[Goose]

Much we agree on in this exchange but I'm perplexed by the idea defenses don't affect how many rushing yards a running back can have.

No argument there. Two teams are present.

TCU gave up 1.72 yards per carry and 47 rushing yards per game that year. The #2 run defense in the country that year was Alabama, which gave up 2.65 yards per carry and 74 rushing yards per game. That TCU run defense was a contender for the greatest in history. If you look at the 13 years since then, the most epically, historically dominant run defenses were 2016 Alabama (2.01 yards per carry, 64 rushing yards per game) and 2021 Wisconsin (1.99 yards per carry, 61 rushing yards per game). I'm not aware of any run defense in modern football history as good as 2008 TCU. Surely that has bearing on how Gerhart did? TCU had lead opponent backs that year who rushed for 9, 0, 23, 5, 30, 29, 19, 28 yards. Here's the really salient fact: NFL Offensive Player of the Year and three-time Pro Bowler DeMarco Murray had 23 yards against the Horned Frogs. That run defense was maybe the greatest ever. Boise State superstar Ian Johnson had 28 yards. The guys who did "better" than Gerhart were Wyoming and New Mexico backs padding stats in blowouts. For Stanford to rush for 71 yards and Gerhart for 45 was, believe it or not, a statement that the Tunnel Workers Union and Gerhart had arrived. Oklahoma, with future best offensive lineman on the planet Trent Williams blocking, future best running back on the planet DeMarco Murray running, and that year's Voldemort Trophy winner Sam Bradford taking pressure off the run game, rushed for 25 yards as a team. We did 2.84 times better than they did!

The definition of an OL playing "good" is the successful execution of their assignments against the defense, such as opening a hole in the DL or protecting the QB. As you point out the defense gets a vote and their goal is to stop the offense. In so doing they will generally prevent the OL from succeeding in their assignments. You are arguing that since Stanford gained more yards on the ground than Oklahoma did that Stanford must have played "good". Your argument asserts that since the Oklahoma OL had a "great" player and that Oklahoma had a great running back they must have played "good". That is obviously not the case. The defense can prevent the OL from playing "good" and in the run game they did exactly that. Against TCU, the OL of neither Stanford nor Oklahoma was able to successfully execute their assignments in the run offense. Both teams got stuffed.  So even if one believes that the Stanford OL played better than Oklahoma's OL in the run game, that does not "prove" either team played well. In the run game, neither did.

The argument Stanford's OL played better than Oklahoma's in the run game is also very weak. Of Stanfords's 71 yards, 38 yards were on an end-around by Baldwin and 30 of them were on a single play by Gerhart on the second series of the game. The OL's contribution to the end-around was getting out of the way so that the defense could rush to Gerhart as fast as possible. I can't find a video, but my recollection of Gerhart's run was that the TCU defenders basically took themselves out of the play. Gerhart ran around them. It wasn't a great blocking job. Gerhart did it by himself. Obviously most of the 30 was beyond the LOS so the OL would have limited impact on that anyway. Take out those two plays and we gained 3 total yards rushing. 27 plays, 3 yards, or 0.11 ypc, very unlike the picture you present.

As you point out game circumstances (blowouts) do play a role in the statistics. Stanford lost to TCU 31-14. Stanford scored on the 38 yard end around and a blocked punt. The QB carried the ball 9 times, fumbled twice when hit and threw an interception. He never had a "clean" pocket. Running the QB was not our plan. Oklahoma defeated TCU 35-10. Bradford carried the ball 4 times. He threw for 411 yards. I don't think the lack of yards rushing figured in that result. Obviously Oklahoma's pass blocking was far superior to Stanford's. Our QB was under siege all day. In two instances I recall the defense hitting him while he was still trying to catch the snap.

I vaguely remember the TCU-Oklahoma game on TV. My recollection was that the TCU defense got at least a stalemate at the LOS when Oklahoma tried to run the ball. That pretty much stonewalled their running. Unfortunately for TCU, that is mostly what happened on passing attempts as well. Bradford had a much less stressful experience than Pritchard. Stanford's OL OTOH was pretty much a sieve on both types of plays. They didn't even get stalemates.

