[msqueri]

4. Most encouraging about the defense is that I think they can credibly view themselves as taking a step forward following the bye. The defense was in the general vicinity of where it was against Hawaii (giving up 0.1 more yards per play to the Cougs); considering that SP+ pegs BYU as having the #48 offense and Hawaii as #122 that feels like progress. Put even more encouragingly, that was our second best yards per play allowed against a power opponent in the last four years (behind only the 2023 Wazzu game). In particular, pass defense continues to be a silver lining, with a second quality performance to start the season. Aside from that 2023 Wazzu game, no game under this defensive staff has had better yards per attempt or defensive passer rating and yesterday we gave up many fewer yards than even that standout performance. (By the way, the comfortable win obscures that it was a really bad game for Bear Bachmeier, who was 113th of 129 nationally in Total QBR this week) I have some concerns that the tweaks to our defensive staff may not have been the best thing for our run defense but nonetheless I see yesterday as a bounce back in that dimension as we gave up fewer yards per carry than we did against an inferior Hawaii and also were below BYU's 2024 average in both yards and yards per carry, significantly so in the case of the latter. I fear this is going to be one of those years when the defense is solid, gets no help, wears down and perhaps gets demoralized over time.

5. What can you say about 19 yards rushing on 0.79 yards per carry? We did not keep the momentum going from last week, to say the least. This was statistically worse than even last year's SMU game and reminiscent as well of the 2022 Utah game. This likely owes in significant part to the quality of BYU's run defense, which has now given up 16 yards in its last three games stretching back to the Alamo Bowl, but clearly a big failure. That failure stings given the whole identity of the Luck/Reich era and this offseason has been our physicality and establishing the run. Clearly there are still teams we are utterly incapable against. On the passing side, we don't need stats to know it was horrible. We never had a game under Taylor with a yards per attempt/passer rating combo as bad as what we've seen in both games so far this year. That said, the passing stats were slightly better across the board than they were against a much worse Hawaii defense, so this arguably constitutes passing progress, albeit from a subterranean baseline. It's also possible BYU has a really good pass defense. Last year they played numerous passing offenses this tough, including amazingly SMU. But it would be entering Mark Twain territory to try to spin Stanford's passing as anything but awful. It is also a problem that the pre-snap/getting into right plays/setting up conversions stuff one could have said Gulbranson did well to mitigate his failures fell apart this week. Even if one thinks Gulbranson was a bit better as a passer, he certainly wasn't as QB1 writ large.

6. Yeah....Gulbranson. That was 128th of 129 nationally in Total QBR this week, a true hold my beer performance to prove that folks were being way too hyperbolic in calling the Hawaii game the worst in Stanford history or the worst it can get. Last night's performance was closer to that but still has some company. Gulbranson yesterday was the seventh worst Total QBR in the 260 Stanford games ever measured (ranking just ahead of 2019 West vs. UCLA, 2018 Costello vs. Pitt, 2017 Chryst vs. San Diego State, 2008 Pritchard vs. TCU, 2006 Ostrander vs. Arizona, and 2023 Lamson vs. Sacramento State). On the season, Gulbranson is now 121st of 130 QBs nationally and the very worst in Power Four. As much as I think OL, WR, and TE play contribute significantly to the trainwreck, as much as I believe in reversion to the mean (in Gulbranson's case a much more established track record than Rizk and especially Brown), and as much doubt as I think there is ample reason to have in our alternatives....yeah, worst in Power Four through two games is the kind of play that begs for somebody else to get a look. I won't yet predict it because the signals from the coaches riding with Gulbranson have been pretty clear, but not scoring outside of garbage time, turning the ball over via both interceptions and fumbles, throwing a screen in the end zone for a safety, committing delays of game, telegraphing where run plays are going before big tackles for loss....that's a level of play that demands a controversy.

7. The rest of the offensive supporting cast sure leaves a lot to be desired though. After all the damage on the ground last week, running backs made a grand total of four first downs, only two by our potential offensive MVP Ford. To say Roush is playing like garbage is libel against garbage. I agree with all the comments that talk of Roush as an NFL guy needs to cease until he proves much, much more. Since Big Game 2023, Roush has one game in which PFF has graded him above 70. The hype is way out of control at this point. The receivers are what they are and I'm at least happy Farrell and Williams had very nice bounce backs, with Farrell in particular having a really nice game. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Farrell (3), Williams (3), Altahir (2), Ford (2), High, Marcus Brown] And it all starts up front. I was worried people were drawing too much optimism from a good performance against a non-serious Group of Five front seven and sadly that appears to be the case. They got whupped by BYU. House was especially bad. I won't draw firm conclusions on the OL until we see more, especially given BYU's strength, but it's not looking good.

