09-14-2025, 02:43 PM
6. As much talk as there has been about quarterback, the run game was a bigger story yesterday (notwithstanding several big passing plays, which Gulbranson should get some credit for). We had run game explosions against NC State and Clemson last year so this wasn't shocking, but it was nice. I love that it was a yard and half better than Michigan State did. The Spartans are not a good team but they are the kind of mediocre Power Four team we are currently aspiring to be and it's great to see all these categories we did better on against a common opponent. The individual to tout, of course, is Micah Ford. That's the most rushing yards in a game since Bryce Love in 2017. Ford now has 100 yard rushing games in two of our first three games, is the first Stanford player to have multiple 100 yard rushing games in a season since Austin Jones in 2020, and so far this season is third in the ACC in rushing and seventh in yards from scrimmage. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Ford (5), Farrell (3), Roush (2), Altahir (2), High, Tabb, Gulbranson] Elsewhere on offense, we also got very positive contributions from Farrell for another week and it's really nice to see him stepping up in a challenged room. I'm not yet sold on Roush being worth the hype but boy was that a big touchdown. The offensive line struck me as doing admirably with Pale and then Fattig (such a bummer for him) out but showing the perils of having a junior varsity line out there. I don't get as excited as some do about guys like House, Ugorji, and Yamauchi not falling all over themselves because it's still not a level of play where we are winning in the trenches against an extraordinarily mediocre team like Boston College (jet lagged to boot), in the transfer era we have to fight to keep them each year much less long-term, and since we burn their redshirts so cavalierly there is diminished prospect of "long-term" even being an option. That said, I love that we got ourselves in a position to end the game with an old school drive breaking a legitimate opponent's spirit and draining the clock, exactly the kind of physical identity, consistency, and competence we are hoping to establish and then build on throughout the year and into the future. I think there is a chance we have the pieces to have a better line going forward and that will be one of the big things to watch going forward (both their level of play and whether we can keep the guys we like out of the portal.
7. On defense, I wanted to see if the green shoots of optimism for the pass defense were validated and whether we could reverse apparent decline in run defense. Yesterday was the most our pass defense has been challenged on the young season but considerably better than Michigan State did (1.1 fewer yards per attempt, three fewer passing touchdowns, over 40 points better in defensive passer rating). I don't think our pass defense is good but we have a few data points that it might not be bad. After a concerning first couple of games relative to the April defense of the last two years, the defense bowed up yesterday. That was the lowest number of rushing yards we've allowed in the last 12 games and only once in that span did we give up fewer yards per carry. Like the passing game on offense, this is an instance of getting right against sorry competition and should not be viewed as proof we've turned the corner in a phase that has been troubling us. BC hasn't been above a hundred yards rushing or 2.7 yards per carry yet this season and their opponents have been Fordham and Michigan State, so it appears they really suck at rushing. But a program like Stanford needs to taste success and build confidence and, as with the passing performance on offense, I won't complain that we got an opportunity to have some success. Nonetheless, this would be my nomination for fool's gold of the week. Boston College has the #132 yards per carry offense and Virginia has #11, so next week is when the defense really has to prove itself.
