[washingtonismoney]

It just baffles me why they can't compete with teams that bring it physically.  They have recruited well, seem to have a good coaching staff, and certainly know they have to get more physical, yet it just does not show when they play physical teams like Stanford and LSU for some reason.

I think it's the common synchronization problem that most college football teams not named Alabama (in this era), U.S.C. (in the height of the Carroll era) or Miami (in their two dynastic flurries) have: not just getting good players, but making sure their appearance is synchronized closely enough to result in a really good team. (And those three teams got around it by just recruiting great players in bulk. Plus developing them. Plus putting them in great schemes. This winning stuff is hard.)

For the Stanford version of this problem--I would put Stanford's offense in 2010 + Stanford's defense in 2012 + Stanford's special teams in 2009 against any team in the country during that time period and feel pretty good about the matchup. As you can tell, sadly, none of these units had the good grace to actually show up at the same time.

[washingtonismoney]

It just baffles me why they can't compete with teams that bring it physically.  They have recruited well, seem to have a good coaching staff, and certainly know they have to get more physical, yet it just does not show when they play physical teams like Stanford and LSU for some reason.

I think it's the common synchronization problem that most college football teams not named Alabama (in this era), U.S.C. (in the height of the Carroll era) or Miami (in their two dynastic flurries) have: not just getting good players, but making sure their appearance is synchronized closely enough to result in a really good team. (And those three teams got around it by just recruiting great players in bulk. Plus developing them. Plus putting them in great schemes. This winning stuff is hard.)

For the Stanford version of this problem--I would put Stanford's offense in 2010 + Stanford's defense in 2012 + Stanford's special teams in 2009 against any team in the country during that time period and feel pretty good about the matchup. As you can tell, sadly, none of these units had the good grace to actually show up at the same time.