8. I didn't see anything spectacular from the defense in terms of individual contributions or breadth of guys making plays but they did enough to be effective, perhaps with some assists from BYU having a freshman QB and also some ill-timed flubs/penalties. Tafiti, Barth, Patterson, Johnson, Wright, Rose, Rowell, and Leigber showed up multiple times positively in the box score, though Leigber needed garbage time to do it. Tafiti stood out most to me, with six such plays not even counting the should-have-been interception Green screwed up. Notably, Tafiti's plays included a sack to force a field goal and a third down tackle to force a punt, so I think it's fair to say he most positively influenced the final score of anybody on our team. That is great to see because OLB invisibility was one of the most disappointing aspects of the opener. I think it's safe to say our one sixth of the season MVP is a battle between Rose and Patterson. Barth's game against BYU seemed to be high beta, put both good and bad on tape. Johnson having a whopping three red zone run stops is an extremely loud stat, especially considering he comes off the bench. Really nice to have Wright back, good game.

9. I am starting to get worried about special teams post-Gregory. BYU swamped us in this one, with their field goals, 44 yard returns in both the kick and punt games, and how special teams played into field position. Flintoft certainly got a lot of work. He had net punts of 41 to the 29 (out-kicked coverage but adequate result), 25 to the 15 (very bad), 34 to the 50 (awful), 46 to the 27 (out-kicked coverage but good result and coverage team forced a fumble, bummer we couldn't recover), 9 to our own 43 after a disastrous return (finally got out deserts for out-kicking coverage). That's a rough game. We had some special teams tackles by usual suspects like Dubre and Mattingly but the only thing that jumped out was Edwards forcing the fumble. We didn't fall on it but that's the kind of special teams play that moves the needle. Kenney made his field goal but it was only 26 yards. I am happy for Thorpe getting action on a big stage, though in terms of results his returns of 18 and 21 yards left ten yards of field position on the table compared to fair catches. Wondering if this may be the year special teams isn't an advantage for us. Hope not.

10. Game balls: Bryce Farrell, Teva Tafiti, Scotty Edwards, Andy Thompson

11. I can make a case that we played better yesterday than we did against Hawaii and next week is our home opener against a very average opponent and thus we should still be holding out hope for the first happiness of the season to come next week. I can also make a case that we should be far from despairing on 2025 in the sense that there's still a lot of season left to show progress over our hapless norm of recent years. On the other hand, one could just as easily make the case that the Hawaii and BYU games are of a piece with everything this staff has coached (let's be real, Reich is just grafted on top of a Taylor staff), which is to say one of the worst teams in the country, and we aren't showing any real signs of progress as a program. I will be tuning in each week to see if the team makes the glass look a fifth full or 80 percent empty. Heading into Boston College I'd say we haven't learned anything fundamental about this team, just corroboration that we are lacking compared to real programs, especially at QB and OL. But I still hope games like last night can start to look like off nights rather than who we are.

[msqueri]

4. Most encouraging about the defense is that I think they can credibly view themselves as taking a step forward following the bye. The defense was in the general vicinity of where it was against Hawaii (giving up 0.1 more yards per play to the Cougs); considering that SP+ pegs BYU as having the #48 offense and Hawaii as #122 that feels like progress. Put even more encouragingly, that was our second best yards per play allowed against a power opponent in the last four years (behind only the 2023 Wazzu game). In particular, pass defense continues to be a silver lining, with a second quality performance to start the season. Aside from that 2023 Wazzu game, no game under this defensive staff has had better yards per attempt or defensive passer rating and yesterday we gave up many fewer yards than even that standout performance. (By the way, the comfortable win obscures that it was a really bad game for Bear Bachmeier, who was 113th of 129 nationally in Total QBR this week) I have some concerns that the tweaks to our defensive staff may not have been the best thing for our run defense but nonetheless I see yesterday as a bounce back in that dimension as we gave up fewer yards per carry than we did against an inferior Hawaii and also were below BYU's 2024 average in both yards and yards per carry, significantly so in the case of the latter. I fear this is going to be one of those years when the defense is solid, gets no help, wears down and perhaps gets demoralized over time.

5. What can you say about 19 yards rushing on 0.79 yards per carry? We did not keep the momentum going from last week, to say the least. This was statistically worse than even last year's SMU game and reminiscent as well of the 2022 Utah game. This likely owes in significant part to the quality of BYU's run defense, which has now given up 16 yards in its last three games stretching back to the Alamo Bowl, but clearly a big failure. That failure stings given the whole identity of the Luck/Reich era and this offseason has been our physicality and establishing the run. Clearly there are still teams we are utterly incapable against. On the passing side, we don't need stats to know it was horrible. We never had a game under Taylor with a yards per attempt/passer rating combo as bad as what we've seen in both games so far this year. That said, the passing stats were slightly better across the board than they were against a much worse Hawaii defense, so this arguably constitutes passing progress, albeit from a subterranean baseline. It's also possible BYU has a really good pass defense. Last year they played numerous passing offenses this tough, including amazingly SMU. But it would be entering Mark Twain territory to try to spin Stanford's passing as anything but awful. It is also a problem that the pre-snap/getting into right plays/setting up conversions stuff one could have said Gulbranson did well to mitigate his failures fell apart this week. Even if one thinks Gulbranson was a bit better as a passer, he certainly wasn't as QB1 writ large.

