[stupac2]

So what can be done? In the short term, not sure how much. It's hard to scheme around being destroyed on both lines. So absent moving Sarrell and/or Little into the lineup with alacrity, I'm not sure what the solution is here. (Beyond hoping SC is *really* that good.)

In the long term, I think this should be a kick in the butt for Shaw and the staff to recruit better. A team's generally going to succeed or not with its older guys. In Stanford's case, the old guys are a tiny 2013 class and a pretty good 2014 class (which has been gutted a bit by McCaffrey's and Thomas's departures).

Of especial interest is the lines. The 2013 class had two linemen, Oser and Bright. Oser retired medically. The 2014 class had seven linemen, but its top-rated offensive linemen (Reilly Gibbons) left quickly. Thomas was, of course, a superstar. But both highly-rated linemen are now departed, meaning that between the 2013 and 2014 classes, no highly-ranked linemen survive.

What's the point here? That, if current trends continue, we'll be having a morose thread of this nature around 2022 or so. Why? The class of 2018 is both tiny and lacks highly-rated linemen.

EDIT: forgot Casey Tucker, which is the exception that proves the point, given he's sitting out for some odd reason.

How much can we reasonably do about this, thought? We're not going to bat 1.000 on admissible players, and since we run off fewer players than most (something most people in here rightly laud) we're not going to be able to take 20-25 a year. DL depth has been a problem since, what, 2013? And the 2012 line was anchored by guys who weren't highly recruited, instead of guys coming in and exceeding expectations we've had the opposite lately. It's also worth noting that we've fielded competent defenses despite this in several years.

It really sucks that Stanford doesn't ever seem to be able to get everything to line up right, how many times could we have been in a title game if we had paired year N's defense with N+1's offense? Now it seems like things line up nicely for next year, except we have the brutal even-year schedule.

I think that, to some extent, this is just how it is for Stanford. We can still pull things together and make a good bowl (maybe even a NY6 bowl!) if we can manage to right the ship and figure something out on the DL (tackles seems to mostly be PLAY THE FRESHMEN), but we're clearly not a title contender. Then again, how many things needed to fall right for us to really be one this year? Did anyone expect it? Hope, sure, but expect? I know Shaw says the expectation is titles, but this team had too many obvious problems with no good solutions, and that showed tonight.

[stupac2]

So what can be done? In the short term, not sure how much. It's hard to scheme around being destroyed on both lines. So absent moving Sarrell and/or Little into the lineup with alacrity, I'm not sure what the solution is here. (Beyond hoping SC is *really* that good.)

In the long term, I think this should be a kick in the butt for Shaw and the staff to recruit better. A team's generally going to succeed or not with its older guys. In Stanford's case, the old guys are a tiny 2013 class and a pretty good 2014 class (which has been gutted a bit by McCaffrey's and Thomas's departures).

Of especial interest is the lines. The 2013 class had two linemen, Oser and Bright. Oser retired medically. The 2014 class had seven linemen, but its top-rated offensive linemen (Reilly Gibbons) left quickly. Thomas was, of course, a superstar. But both highly-rated linemen are now departed, meaning that between the 2013 and 2014 classes, no highly-ranked linemen survive.

What's the point here? That, if current trends continue, we'll be having a morose thread of this nature around 2022 or so. Why? The class of 2018 is both tiny and lacks highly-rated linemen.

EDIT: forgot Casey Tucker, which is the exception that proves the point, given he's sitting out for some odd reason.

How much can we reasonably do about this, thought? We're not going to bat 1.000 on admissible players, and since we run off fewer players than most (something most people in here rightly laud) we're not going to be able to take 20-25 a year. DL depth has been a problem since, what, 2013? And the 2012 line was anchored by guys who weren't highly recruited, instead of guys coming in and exceeding expectations we've had the opposite lately. It's also worth noting that we've fielded competent defenses despite this in several years.

It really sucks that Stanford doesn't ever seem to be able to get everything to line up right, how many times could we have been in a title game if we had paired year N's defense with N+1's offense? Now it seems like things line up nicely for next year, except we have the brutal even-year schedule.

I think that, to some extent, this is just how it is for Stanford. We can still pull things together and make a good bowl (maybe even a NY6 bowl!) if we can manage to right the ship and figure something out on the DL (tackles seems to mostly be PLAY THE FRESHMEN), but we're clearly not a title contender. Then again, how many things needed to fall right for us to really be one this year? Did anyone expect it? Hope, sure, but expect? I know Shaw says the expectation is titles, but this team had too many obvious problems with no good solutions, and that showed tonight.