This is just illustrative of how much impact a great run defense has on a run game. Countless examples over an essentially infinite amount of football history would make the same point. The quality of your opponent matters, a lot. The enemy gets a vote.

Indeed they do. Sometimes they are a landslide.

When you adjust for competition, our 2008 run game was great.



No doubt there was an improvement in OL play in 2009 as DeCastro and Martin in particular made their presence known. But that means we went from a very good OL to an elite OL. Our 2008 OL play was already quite formidable for opponents to deal with, as TCU learned. Nobody else challenged them like we did up front. Not even a line with Trent freaking Williams, the first lineman in the history of Planet Earth to get a perfect Madden grade at the NFL level! Blocking for NFL Offensive Player of the Year DeMarco Murray!

The idea that TCU "learned" our OL was a formidable opponent is simply silly. Our OL got wiped out that day both in the run game and pass protection. All the other parts of the team, even the defense, had their "moments" in that game. Harbaugh himself said the special teams played great, the defense (which was assumed to be the weakest unit) played well enough to get a win, and the offense failed. He was correct, and the biggest "failure" was the OL. We needed to run the ball to have any shot at winning. We couldn't, and their (admittedly very good) defensive line basically went right through us all game long. Gerhart seldom got TFLs. He had 5 in this game. The OL got 3 holding penalties. TCU had a great defense. They dominated the LOS. It doesn't mean our OL was composed of "bad" football players, but on that day in Fort Worth they were uniformly unsuccessful. They did not play "good". If this game had been played later in the year I fully expect Stanford would have lost, but not nearly this badly. The OL still had a way to go to reach the place they did by the end of the year. This game may have been a necessary part of that growth. I do agree that Stanford generally had a "good" OL in 2008. They were at least "respectable" or better even in the games we lost subsequently. It was a long time before I saw a Stanford OL has that much trouble against anybody subsequently.

Interestingly enough, there was a rumor that the TCU game was the one that convinced Luck not to burn his shirt. Up to then, he was supposedly considering it. After seeing what happened to the QB against SMU, he decided against it. No way of knowing if this was true, but the rumor was out there.

[Goose]

Much we agree on in this exchange but I'm perplexed by the idea defenses don't affect how many rushing yards a running back can have.

No argument there. Two teams are present.

TCU gave up 1.72 yards per carry and 47 rushing yards per game that year. The #2 run defense in the country that year was Alabama, which gave up 2.65 yards per carry and 74 rushing yards per game. That TCU run defense was a contender for the greatest in history. If you look at the 13 years since then, the most epically, historically dominant run defenses were 2016 Alabama (2.01 yards per carry, 64 rushing yards per game) and 2021 Wisconsin (1.99 yards per carry, 61 rushing yards per game). I'm not aware of any run defense in modern football history as good as 2008 TCU. Surely that has bearing on how Gerhart did? TCU had lead opponent backs that year who rushed for 9, 0, 23, 5, 30, 29, 19, 28 yards. Here's the really salient fact: NFL Offensive Player of the Year and three-time Pro Bowler DeMarco Murray had 23 yards against the Horned Frogs. That run defense was maybe the greatest ever. Boise State superstar Ian Johnson had 28 yards. The guys who did "better" than Gerhart were Wyoming and New Mexico backs padding stats in blowouts. For Stanford to rush for 71 yards and Gerhart for 45 was, believe it or not, a statement that the Tunnel Workers Union and Gerhart had arrived. Oklahoma, with future best offensive lineman on the planet Trent Williams blocking, future best running back on the planet DeMarco Murray running, and that year's Voldemort Trophy winner Sam Bradford taking pressure off the run game, rushed for 25 yards as a team. We did 2.84 times better than they did!

The definition of an OL playing "good" is the successful execution of their assignments against the defense, such as opening a hole in the DL or protecting the QB. As you point out the defense gets a vote and their goal is to stop the offense. In so doing they will generally prevent the OL from succeeding in their assignments. You are arguing that since Stanford gained more yards on the ground than Oklahoma did that Stanford must have played "good". Your argument asserts that since the Oklahoma OL had a "great" player and that Oklahoma had a great running back they must have played "good". That is obviously not the case. The defense can prevent the OL from playing "good" and in the run game they did exactly that. Against TCU, the OL of neither Stanford nor Oklahoma was able to successfully execute their assignments in the run offense. Both teams got stuffed.  So even if one believes that the Stanford OL played better than Oklahoma's OL in the run game, that does not "prove" either team played well. In the run game, neither did.