8. For all the yards per play the defense gave up, they got off the field and made turnovers and put points on the board. For a perennially irrelevant program at the bottom of Power Four, they continue to show up each week and play feisty ball and I think the vast majority of fans who are more affectionate about the defense than the offense have every right to be. It reminds me, as I've said, of the Teevens defenses. Now that obvious baller Wright has apparently been joined by guys like Rose and Patterson as dudes (to use Steve Addazio's parlance, though I think his bar may be lower than mine), the comparison rings even truer to the defenses in my college years when we were never good but the defenses had talent better than fans realized at the time. For me this is mostly interesting when it comes to prospects for games the rest of this season and for players we may return for next season more than it is to trying to validate our defensive coaches, who I assume we'll want to replace with a new coaching staff. Looking at how players did against Boston College, it wasn't a lot of guys evidently showing up, with only seven of those having multiple positive box score plays and a few of those relying on garbage time (Rose, Johnson, Patterson, Edwards, Barth, Green, Franklin, with the latter two needing a garbage time play to get there). What jumped out to me was, of course, Wright's mother f'n pick six (what a play, what an impact) - and the fact that he didn't have another big play in the box score shows the limitations of my heuristic, as my eyes and the PFF grades suggest that the reason for that was that he shut down BC receiving weapons quite well - and then all the needle-moving plays Rose and Patterson made validating my statement from last week that they are our MVPs so far this year. Rose had five plays I tracked as positive impact, including two tackles to force punts as well as the big six yard tackle for loss sniffing out the gadget. Patterson can contend with Wright's pick six as impacting the game like none other, as Patterson had the fumble recovery on which he got penetration on the play that happened to be an errant snap Lonergan couldn't corral and was the turning point of the game as well as the goal line fourth down stand where I wish he was credited with a forced fumble (he wasn't....he had three positive box score plays even without that). It soured the performance big-time that Johnson got beat on the long RB receiving touchdown but I continue to love the plays he's making, in this case multiple run stuffs, more goal line action (in this case a hurry), a pass breakup, and a sack.
9. I did some handwringing on special teams the last two weeks but this week it was an advantage. Kenney made field goals of 23, 35, and 26 - nothing hard, but he's reliable and that's brobdingnagian for a team like us, or really any team. [We have struggled so much on offense that I was happy and relieved with red zone field goals, however the red zone efficacy is an indication of an anemic offense. We are dead last 135th in America in red zone touchdown conversion. Ummm, that's bad.] Flintoft had net punts of 52 to the 27 (great), 53 to the 26 (great), 48 to the 15 (very good), and and 23 to the 35 (quite bad), a massively better contribution to field position than his poor Boston College counterpart. I have to give one of them my game ball, but I'm jazzed to see Charlie Eckhardt get two nice kick coverage tackles, one very nice to pin the bad guys at the 17. I also need to shout out Mattingly getting a punt coverage tackle, which was an annoyingly long return but could have been worse without Mattingly's big stick. I don't see us getting a lot out of the return game yet - in this one it was a three yard punt return for Thorpe and Tabb giving up eight cumulative yards on the two kick returns he decided to take back - but I need to remind myself to be patient and only harshly judge calamity/leave room for the possibility of a big return at some point.
10. Game balls: Micah Ford, Clay Patterson, Aidan Flintoft, Frank Reich
11. The Virginia game becomes a lot more fun to look forward to coming off a great home win. Playing another fairly mediocre opponent will raise hopes that we can replicate last year's mid-September of back-to-back wins including an East Coast roadie ACC win. On the other hand, those roadies when we're not coming off a bye have been brutal in our short ACC history so far. I just want to see us be competitive. Don't get me wrong, there is a path to a win and I'd love to see it. It's just that it shapes up more difficultly for us than what we just enjoyed and, in the big picture, what I really want to see is Stanford playing like a program that belongs on the field against legitimate opposition, even on the road. Of course, if that means we go out there and win that's even better. Ok, yeah, let's just go out there and do that!
7. On defense, I wanted to see if the green shoots of optimism for the pass defense were validated and whether we could reverse apparent decline in run defense. Yesterday was the most our pass defense has been challenged on the young season but considerably better than Michigan State did (1.1 fewer yards per attempt, three fewer passing touchdowns, over 40 points better in defensive passer rating). I don't think our pass defense is good but we have a few data points that it might not be bad. After a concerning first couple of games relative to the April defense of the last two years, the defense bowed up yesterday. That was the lowest number of rushing yards we've allowed in the last 12 games and only once in that span did we give up fewer yards per carry. Like the passing game on offense, this is an instance of getting right against sorry competition and should not be viewed as proof we've turned the corner in a phase that has been troubling us. BC hasn't been above a hundred yards rushing or 2.7 yards per carry yet this season and their opponents have been Fordham and Michigan State, so it appears they really suck at rushing. But a program like Stanford needs to taste success and build confidence and, as with the passing performance on offense, I won't complain that we got an opportunity to have some success. Nonetheless, this would be my nomination for fool's gold of the week. Boston College has the #132 yards per carry offense and Virginia has #11, so next week is when the defense really has to prove itself.
