[washingtonismoney]

So, with apologies to Spiny_Norman, I'm pulling his quote from another thread and putting in this thread:

Stanford has a big challenge this Saturday.  the University of South Central's defense played Stanford as tough as anyone last year and they are coming off their best effort of the year, holding ND to 41 yards rushing and only 267 total yards.  The game is likely to be as close as any Stanford has played since last year's the University of South Central game.

You might find it instructive (as I did) to review all of Stanford's offense vs. the University of South Central's defense from 2010 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42-ss51hxW8

I watched the game and found it very interesting. I've seen a few Trojan games so far this season; their play is, in my opinion, a notch below last year's at their best. It's hard to tell whether that's because they're actually worse or whether they have a caring deficit. Last year they swung wildly, and their best effort was saved for us. I think it's because they cared more. If you happen to subscribe to that belief, you ought to be wary of the game next Saturday.

While there's an element of that, I didn't find their game versus South Bend to be overly impressive; I was rather more negatively impressed with the level of Irish incompetence. If you look at the pretty excellent video Norman links to above, you see that the foundation of SC's success is: 1) excellent defensive line penetration and 2) uncommon stupidity. (It's worth noting despite that we nevertheless scored 37 points at 8 yards/play.) Factor #2 was highly present for the University of South Bend; factor #1--not at all. SC went with the old Belichick trick of barely rushing at all and dropping tons of guys into coverage. I would guess, without charting, that three-man and four-man rushes were nearly equal; I saw one two-man rush, on a critical fourth down play; I rarely saw blitzes, though the threat was effective, prompting the University of South Bend into two false start penalties (see what I mean by stupidity?). Basically they asked Tommy Rees to beat them, and Tommy Rees is not that good, if he will ever be that good--not that he got much help from his coaches. It looked to me that SC felt reasonably confident South Bend would screw up pervasively and had no need of going much fancy stuff, defensively or offensively. (Keep in mind also SC's defensive line is almost completely different from last year--Armstead has left the team in a tiff; Casey left for the NFL; Tupou and Simmons gone. It's also my theory that while our offensive line isn't better than last year's--yet, at least--it is more athletic.)

Offensively, SC's linemen run blocked well and were schemed around in the pass game--it was all quick stuff. Last week the 59ers were able to penetrate and South Bend has a fairly good pass rush, so this may have been a wise decision. If they opt to continue, we'll need to tackle more like we did against Wazzou and less like those two big plays against UW.

In terms of South Bend--since they're a less critical but obviously still important component of the schedule--my, my they were dumb. I realize the various the University of South Bend boards go crazy about incompetence of coaches, fecklessness of players, etc., whenever they're beat--but today they had a point. They seemed to call quite a few plays that made no sense (why are you running Tommy Rees on an option?), and seemed to give up, leaving all three timeouts on the board in SC's final drive. The team, also, seemed to have less than the requisite will--I remember vividly one play where the announcer chirps "Student Body Left", and SC's left tackle kicks out...and the cornerback declines to make any effort whatsoever to defeat the block. I'm not saying you have to match strength against strength and battle a tackle hand-to-hand. But you ought to at least make an effort at, well, doing something. He didn't do a thing.

[washingtonismoney]

So, with apologies to Spiny_Norman, I'm pulling his quote from another thread and putting in this thread:

Stanford has a big challenge this Saturday.  the University of South Central's defense played Stanford as tough as anyone last year and they are coming off their best effort of the year, holding ND to 41 yards rushing and only 267 total yards.  The game is likely to be as close as any Stanford has played since last year's the University of South Central game.

You might find it instructive (as I did) to review all of Stanford's offense vs. the University of South Central's defense from 2010 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42-ss51hxW8

I watched the game and found it very interesting. I've seen a few Trojan games so far this season; their play is, in my opinion, a notch below last year's at their best. It's hard to tell whether that's because they're actually worse or whether they have a caring deficit. Last year they swung wildly, and their best effort was saved for us. I think it's because they cared more. If you happen to subscribe to that belief, you ought to be wary of the game next Saturday.

While there's an element of that, I didn't find their game versus South Bend to be overly impressive; I was rather more negatively impressed with the level of Irish incompetence. If you look at the pretty excellent video Norman links to above, you see that the foundation of SC's success is: 1) excellent defensive line penetration and 2) uncommon stupidity. (It's worth noting despite that we nevertheless scored 37 points at 8 yards/play.) Factor #2 was highly present for the University of South Bend; factor #1--not at all. SC went with the old Belichick trick of barely rushing at all and dropping tons of guys into coverage. I would guess, without charting, that three-man and four-man rushes were nearly equal; I saw one two-man rush, on a critical fourth down play; I rarely saw blitzes, though the threat was effective, prompting the University of South Bend into two false start penalties (see what I mean by stupidity?). Basically they asked Tommy Rees to beat them, and Tommy Rees is not that good, if he will ever be that good--not that he got much help from his coaches. It looked to me that SC felt reasonably confident South Bend would screw up pervasively and had no need of going much fancy stuff, defensively or offensively. (Keep in mind also SC's defensive line is almost completely different from last year--Armstead has left the team in a tiff; Casey left for the NFL; Tupou and Simmons gone. It's also my theory that while our offensive line isn't better than last year's--yet, at least--it is more athletic.)

Offensively, SC's linemen run blocked well and were schemed around in the pass game--it was all quick stuff. Last week the 59ers were able to penetrate and South Bend has a fairly good pass rush, so this may have been a wise decision. If they opt to continue, we'll need to tackle more like we did against Wazzou and less like those two big plays against UW.

In terms of South Bend--since they're a less critical but obviously still important component of the schedule--my, my they were dumb. I realize the various the University of South Bend boards go crazy about incompetence of coaches, fecklessness of players, etc., whenever they're beat--but today they had a point. They seemed to call quite a few plays that made no sense (why are you running Tommy Rees on an option?), and seemed to give up, leaving all three timeouts on the board in SC's final drive. The team, also, seemed to have less than the requisite will--I remember vividly one play where the announcer chirps "Student Body Left", and SC's left tackle kicks out...and the cornerback declines to make any effort whatsoever to defeat the block. I'm not saying you have to match strength against strength and battle a tackle hand-to-hand. But you ought to at least make an effort at, well, doing something. He didn't do a thing.