[berto41]

You said that the percentages were in Shaw's favor. I submit that while that may have been true in the abstract, looking back at season percentages, it is not the case given how poorly the kicker had performed all night -- missing left, barely making one and kicking off out of bounds to the right (giving them the ball on the 40). As his father said, that was a telltale sign that something wasn't right. In short, immediate and recent context matters when determining 'what the percentages
were' and whether they were in his favor.

A couple of things:

1)The clock stoppage at 53 seconds was not a TV timeout. (TV timeouts follow scores, kickoffs or punts; they don't interrupt an on-going series of plays.) An OSU player was down on the sidelines, near the Stanford bench.

2)If you sub in somebody for Andrew Luck on the wildcat, you tip the play. The idea -- at least as Stanford plays the wildcat -- is to have the defense surprised at the line of scrimmage.

3)Dump on the wildcat all you want, but we made some impressive yardage with it over the course of the season. I'd bet Tyler Gaffney's per-carry average out of the wildcat is close to double figures. But it did look as if Oklahoma State had prepared for it pretty well -- those plays were snuffed immediately.

4)I don't think Shaw's play-calling at the end was stupid; the percentages were in his favor. But I would have been more aggressive. I think teejers is right: It's not that he didn't go for the touchdown, it's that he didn't push harder to improve field position (which might have included a touchdown). Jacketree asked, do we think it would have made any difference to kick from 29 yards? Well, maybe. Every yard makes the target bigger. And maybe it would have been from 20 instead of 29.

[berto41]

You said that the percentages were in Shaw's favor. I submit that while that may have been true in the abstract, looking back at season percentages, it is not the case given how poorly the kicker had performed all night -- missing left, barely making one and kicking off out of bounds to the right (giving them the ball on the 40). As his father said, that was a telltale sign that something wasn't right. In short, immediate and recent context matters when determining 'what the percentages
were' and whether they were in his favor.

A couple of things:

1)The clock stoppage at 53 seconds was not a TV timeout. (TV timeouts follow scores, kickoffs or punts; they don't interrupt an on-going series of plays.) An OSU player was down on the sidelines, near the Stanford bench.

2)If you sub in somebody for Andrew Luck on the wildcat, you tip the play. The idea -- at least as Stanford plays the wildcat -- is to have the defense surprised at the line of scrimmage.

3)Dump on the wildcat all you want, but we made some impressive yardage with it over the course of the season. I'd bet Tyler Gaffney's per-carry average out of the wildcat is close to double figures. But it did look as if Oklahoma State had prepared for it pretty well -- those plays were snuffed immediately.

4)I don't think Shaw's play-calling at the end was stupid; the percentages were in his favor. But I would have been more aggressive. I think teejers is right: It's not that he didn't go for the touchdown, it's that he didn't push harder to improve field position (which might have included a touchdown). Jacketree asked, do we think it would have made any difference to kick from 29 yards? Well, maybe. Every yard makes the target bigger. And maybe it would have been from 20 instead of 29.