8. For all the yards per play the defense gave up, they got off the field and made turnovers and put points on the board. For a perennially irrelevant program at the bottom of Power Four, they continue to show up each week and play feisty ball and I think the vast majority of fans who are more affectionate about the defense than the offense have every right to be. It reminds me, as I've said, of the Teevens defenses. Now that obvious baller Wright has apparently been joined by guys like Rose and Patterson as dudes (to use Steve Addazio's parlance, though I think his bar may be lower than mine), the comparison rings even truer to the defenses in my college years when we were never good but the defenses had talent better than fans realized at the time. For me this is mostly interesting when it comes to prospects for games the rest of this season and for players we may return for next season more than it is to trying to validate our defensive coaches, who I assume we'll want to replace with a new coaching staff. Looking at how players did against Boston College, it wasn't a lot of guys evidently showing up, with only seven of those having multiple positive box score plays and a few of those relying on garbage time (Rose, Johnson, Patterson, Edwards, Barth, Green, Franklin, with the latter two needing a garbage time play to get there). What jumped out to me was, of course, Wright's mother f'n pick six (what a play, what an impact) - and the fact that he didn't have another big play in the box score shows the limitations of my heuristic, as my eyes and the PFF grades suggest that the reason for that was that he shut down BC receiving weapons quite well - and then all the needle-moving plays Rose and Patterson made validating my statement from last week that they are our MVPs so far this year. Rose had five plays I tracked as positive impact, including two tackles to force punts as well as the big six yard tackle for loss sniffing out the gadget. Patterson can contend with Wright's pick six as impacting the game like none other, as Patterson had the fumble recovery on which he got penetration on the play that happened to be an errant snap Lonergan couldn't corral and was the turning point of the game as well as the goal line fourth down stand where I wish he was credited with a forced fumble (he wasn't....he had three positive box score plays even without that). It soured the performance big-time that Johnson got beat on the long RB receiving touchdown but I continue to love the plays he's making, in this case multiple run stuffs, more goal line action (in this case a hurry), a pass breakup, and a sack.
9. I did some handwringing on special teams the last two weeks but this week it was an advantage. Kenney made field goals of 23, 35, and 26 - nothing hard, but he's reliable and that's brobdingnagian for a team like us, or really any team. [We have struggled so much on offense that I was happy and relieved with red zone field goals, however the red zone efficacy is an indication of an anemic offense. We are dead last 135th in America in red zone touchdown conversion. Ummm, that's bad.] Flintoft had net punts of 52 to the 27 (great), 53 to the 26 (great), 48 to the 15 (very good), and and 23 to the 35 (quite bad), a massively better contribution to field position than his poor Boston College counterpart. I have to give one of them my game ball, but I'm jazzed to see Charlie Eckhardt get two nice kick coverage tackles, one very nice to pin the bad guys at the 17. I also need to shout out Mattingly getting a punt coverage tackle, which was an annoyingly long return but could have been worse without Mattingly's big stick. I don't see us getting a lot out of the return game yet - in this one it was a three yard punt return for Thorpe and Tabb giving up eight cumulative yards on the two kick returns he decided to take back - but I need to remind myself to be patient and only harshly judge calamity/leave room for the possibility of a big return at some point.
10. Game balls: Micah Ford, Clay Patterson, Aidan Flintoft, Frank Reich
11. The Virginia game becomes a lot more fun to look forward to coming off a great home win. Playing another fairly mediocre opponent will raise hopes that we can replicate last year's mid-September of back-to-back wins including an East Coast roadie ACC win. On the other hand, those roadies when we're not coming off a bye have been brutal in our short ACC history so far. I just want to see us be competitive. Don't get me wrong, there is a path to a win and I'd love to see it. It's just that it shapes up more difficultly for us than what we just enjoyed and, in the big picture, what I really want to see is Stanford playing like a program that belongs on the field against legitimate opposition, even on the road. Of course, if that means we go out there and win that's even better. Ok, yeah, let's just go out there and do that!