[OutsiderFan]

I absolutely believe that Owusu forces defensive coordinators to adjust their game plans.  In fact, I would be okay with (on a moral/ethical level) playing Owusu this Saturday purely for the decoy aspect and never throwing to him (and thus hopefully not subjecting him to serious impact).

I just watched the first half of Stanford on offense against OSU last night.  It's hard to tell from TV angles, but with rare exception OSU played its Safeties at least 12 yards deep, even after Owusu went out.  The thing I found fascinating was even when Stanford went to 3 TE sets without any WRs (mostly before Toilolo went out), OSU still played its Safeties deep.  You would think when the offense is bunched together tight that the Safeties would creep up, but OSU kept theirs back.  This demonstrates just how fearful OSU was of the play-action pass.  In other words, even when Stanford goes to the "we're going to run it down your throat formation," defenses still feel threatened by the pass because they know the TEs are a threat.  I would argue as long as Fleener or Toilolo is on the field, the Safeties have to respect the over the top passing threat.  This makes me believe not having Ertz realy isn't as big a deal as people are thinking.  Would it be better to have him?  Sure, but not having him isn't going to make the offense very much less potent.

What I really noticed when watching was how difficult it is to stop Stanford's offense simply by formation.  I mean they can go with the 3 TE /2 RB, everybody in a 3-point stance look and pass, and then they can go out of shotgun, single back with a TE split out, and run.  It's really hard to blitz effectively.  That's why the University of South Central had some success at least slowing Stanford's offense; they were able to get pressure with the front 4 and the threat of the pass rush gave the University of South Central's Linebackers a better shot at stopping the run.

Bottom line is Owusu being out isn't going to have any impact on where the Safeties play.  As long as Fleener is on the field, they have to play deep.  Not too many teams have a TE that can stretch the field.  Stanford does.

[OutsiderFan]

I absolutely believe that Owusu forces defensive coordinators to adjust their game plans.  In fact, I would be okay with (on a moral/ethical level) playing Owusu this Saturday purely for the decoy aspect and never throwing to him (and thus hopefully not subjecting him to serious impact).

I just watched the first half of Stanford on offense against OSU last night.  It's hard to tell from TV angles, but with rare exception OSU played its Safeties at least 12 yards deep, even after Owusu went out.  The thing I found fascinating was even when Stanford went to 3 TE sets without any WRs (mostly before Toilolo went out), OSU still played its Safeties deep.  You would think when the offense is bunched together tight that the Safeties would creep up, but OSU kept theirs back.  This demonstrates just how fearful OSU was of the play-action pass.  In other words, even when Stanford goes to the "we're going to run it down your throat formation," defenses still feel threatened by the pass because they know the TEs are a threat.  I would argue as long as Fleener or Toilolo is on the field, the Safeties have to respect the over the top passing threat.  This makes me believe not having Ertz realy isn't as big a deal as people are thinking.  Would it be better to have him?  Sure, but not having him isn't going to make the offense very much less potent.

What I really noticed when watching was how difficult it is to stop Stanford's offense simply by formation.  I mean they can go with the 3 TE /2 RB, everybody in a 3-point stance look and pass, and then they can go out of shotgun, single back with a TE split out, and run.  It's really hard to blitz effectively.  That's why the University of South Central had some success at least slowing Stanford's offense; they were able to get pressure with the front 4 and the threat of the pass rush gave the University of South Central's Linebackers a better shot at stopping the run.

Bottom line is Owusu being out isn't going to have any impact on where the Safeties play.  As long as Fleener is on the field, they have to play deep.  Not too many teams have a TE that can stretch the field.  Stanford does.