12-29-2017, 10:42 PM
Few points, here and there.
1) Re: the boom-and-bust offense, a big part of this is the particular strengths and weaknesses of the principal players. Bryce Love, especially on one ankle, is more a big play guy than a steady gainer. Costello, temperamentally, appears to prefer aggressive strikes downfield to shorter passes. (At least at this point of his career.) He's a sub-60% passer and I think the Stanford offense (generally) works best when the QB is in the mid-60s or above, even if that means sacrificing some explosive plays. The combination, of course, made for a lot of offensive variability. Accentuating this tendency was TCU's big blitzing, which made for either a missed pass from Costello or a big play. It was a bit odd to me that they didn't have, for example, a screen play that was a bit more high-reliability while still keeping some big-play potential. Ah well.
2) While the defense bore a lot of injuries, I'm not sure I accept this as a reason for its poor performance, for a few reasons. First, the defense had a clean bill of health early in the year and nevertheless got garroted by SC. While the first big injury felled Barton against San Diego State, the defense nevertheless got beat pretty good by UCLA and was porous against the run in games against ASU and Utah. (Note that sacks made the running statistics slightly deceptive in both games, but the ASU and Utah RBs and WRs were successful in both games.) Even some of the games it was successful have a significant asterisk: against Oregon, the defense faced a backup QB; against Rice, it faced one of the worst teams in the country; against SDSU, it gave up a game-winning drive. (Yes, I know the defense doesn't deserve primary blame for the SDSU game, but for me, giving up a game-winning drive late isn't a good look. Agree to disagree if we must.)
Second, while a significant number of players went down to injury, if you think that reveals a lack of depth, then you have to acknowledge that that's quite the comedown from preseason expectations. Before the season, we thought Holder's backup, Alameen Murphy, was an experienced guy. He was named captain of the team and started, what, half the games in 2016? Murphy had 36 tackles and 7 PBUs in 2016, which are pretty solid marks for a DB. (To take a random comparison, Alex Carter in 2014 had 41 tackles, 9 PBU, and 1 pick.)
The pattern repeats across positions. Barton may have been injured, but Kevin Palma was an honorable mention linebacker in 2016. Alfieri was a backup for most of the year, so his injury isn't *that* significant. (And only held him out of one game.)
So if you think injuries were really that vicious a scythe, then you should still have significant questions about the quality of the defense. Because there were proven backups across the defense (except, to be fair, at the line), and plenty of highly recruited players. (Curtis Robinson, Treyjohn Butler, Andrew Pryts, and Obi Eboh are guys -- just off the top of my head -- who were highly regarded players coming out of high school who didn't play much of a role during the year.) So I think "injuries" has a certain surface plausibility as an argument but, ultimately, fails to convince me fully. To be fair, other than "the line was very bad," I don't have a satisfying explanation for what went wrong, but I think the coaches have some 'splainin' to do.
3) Too early to tell without knowing who comes back and who leaves across the conference -- we don't even know the final composition of the recruiting class yet! -- but sans Phillips it feels like a 7-5 season to me.
1) Re: the boom-and-bust offense, a big part of this is the particular strengths and weaknesses of the principal players. Bryce Love, especially on one ankle, is more a big play guy than a steady gainer. Costello, temperamentally, appears to prefer aggressive strikes downfield to shorter passes. (At least at this point of his career.) He's a sub-60% passer and I think the Stanford offense (generally) works best when the QB is in the mid-60s or above, even if that means sacrificing some explosive plays. The combination, of course, made for a lot of offensive variability. Accentuating this tendency was TCU's big blitzing, which made for either a missed pass from Costello or a big play. It was a bit odd to me that they didn't have, for example, a screen play that was a bit more high-reliability while still keeping some big-play potential. Ah well.
2) While the defense bore a lot of injuries, I'm not sure I accept this as a reason for its poor performance, for a few reasons. First, the defense had a clean bill of health early in the year and nevertheless got garroted by SC. While the first big injury felled Barton against San Diego State, the defense nevertheless got beat pretty good by UCLA and was porous against the run in games against ASU and Utah. (Note that sacks made the running statistics slightly deceptive in both games, but the ASU and Utah RBs and WRs were successful in both games.) Even some of the games it was successful have a significant asterisk: against Oregon, the defense faced a backup QB; against Rice, it faced one of the worst teams in the country; against SDSU, it gave up a game-winning drive. (Yes, I know the defense doesn't deserve primary blame for the SDSU game, but for me, giving up a game-winning drive late isn't a good look. Agree to disagree if we must.)
Second, while a significant number of players went down to injury, if you think that reveals a lack of depth, then you have to acknowledge that that's quite the comedown from preseason expectations. Before the season, we thought Holder's backup, Alameen Murphy, was an experienced guy. He was named captain of the team and started, what, half the games in 2016? Murphy had 36 tackles and 7 PBUs in 2016, which are pretty solid marks for a DB. (To take a random comparison, Alex Carter in 2014 had 41 tackles, 9 PBU, and 1 pick.)
The pattern repeats across positions. Barton may have been injured, but Kevin Palma was an honorable mention linebacker in 2016. Alfieri was a backup for most of the year, so his injury isn't *that* significant. (And only held him out of one game.)
So if you think injuries were really that vicious a scythe, then you should still have significant questions about the quality of the defense. Because there were proven backups across the defense (except, to be fair, at the line), and plenty of highly recruited players. (Curtis Robinson, Treyjohn Butler, Andrew Pryts, and Obi Eboh are guys -- just off the top of my head -- who were highly regarded players coming out of high school who didn't play much of a role during the year.) So I think "injuries" has a certain surface plausibility as an argument but, ultimately, fails to convince me fully. To be fair, other than "the line was very bad," I don't have a satisfying explanation for what went wrong, but I think the coaches have some 'splainin' to do.
3) Too early to tell without knowing who comes back and who leaves across the conference -- we don't even know the final composition of the recruiting class yet! -- but sans Phillips it feels like a 7-5 season to me.