me.

[CTcard]

Unless I am mishearing, it seems both teams have the same mysteries heading into the season; OL and QB. I am hesitant to be confident, but I know our OL will be strong by BIGXII play. I very much expect growing pains in the first game. Hopefully our OC and Snyder have a scheme with that in mind.

There are superficial similarities between some of the personnel issues on both KSU and Stanford. Both are still looking for their starting QB, both have substantial new faces on the OL, and both see the strength of their defense as a pretty deep defensive backfield.

I am not so sure that those similarities go all that deep. AT KSU the QB prospects include one guy who played for a year and one guy who already won a competition for the starting job but got injured before he could do much. At Stanford the two guys in competition have barely played due to a very stable previous quarterbacking situation, but are big strong mobile guys who have been in the system for several years now (one entering fourth year, the other third).

On the OL, Stanford is looking at guys who have played quite a bit because of our use of 6-7-8 OL on lots of downs, but still will have 3 of 5 who have never been in the key starting group. Don't know much about the KSU situation other than they are replacing 4 of 5, with apparently new positions for all five.

QB: Jesse Ertz (Jr. QB 6'3" 212 lbs) - One of the top prep quarterbacks coming out of high school in 2013 who earned the starting nod for the 2015 season opener but suffered a season-ending injury on the first play from scrimmage.

Just to put some definition on "One of the top prep quarterbacks coming out of high school in 2013", he was rated:
Rivals: no position rating, no national rating, #9 player from Iowa, two star
Scout: #90 QB rating, #18 Midwest QB rating, #2 QB from Iowa, two star
247Sports Composite: #43 ranked pro style QB, #1072 player nationally, three star

He's the same year as: Christian Hackenberg, Jared Goff, Ryan Burns, Max Browne.
[For extreme ends of the "how much they have played so far" scale.]

Defenses won't stack the boxes because it hasn't worked: Mac averaged more yards per carry against eight or larger boxes last year than he averaged against standard sets. 

Defenses will stack the box against Stanford because:
1. That's what defenses do against Stanford
2. Everyone is most worried about McCaffrey as a RB
3. We will have a new starting QB - whom no one will fear until he makes them
4. They generally don't know what else to do.

I am not so sure it is a good idea, but I am fairly sure Stanford will see a lot of stacked boxes this season.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't have that much concern about the OL. Sure, they need to gel (2014 is evidence that talent doesn't overcome chemistry/communication defficiencies), but the guys have been in the program and our use of the ogre means they have experience even if not starting.

I am worried for a couple of reasons.
First of all, by default I am worried about an OL with three new starters.
Secondly, reports out of fall camp are somewhat worrying. This from Drukarev (free article)

"You saw the ones start out really slow," Bloomgren said. "You never want that. ... we couldn't get Christian a little bit of running daylight.  ... I don't want to say too much before I watch the film, but it sure didn't look like there was too much room to run."

https://stanford.rivals.com/news/scrimma...he-offense

Also from those watching the scrimmage.
FrankO noted,

both Burns and Chryst under pressure when they were in, also we had several blitzes in the D package that also caused pressure... QBs had to scramble a lot

http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php?...#msg167993

That doesn't sound like a strong OL performance to me.