6. Yeah....Gulbranson. That was 128th of 129 nationally in Total QBR this week, a true hold my beer performance to prove that folks were being way too hyperbolic in calling the Hawaii game the worst in Stanford history or the worst it can get. Last night's performance was closer to that but still has some company. Gulbranson yesterday was the seventh worst Total QBR in the 260 Stanford games ever measured (ranking just ahead of 2019 West vs. UCLA, 2018 Costello vs. Pitt, 2017 Chryst vs. San Diego State, 2008 Pritchard vs. TCU, 2006 Ostrander vs. Arizona, and 2023 Lamson vs. Sacramento State). On the season, Gulbranson is now 121st of 130 QBs nationally and the very worst in Power Four. As much as I think OL, WR, and TE play contribute significantly to the trainwreck, as much as I believe in reversion to the mean (in Gulbranson's case a much more established track record than Rizk and especially Brown), and as much doubt as I think there is ample reason to have in our alternatives....yeah, worst in Power Four through two games is the kind of play that begs for somebody else to get a look. I won't yet predict it because the signals from the coaches riding with Gulbranson have been pretty clear, but not scoring outside of garbage time, turning the ball over via both interceptions and fumbles, throwing a screen in the end zone for a safety, committing delays of game, telegraphing where run plays are going before big tackles for loss....that's a level of play that demands a controversy.

7. The rest of the offensive supporting cast sure leaves a lot to be desired though. After all the damage on the ground last week, running backs made a grand total of four first downs, only two by our potential offensive MVP Ford. To say Roush is playing like garbage is libel against garbage. I agree with all the comments that talk of Roush as an NFL guy needs to cease until he proves much, much more. Since Big Game 2023, Roush has one game in which PFF has graded him above 70. The hype is way out of control at this point. The receivers are what they are and I'm at least happy Farrell and Williams had very nice bounce backs, with Farrell in particular having a really nice game. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Farrell (3), Williams (3), Altahir (2), Ford (2), High, Marcus Brown] And it all starts up front. I was worried people were drawing too much optimism from a good performance against a non-serious Group of Five front seven and sadly that appears to be the case. They got whupped by BYU. House was especially bad. I won't draw firm conclusions on the OL until we see more, especially given BYU's strength, but it's not looking good.

8. I didn't see anything spectacular from the defense in terms of individual contributions or breadth of guys making plays but they did enough to be effective, perhaps with some assists from BYU having a freshman QB and also some ill-timed flubs/penalties. Tafiti, Barth, Patterson, Johnson, Wright, Rose, Rowell, and Leigber showed up multiple times positively in the box score, though Leigber needed garbage time to do it. Tafiti stood out most to me, with six such plays not even counting the should-have-been interception Green screwed up. Notably, Tafiti's plays included a sack to force a field goal and a third down tackle to force a punt, so I think it's fair to say he most positively influenced the final score of anybody on our team. That is great to see because OLB invisibility was one of the most disappointing aspects of the opener. I think it's safe to say our one sixth of the season MVP is a battle between Rose and Patterson. Barth's game against BYU seemed to be high beta, put both good and bad on tape. Johnson having a whopping three red zone run stops is an extremely loud stat, especially considering he comes off the bench. Really nice to have Wright back, good game.

9. I am starting to get worried about special teams post-Gregory. BYU swamped us in this one, with their field goals, 44 yard returns in both the kick and punt games, and how special teams played into field position. Flintoft certainly got a lot of work. He had net punts of 41 to the 29 (out-kicked coverage but adequate result), 25 to the 15 (very bad), 34 to the 50 (awful), 46 to the 27 (out-kicked coverage but good result and coverage team forced a fumble, bummer we couldn't recover), 9 to our own 43 after a disastrous return (finally got out deserts for out-kicking coverage). That's a rough game. We had some special teams tackles by usual suspects like Dubre and Mattingly but the only thing that jumped out was Edwards forcing the fumble. We didn't fall on it but that's the kind of special teams play that moves the needle. Kenney made his field goal but it was only 26 yards. I am happy for Thorpe getting action on a big stage, though in terms of results his returns of 18 and 21 yards left ten yards of field position on the table compared to fair catches. Wondering if this may be the year special teams isn't an advantage for us. Hope not.

10. Game balls: Bryce Farrell, Teva Tafiti, Scotty Edwards, Andy Thompson

11. I can make a case that we played better yesterday than we did against Hawaii and next week is our home opener against a very average opponent and thus we should still be holding out hope for the first happiness of the season to come next week. I can also make a case that we should be far from despairing on 2025 in the sense that there's still a lot of season left to show progress over our hapless norm of recent years. On the other hand, one could just as easily make the case that the Hawaii and BYU games are of a piece with everything this staff has coached (let's be real, Reich is just grafted on top of a Taylor staff), which is to say one of the worst teams in the country, and we aren't showing any real signs of progress as a program. I will be tuning in each week to see if the team makes the glass look a fifth full or 80 percent empty. Heading into Boston College I'd say we haven't learned anything fundamental about this team, just corroboration that we are lacking compared to real programs, especially at QB and OL. But I still hope games like last night can start to look like off nights rather than who we are.