[Goose]

Like Goose, I suspect we will have times during the season that we'll read complaints about using too many heavy set formations, and these will morph to comments about Shaw's stubbornness. However, at the moment it looks to me as if these heavy formations play to a lot of Stanford's current personnel strengths and should be generally effective (though they do have to worry about cutting off the crashing rusher from off the edge which occasionally caused trouble last year).

The rush off the edge is a problem. It is more of a problem if you don't want to run inside the guards, i.e. right up the middle. The other problem we had last year was "traffic". Even when you have 3000 lbs of OL, it is hard to get to the LB that is stacked behind the DL. There are too many bodies inside a small space. That is why Love would often get stopped for a 3 yard gain. On fourth and 2, that is great. On first and 10, it may not be. That is also one reason why Oregon under Kelly liked wide line splits. He wanted to get one-on-one with no linebacker support.
No one football formation is a panacea. For every offense, there is a defense. Sometimes, you can find an offensive formation that gives you a big advantage because you execute it better than the other team executes the corresponding defense. However, if you rely on a particular formation or scheme with success, the defenses will eventually catch up with you. It is fun to watch the Ogre when it works. Against some teams, you can probably run it 12 straight times and have good results. Against USC and UW, I suspect not. But, we will make them prove it.

[Goose]

Like Goose, I suspect we will have times during the season that we'll read complaints about using too many heavy set formations, and these will morph to comments about Shaw's stubbornness. However, at the moment it looks to me as if these heavy formations play to a lot of Stanford's current personnel strengths and should be generally effective (though they do have to worry about cutting off the crashing rusher from off the edge which occasionally caused trouble last year).

The rush off the edge is a problem. It is more of a problem if you don't want to run inside the guards, i.e. right up the middle. The other problem we had last year was "traffic". Even when you have 3000 lbs of OL, it is hard to get to the LB that is stacked behind the DL. There are too many bodies inside a small space. That is why Love would often get stopped for a 3 yard gain. On fourth and 2, that is great. On first and 10, it may not be. That is also one reason why Oregon under Kelly liked wide line splits. He wanted to get one-on-one with no linebacker support.
No one football formation is a panacea. For every offense, there is a defense. Sometimes, you can find an offensive formation that gives you a big advantage because you execute it better than the other team executes the corresponding defense. However, if you rely on a particular formation or scheme with success, the defenses will eventually catch up with you. It is fun to watch the Ogre when it works. Against some teams, you can probably run it 12 straight times and have good results. Against USC and UW, I suspect not. But, we will make them prove it.