[BostonCard]

But if this is about, Shaw should have called a run when he passed or vice versa, yeah that wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference.



BC

I disagree.  At 2nd and 4 on Stanford's penultimate drive, run there.  Let's say you gain 2-3 yards.  Does Cal burn a TO there?  I bet not because they'll need all 3 TOs if Stanford makes a first down on third down.  Or fourth and short.  



But these are all things that Shaw has shown no vision to think about/consider.  Instead, it's "we were always going to take our shot on 2nd down and then run on third down to burn 30 seconds."  That's essentially what he said in the post-game presser. That just shows a complete lack of game management skills.  [And btw, did you hear the radio guys on the 2nd and 4?  This just isn't one disgruntled fan talking - again, it's pretty basic].



But of course, if it makes you feel better to think "it wouldn't have made a difference," you're free to do that.  I have no idea how you can believe that with any conviction.

It doesn't matter. Passing once and running once, we gave Cal the ball back with 2:23 and three time outs.  They scored in 1 minute 4 seconds having used only one of their time outs.  Had we run twice, we would have given them the ball back with 1:43 instead of 2:23, which means we would have gotten the ball back with 39 seconds left instead of 1:10 (or, more likely, Cal would have taken a time out).  The only thing that would have made a difference was getting first down.

Reasonable minds can differ on whether the best strategy for getting a first down from second and four would have been to run or pass.  For the game, excluding Mills' stats because of sacks, we gained 58 yards on 19 caries (3 yards per carry).  On the flip side Mills was 26/35 for 283 yards (8.1 yards per attempt).  We were certainly more successful passing the football than rushing, so it is by no means a given that running the ball twice was more likely to be successful than not.

What frustrates me about the whole "Shaw should have zigged when in fact he zagged" is that it takes the entire rest of the drive as a given; your analysis starts at 2nd and 4 from the Cal 27th, not first and 10 from our own 35, and it can neither be proven nor disproven that an alternative approach would not have had us going three and out and punting from our 35 instead of kicking a field goal to put us ahead.

I would much rather we focus on how we got a defense that held Cal to 10 points through the first 50 minutes of the game, and then allowed a five play, 84 yard drive to in 2:25 and a 6 play 75 yard drive in 1:04.  One stop and we win the game.  Even holding them to a field goal one time and we go to overtime.  But we weren't even close; we forced one third down in two drives.

l has one of the best defenses in the Pac-12 (only Washington, Oregon, and Utah are better), and the 20 points not much less than Cal typically gives up (22.5).  On the other hand, Cal is dead last in the conference in points scored per game.  They scored 14 points in their last two drives; they average 19 points per game.  Our defense let Garbers look like Lamar Jackson out there.

As I've said before, ultimately the buck stops at the coach. But I find the playcalling "analyses" facile and non-disproveable so they don't really add much to the discussion other than as a chance to vent, and in this case it doesn't even hold up to scrutiny.

BC

[BostonCard]

But if this is about, Shaw should have called a run when he passed or vice versa, yeah that wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference.



BC

I disagree.  At 2nd and 4 on Stanford's penultimate drive, run there.  Let's say you gain 2-3 yards.  Does Cal burn a TO there?  I bet not because they'll need all 3 TOs if Stanford makes a first down on third down.  Or fourth and short.  



But these are all things that Shaw has shown no vision to think about/consider.  Instead, it's "we were always going to take our shot on 2nd down and then run on third down to burn 30 seconds."  That's essentially what he said in the post-game presser. That just shows a complete lack of game management skills.  [And btw, did you hear the radio guys on the 2nd and 4?  This just isn't one disgruntled fan talking - again, it's pretty basic].



But of course, if it makes you feel better to think "it wouldn't have made a difference," you're free to do that.  I have no idea how you can believe that with any conviction.

It doesn't matter. Passing once and running once, we gave Cal the ball back with 2:23 and three time outs.  They scored in 1 minute 4 seconds having used only one of their time outs.  Had we run twice, we would have given them the ball back with 1:43 instead of 2:23, which means we would have gotten the ball back with 39 seconds left instead of 1:10 (or, more likely, Cal would have taken a time out).  The only thing that would have made a difference was getting first down.

Reasonable minds can differ on whether the best strategy for getting a first down from second and four would have been to run or pass.  For the game, excluding Mills' stats because of sacks, we gained 58 yards on 19 caries (3 yards per carry).  On the flip side Mills was 26/35 for 283 yards (8.1 yards per attempt).  We were certainly more successful passing the football than rushing, so it is by no means a given that running the ball twice was more likely to be successful than not.

What frustrates me about the whole "Shaw should have zigged when in fact he zagged" is that it takes the entire rest of the drive as a given; your analysis starts at 2nd and 4 from the Cal 27th, not first and 10 from our own 35, and it can neither be proven nor disproven that an alternative approach would not have had us going three and out and punting from our 35 instead of kicking a field goal to put us ahead.

I would much rather we focus on how we got a defense that held Cal to 10 points through the first 50 minutes of the game, and then allowed a five play, 84 yard drive to in 2:25 and a 6 play 75 yard drive in 1:04.  One stop and we win the game.  Even holding them to a field goal one time and we go to overtime.  But we weren't even close; we forced one third down in two drives.

l has one of the best defenses in the Pac-12 (only Washington, Oregon, and Utah are better), and the 20 points not much less than Cal typically gives up (22.5).  On the other hand, Cal is dead last in the conference in points scored per game.  They scored 14 points in their last two drives; they average 19 points per game.  Our defense let Garbers look like Lamar Jackson out there.

As I've said before, ultimately the buck stops at the coach. But I find the playcalling "analyses" facile and non-disproveable so they don't really add much to the discussion other than as a chance to vent, and in this case it doesn't even hold up to scrutiny.

BC