[ColoradoTree]

Yeah, I think it's perfectly consistent to say:
1) the game last night was disturbingly bad
2) it was indicative of some bad trends in Stanford football that need to be reversed if the program wants to endure or progress beyond its current level
3) Shaw's a great coach

You can find some pretty bad embarrassments for literally any coach if you want to dig hard enough. So I don't think this invalidates Shaw at all. But I do think it should provide him and the staff with a kick in the pants to do better. Because ultimately the poor performance last night wasn't on bad luck or the players, it was on the strategy and tactics that got the team there -- i.e. the coaching.

I'm on board with this, with a few caveats: it's somewhat on the players.  As the announcers noted, after as many games as Chryst has started, he ought to be able to go through progressions instead of fixating on his primary read.  Our defense should have been better at avoiding idiotic drive-extending penalties.  Our running backs should have been better at identifying the holes that were there and attacking them.

If the players had executed somewhat better, then maybe those field goal drives end up as touchdowns and we're up 21-14 in the fourth quarter and we're conservatively running the clock down.  It would still be disappointing, but the win would have come more easily.  But that's a minor quibble, as the coaching bears the lion's share of the blame here.

A quick point on bad luck: I don't think we had any bad luck last night, but incredibly good luck.  Keller threw several (like 7-10) balls that were eminently interceptable, and only one was actually intercepted.  If the Oregon State DBs had slightly better hands, we could have been down multiple touchdowns at half, since many of those near-miss interceptions were on corners jumping in front of a receiver on an out pattern near the sidelines, which is a recipe for pick-sixes. 

[ColoradoTree]

Yeah, I think it's perfectly consistent to say:
1) the game last night was disturbingly bad
2) it was indicative of some bad trends in Stanford football that need to be reversed if the program wants to endure or progress beyond its current level
3) Shaw's a great coach

You can find some pretty bad embarrassments for literally any coach if you want to dig hard enough. So I don't think this invalidates Shaw at all. But I do think it should provide him and the staff with a kick in the pants to do better. Because ultimately the poor performance last night wasn't on bad luck or the players, it was on the strategy and tactics that got the team there -- i.e. the coaching.

I'm on board with this, with a few caveats: it's somewhat on the players.  As the announcers noted, after as many games as Chryst has started, he ought to be able to go through progressions instead of fixating on his primary read.  Our defense should have been better at avoiding idiotic drive-extending penalties.  Our running backs should have been better at identifying the holes that were there and attacking them.

If the players had executed somewhat better, then maybe those field goal drives end up as touchdowns and we're up 21-14 in the fourth quarter and we're conservatively running the clock down.  It would still be disappointing, but the win would have come more easily.  But that's a minor quibble, as the coaching bears the lion's share of the blame here.

A quick point on bad luck: I don't think we had any bad luck last night, but incredibly good luck.  Keller threw several (like 7-10) balls that were eminently interceptable, and only one was actually intercepted.  If the Oregon State DBs had slightly better hands, we could have been down multiple touchdowns at half, since many of those near-miss interceptions were on corners jumping in front of a receiver on an out pattern near the sidelines, which is a recipe for pick-sixes.