09-18-2017, 12:09 PM
That is a bit deceptive.
A) It ignores 2011, Shaw's first year as head coach
B) Because of differences in pace of play, number of plays and number of possessions, evaluations of the offense that depend on total offensive production (either points per game or total offense per game) make the offense look less effective than it really is. The best metric (in my opinion) is points per possession, though that one is somewhat hard to come by. At least yards per play is a bit better.
There is clearly room for improvement, but the offense has been very good (top quartile in the Pac-12) about half of the years Shaw has been head coach. Even the "bad" years (about half the years), Stanford's offense has been at the third quartile (so bottom half, but hardly amongst the worst offenses).
As others have noted, I think a reasonable goal would be for our offense to consistently be in the top half of the conference; the problem has not been in the good years, rather it has been the drop-offs during the bad years.
BC
A) It ignores 2011, Shaw's first year as head coach
B) Because of differences in pace of play, number of plays and number of possessions, evaluations of the offense that depend on total offensive production (either points per game or total offense per game) make the offense look less effective than it really is. The best metric (in my opinion) is points per possession, though that one is somewhat hard to come by. At least yards per play is a bit better.
| Year | YPP | rank |
| 2011: | 6.8 | 2 |
| 2012: | 5.5 | 8 |
| 2013: | 6.4 | 3 |
| 2014: | 5.9 | 7 |
| 2015: | 6.6 | 3 |
| 2016: | 5.8 | 8 |
There is clearly room for improvement, but the offense has been very good (top quartile in the Pac-12) about half of the years Shaw has been head coach. Even the "bad" years (about half the years), Stanford's offense has been at the third quartile (so bottom half, but hardly amongst the worst offenses).
As others have noted, I think a reasonable goal would be for our offense to consistently be in the top half of the conference; the problem has not been in the good years, rather it has been the drop-offs during the bad years.
BC