I’m of course talking about the women’s soccer team.

Tonight they face off, #1 vs #2, Stanford vs UCLA in Los Angeles at 6:00 pm on the Pac-12 network. Give it a watch, but if you were basing your expectations off of last season’s team, be prepared to be frustrated.

The Cardinal hasn’t been able to replace Lindsay Taylor up front, Kirsty Zurmuhlen in the defensive midfield and Cami Levin on the back line, but most especially they have no one to take the place of attacking central midfielder and playmaker Teresa Noyola.

Those issues have to a certain extent been disguised by the excellent play of the senior defenders, Alina Garciamendez and Rachel Quon, keeper Emily Oliver and most especially by defensive central midfielder Mariah “Clutch” Nogueira. But there is little connection through the midfield to the front line; while Nina Watkins has taken on some of the defensive duties of Zurmuhlen, she doesn’t seem to be able to convert tackles into balls going forward as well as Kirsty did.

At attacking center mid, Alex Doll seems a bit lost, and Stanford has had a couple of knocks to other players. Up front, Chioma Ubogagu, back from playing with the U-20 national team, and Courtney Verloo form a potent outside combination on the left and right, but I think Lo LaBonta is playing a bit out of position at center forward; she would be much more natural at a “withdrawn striker” or as an attacking center mid.

There have been some great moments this year, but almost all of them have come through Nogueira, Garciamendez or Quon. Late in tight games, if Stanford needs to score, they end up moving forward into the attack. They do it well, but that also leaves Stanford open to the counter, especially as the mids tend to not cycle back and cover as the defenders go forward.

Watch tonight’s game. Stanford’s offense seems to consist of playing the ball among the back five, reversing it until one of the outside backs, Quon or Laura Leidle, can move forward. Then the ball bypasses the midfield entirely, looking for either Verloo or Ubogagu out wide or LaBonta (who while marvelously skilled with her feet is neither very big nor very fast in the central forward role). Which leads in general to either Chi or Courtney trying to beat a double-team, or LaBonta launching a 35-yard shot in the vicinity of the goal.

That’s where Stanford misses Taylor; accuracy and finishing. As a team, Stanford is still in general outshooting its opponents by wide margins; the shots just are nowhere near the net.

In Friday’s game against what should have been an over-matched USC, Stanford had 8 shots in the first half, 1 of which was on frame.  Early in the second half, Stanford again was firing blanks high and wide.  Until late in the game, when Nogueira and Quon pushed up in the attack, and Stanford’s chances got more dangerous.

But that push up also changed the shape of Stanford’s defense, and SC had several good chances late in the game to score.  Most especially off a series of corner kicks, one of which ended up in the back of the net but was waved off for either a foul or offsides, it was difficult to tell.

How was the game rescued?  By Quon, who lofted a free kick from the half line onto the head of Nogueira at the top of the box.  Mariah flicked it on – directly into the path of an onrushing Garciamendez, who toe-poked the ball into the left-side netting, ending a 100+ minute nightmare in about 4 seconds of playing time.

Now, you can say what you want about the field – they played the game in the Coliseum, which meant the field was short and narrow, allowing SC to pack the defense and not allowing Stanford to spread the ball around.

But beyond that, the lack of threat and pressure in the midfield is allowing bad teams to stay with Stanford,  and good teams to threaten all of Stanford’s streaks.  Tonight, we’ll see how they fare against a very good team in the Bruins.

Because Stanford’s had it relatively easy thus far – most of their difficult games have been at home, the one exception being the early and great victory at Penn State.  Which was followed with a 1-0 loss.

It comes down to road scoring.  At home, Stanford has 32 goals in 10 games; away or neutral, 15 goals in 7 games.  And that is skewed by two 4 goal wins against weak opponents in UNC Greensboro and Arizona.  1-0 in 2 OTs at a mediocre SC.  2-1 and 1-0 against middle of the road Utah and Colorado.

What does it mean?  I’m not sure, but I’ll be watching tonight, because, despite star-studded recruiting classes, when Nogueira, Quon and Garciamendez graduate, I’m not sure where the team is going without them.  Nogueira is the leading goal-scorer despite being a defensive midfielder, and Garciamendez is tied for second despite being a central defender. Be sure to watch the corners and other set pieces, as that’s where we’re likely to score.

Viking Guy

The post In search of scores on the road appeared first on The CARDboard.

Each of the games has demonstrated dramatically different strengths and weaknesses.

