(10-25-2016, 09:04 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:There's a point on predictability that I want to address: is an overly predictable offense a cause or effect of a bad offense? (Or, perhaps, to crib from Orwell, is it a little bit of both: A man may take to drink because he feels himself a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks.)
That is, if an offense only has a few plays it can competently execute it kind of has to stick with them -- doing something that won't work because it's surprising doesn't really sound like a recipe for success.
Incidentally I wonder whether execution/coaching is making plays less successful than they are. One of the features of this year's offense that bugs me is the reliance on shotgun runs. Unless they're accompanied with a read-option they simply are not great plays. And yet Burns rarely seems to pull the ball -- maybe that fumble against Kansas State spooked him. Chryst seems more eager to run, but neither of them are in Hogan's class as a runner. That makes the offense substantially more one-dimensional, and it's not as if either offer significant other virtues to offset that.
Some good thoughts (as always) in there. On your question, I think the answer is the latter. As David Lombardi noted in another thread (
http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php?topic=15978.0), while we are running when Burns is under center 80+% of the time, that is actually less often than last year (when we ran 87% of the time from under center). As someone noted in that thread, however, because we could effectively punish teams that loaded the box with play action passing for big gains, opponents couldn't count on the predictability. This year, we have not been able to effectively punish teams for overplaying runs, so even though we are statistically less predictable, we are in effect more predictable because of the lack of execution.
To your other observation, that same thread noted that Lombardi's research found that we actually ran from the shotgun a larger percentage of the time last year, and my recollection was that McCaffrey was pretty effective at it. As with everything else, the shotgun runs are not going to work well if the offensive line can't effectively create holes. I think what we are seeing is that we are lining up in the shotgun more frequently this year. My suspicion is that stems from a combination of Burns' lack of comfort lining up under center, as well as an effort to give him a bit more time to see the rush when passing. But if you are going to line up from the shotgun, you are going to have to run from the shotgun, at least sometimes. I do think read options might be more successful, but again, if you aren't winning the battle up front, then nothing is going to look all that good.
One last thought on philosophy (geared more towards everyone else). Pretty much the same offense was among the top five offenses in the country last year, and no defense has suddenly figured us out, so to speak. Shaw has been HC for 5+ seasons now. We've had a world class (top-5) offense twice (2011, 2015) in that span, a good offense once (2013), an average offense once (2012) that was good once Hogan replaced Nunes, a struggling offense once (2014) that figured itself out at the end, and a putrid offense once. It is obviously frustrating to see the offense this year, no question, but you have to evaluate the system as a whole, and I think it has a) been successful more often than not, b) been a good fit for Stanford, given the types of players we recruit well. All offenses will have their ups and downs, and obviously you can and should always adjust the offense to your personnel. But it is not realistic or even a good thing to make wholesale changes in offensive philosophy from year to year. In other words, you can't have a pro-style offense one year, then decide that it's not working so we should switch to a [fill in the blank] raid offense the next, and then switch to a run/pass option based offense the next year. Sure, given that we have a QB in his first year as a starter, a run/pass option
might have worked better in the short term, if the players in the system had been working on it over the last year. But next year, when we will be returning 4/5 of the line, our starting QB, and hopefully McCaffrey, we ought to benefit from better execution in this system.
My general philosophy is that there are three broad ways to structure your offense. First, you can rely on surprise and trick plays. It works great if you can execute them and really keep the defense off balanced, but a disciplined defense can usually sniff trick plays out, and if you can't execute the plays effectively they are disastrous. The second approach relies on spreading the field and winning one-on-one matchups. This works well if you can win the one-on-one matchups, but will struggle if the defense is fundamentally solid, especially in open field tackling. The third relies on getting numbers at the point of attack. It relies most heavily on offensive execution, but when it works, it is very tough even for a good defense to defend. Remember that last year, we scored 30+ points on 13 straight opponents and 16 out of 17 dating back to the end of 2014. We did it against good defenses and bad ones, in all sorts of conditions (though we lucked out a bit against WSU), and could even afford to have one phase of our game working sub-optimally and still win (see, for example, the running game against Notre Dame). The bottom line is that when our offense is humming, it is very difficult to stop, whereas other types of offenses can be stopped by the right defense (see, for example Oregon in their heyday versus Auburn or us).
I understand people's concern about Shaw's lack of flexibility, but the converse of that is having a real offensive philosophy that is geared towards one's strengths. You know which other team is struggling right now? UCLA, after Mora decided to change UCLA's offensive philosophy in a bid to improve "toughness" and better fit their personnel , including a likely first pick in the draft at QB. Now, in a year, the move may pay off and Rosen might light the Pac-12 up in his third and (likely) last season behind center. But in the meantime, UCLA is 3-5, having lost three in a row. You know who else is struggling? Oregon. Their problems are obviously not offensive, but their offense exacerbates their defensive struggles.
Good teams sometimes struggle, sometimes mightily. But it would take me several years of futility, not several games, before I decided that there was something unfixable about the offense.