The argument Stanford's OL played better than Oklahoma's in the run game is also very weak. Of Stanfords's 71 yards, 38 yards were on an end-around by Baldwin and 30 of them were on a single play by Gerhart on the second series of the game. The OL's contribution to the end-around was getting out of the way so that the defense could rush to Gerhart as fast as possible. I can't find a video, but my recollection of Gerhart's run was that the TCU defenders basically took themselves out of the play. Gerhart ran around them. It wasn't a great blocking job. Gerhart did it by himself. Obviously most of the 30 was beyond the LOS so the OL would have limited impact on that anyway. Take out those two plays and we gained 3 total yards rushing. 27 plays, 3 yards, or 0.11 ypc, very unlike the picture you present.

As you point out game circumstances (blowouts) do play a role in the statistics. Stanford lost to TCU 31-14. Stanford scored on the 38 yard end around and a blocked punt. The QB carried the ball 9 times, fumbled twice when hit and threw an interception. He never had a "clean" pocket. Running the QB was not our plan. Oklahoma defeated TCU 35-10. Bradford carried the ball 4 times. He threw for 411 yards. I don't think the lack of yards rushing figured in that result. Obviously Oklahoma's pass blocking was far superior to Stanford's. Our QB was under siege all day. In two instances I recall the defense hitting him while he was still trying to catch the snap.

I vaguely remember the TCU-Oklahoma game on TV. My recollection was that the TCU defense got at least a stalemate at the LOS when Oklahoma tried to run the ball. That pretty much stonewalled their running. Unfortunately for TCU, that is mostly what happened on passing attempts as well. Bradford had a much less stressful experience than Pritchard. Stanford's OL OTOH was pretty much a sieve on both types of plays. They didn't even get stalemates.

This is just illustrative of how much impact a great run defense has on a run game. Countless examples over an essentially infinite amount of football history would make the same point. The quality of your opponent matters, a lot. The enemy gets a vote.

Indeed they do. Sometimes they are a landslide.

When you adjust for competition, our 2008 run game was great.



No doubt there was an improvement in OL play in 2009 as DeCastro and Martin in particular made their presence known. But that means we went from a very good OL to an elite OL. Our 2008 OL play was already quite formidable for opponents to deal with, as TCU learned. Nobody else challenged them like we did up front. Not even a line with Trent freaking Williams, the first lineman in the history of Planet Earth to get a perfect Madden grade at the NFL level! Blocking for NFL Offensive Player of the Year DeMarco Murray!

The idea that TCU "learned" our OL was a formidable opponent is simply silly. Our OL got wiped out that day both in the run game and pass protection. All the other parts of the team, even the defense, had their "moments" in that game. Harbaugh himself said the special teams played great, the defense (which was assumed to be the weakest unit) played well enough to get a win, and the offense failed. He was correct, and the biggest "failure" was the OL. We needed to run the ball to have any shot at winning. We couldn't, and their (admittedly very good) defensive line basically went right through us all game long. Gerhart seldom got TFLs. He had 5 in this game. The OL got 3 holding penalties. TCU had a great defense. They dominated the LOS. It doesn't mean our OL was composed of "bad" football players, but on that day in Fort Worth they were uniformly unsuccessful. They did not play "good". If this game had been played later in the year I fully expect Stanford would have lost, but not nearly this badly. The OL still had a way to go to reach the place they did by the end of the year. This game may have been a necessary part of that growth. I do agree that Stanford generally had a "good" OL in 2008. They were at least "respectable" or better even in the games we lost subsequently. It was a long time before I saw a Stanford OL has that much trouble against anybody subsequently.

Interestingly enough, there was a rumor that the TCU game was the one that convinced Luck not to burn his shirt. Up to then, he was supposedly considering it. After seeing what happened to the QB against SMU, he decided against it. No way of knowing if this was true, but the rumor was out there.