• San Jose State – victory over a team that’s doing well in a non-AQ conference. This was a very spotty first game. It appeared worse than it was because for the better part of a decade, San Jose State has been one of the worst teams in the FBS. It started well with two scoring drives. But after that, the offense was much less than efficient. Nunes threw no interceptions, but the offense stalled frequently, converting two of thirteen third downs. The defense played poorly in the third quarter, allowing two drives of 3:42 and 5:48, but tightened in the fourth, producing three straight three-and-out punts and an interception. After this game, observers wondered whether the offensive line was strong enough to dominate.
• Duke – big victory over a team that’s doing well in a lower level AQ conference. The appeared to have shored up the defensive problems from the first game. The Cardinal focused on the run and limited the Blue Devils to 1.7 yards per rushing attempt! However, despite the 50 points scored, the game brought up questions about the offense. Duke revealed a pattern to defeat the Cardinal. It loaded the front line and was able to limit the run game to 3.5 yards. The quarterback completed only 54 percent of his passes, but against the Blue Devils, the long passes to Ertz and Toilolo, it was more than enough. This game revealed weaknesses in the pass game that ultimately weakened the run game.
• USC – victory over a strong conference team. USC came in with a lofty No. 2 ranking, a Heisman-touted quarterback, and two outstanding receivers. However, it also had a thin offensive line. In that game, the Cardinal dominated the SC offensive and defensive lines. The defense limited the vaunted passing game out of the end zone. While Barkley had no touchdowns, he threw two interceptions. The Stanford defense was so dominant that at one point USC was at fourth down and 40! Nevertheless, while the Stanford offense racked up 417 total yards, it only made it to the end zone three times: twice in the air and once on the ground. The Cardinal converted on only 36 percent of their third downs, and the quarterback completed only 47 percent of his passes. So, in this game, the Cardinal appeared to have an elite defense and a strong run game that opened up a weak passing offense.
• Washington – loss to a team that’s in the middle of our conference. This, the Cardinal’s only away game in the opening five, had the Cardinal limiting Washington to only 17 points, but not scoring a single offensive touchdown. Like Duke, Washington stacked the line daring Stanford to pass. Unlike Duke, Washington had the secondary to make Stanford pay. The team netted 65 yards rushing and 170 yards passing. It converted only 28 percent of its third downs. Nunes completed only 49 percent of his passes for a paltry 4.6 yards per attempt. So, in that game, Stanford appeared to have an elite defense and a passing offense that couldn’t prevent opposing defenses from loading up against the run. So, in this game, at least in the second half, that the offense was on fire, and the defense was weak.
• Arizona – victory over a team that’s in the middle of our conference. After more than a week of questions regarding the offense, particularly the quarterback, the offense came out and scored eight touchdowns. And the defense conceded six. And two field goals. The quarterback who didn’t complete half his passes the game before hit 62 percent this game. He threw for two of the touchdowns and ran for three others.

So in five games, the Cardinal has shown at least three different personalities. In fact, the Arizona game shows more about Arizona than it did Stanford. It has a potent offense, 6th in nation in total offense and 29th in the nation in scoring offense. Against the Cardinal, the Wildcats racked up yards and scored many points. It has an extremely weak defense, 114th overall, and 97th in scoring.

So after five games, the one thing we know about Stanford is that we don’t know much about Stanford.

The post The one thing we know about this Stanford team appeared first on The CARDboard.

Statistically, Stanford came into the game with one of the least productive offenses is all the FCS (107th in total offense and 70th in scoring offense). Fans — including this blogger — were calling for coach David Shaw to replace quarterback Josh Nunes. Perhaps, it was in the face of this adversity, as much as in the face of the Wildcats’ defense, that the offense decided to show up.

Josh Nunes hit Zach Ertz and Levine Toilolo for touchdowns, and ran for three of his own. He is the only Pac-12 quarterback to run for three touchdowns since 2009. He completed 21 of 34 passes for 360 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He raised his yards per completion for 6.0 to 10.6. His completion percentage of over 61 percent met the measure coach David Shaw said was necessary to effectively run the Stanford offense.

Arizona, meanwhile came in with a high powered spread offense, and not much defense. If anything, the game reflected both Arizona’s strength and its weakness. The Wildcats scored a lot of points and gave many up.

Stanford scored on its opening possession, and Arizona scored on two consecutive possessions: first a field goal, and then a touchdown. Much of the first half was spotty, with Nunes continuing to underthrow receivers, and getting sacked twice while stepping into pressure. The Cardinal went into the locker room up by a point.

THEN CAME THE THIRD QUARTER. The teams scored 20 points each.

It looked like the Cardinal were done when Arizona scored two unanswered touchdowns with just over 9 minutes remaining. But Stanford had two long drives of its own, both of which ended with Nunes runs. With only 45 seconds left, the score was tied.

The offensive performance was necessary because the defense did not have answers to Matt Scott, the Pac-12 individual leader in total offense and scoring. Although the Wildcat offense is generally quick strike offense, sometimes using no huddles, it was also able to sustain drives by going to Austin Hill, who caught 11 balls for 165 yards and two touchdowns. Running back Kadeem Carey was as good as advertised, often dragging defenders with him on his 29 carries, which netted 132 yards and three touchdowns.

For this day, Nunes and the offense shut down the critics — including this blogger. In the most important stat, Nunes is 4-1. Here’s to a mistake free game in which both the offense and defense play well against Notre Dame. The team will face a hostile crowd and a team with a much better defense than Arizona’s.

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Does David Shaw have the courage to make a mid-season change as his coach, Dennis Green did?

In 1991, Stanford had quarterback who had lead the nation in completion percentage the year before. That quarterback, Jason Palumbis, had led the team in a rousing come-from-behind near miracle win against Cal in the Big Game the prior season.

However, in 1991, perhaps because of a shoulder injury, Jason had a sub 60 percent completion average and had thrown four interceptions and no touchdowns. The season was young, and many fans like me thought that he would eventually snap out of it. However, then coach Dennis Green said that the team could not wait to begin winning. So, he started a redshirt freshman quarterback. The freshman quarterback had stepped in and completed eight of ten passes for 124 yards during the fourth quarter of a loss to Notre Dame. That quarterback, Steve Stenstrom, was then installed as the starter, and his name is still in the Stanford record books.

Not all quarterback changes work out for the best, but the move shows a decisiveness and a sense of urgency on the part of Coach Green. It was important that the team win, and it wasn’t going to do that without a strong and effective leader, even if that leader happened to be one of the youngest guys on the field.

Now, a receiver who was a true freshman on Stenstrom’s first team is at the helm of Stanford football. Once again, the team needs to begin winning and to assert itself on offense. It needs a winner. It needs a change.

Today’s coach, David Shaw, needs to find the decisiveness to make the change necessary to win. He may feel that it’s necessary to stick with the player he announced at the beginning of the season. However, Green’s successful early season change proves that that isn’t the case.

Palumbis was a decent quarterback who just wasn’t getting into the end zone. The same cannot be said about the current quarterback, Josh Nunes, who by all accounts is a nice guy, but just isn’t getting the job done. He’s currently rated as the 83rd best FBS quarterback out of 100 nationwide. He has a 52 percent completion rate, and has thrown six touchdowns and four interceptions — one in every game. He has a quarterback rating of 114. This is a quarterback who is far below average. At Stanford, we don’t do below average.

Before the season, Nunes and Brett Nottingham were engaged in a fierce quarterback competition. Most observers who had seen the spring game and a few open practices said they believed that Nottingham was the better quarterback. In fact, we’d seen brief glimpses of brilliance in the few times he had been in last season. Nevertheless, because we had not seen many open practices, most of us were willing to give the coaches the benefit of the doubt when Nunes was selected. Perhaps, they had seen something that we hadn’t in our limited views.

Now, it seems evident that our eyes did not deceive us, or at least, if Nottingham is not the worse of the two, he certainly couldn’t do much worse.

It’s time for Shaw to put in the best players who give Stanford the best opportunity to win games. If he’s not willing to make position shifts, then ultimately the position that is shifted may be his own.

The post Time for a Change appeared first on The CARDboard.

Jim: So, Jerry, it’s almost game time. Are you fired up?

Jerry: No, I’m dreading it!

Jim: What? We’re the Cardinal! We’re playing Washington, a team we beat 65-21 last year! We had more yards on the ground than they had total yards!

Jerry: Yeah, but Washington totally owns us.

Jim: Dude, what planet are you on, we’ve one the last four straight, and six of the last seven.

Jerry: Yeah, but before those six, Washington beat us six straight. Back in 1994, we managed to beat them, but before that, they beat us ten straight times, TEN!

Jim: OK, but let’s look at this year. They have three of their offensive line out with injuries. Do you remember what we did with USC’s weak offensive line? We will have a party in the backfield!

Jerry: But what about our offense? We’re 77^th overall in rushing and 90^th in passing! And Washington is in the top half of scoring defenses.

Jim: Washington is 48^th nationally. San Jose State, whom we beat in week one, is 46^th.

Jerry: But San Jose State racked up its stats against UC Davis, Colorado State, San Diego State and us. Washington’s were against San Diego State, LSU, and Portland State. San Jose State beat San Diego State 38-34, but Washington beat them more decisively, 21-12. Twelve points against vs. 34, come on!

Jim: Ok, so Washington has a good scoring defense. What about their offense? They’re 97^th in passing yards, 106^th in rushing yards, and 89^th in scoring offense. This is against teams like San Diego State and Portland State. Portland State! That’s a team that lost to North Dakota and Southern Utah, you know the team Cal beat 50-31!

Jerry: You’re overlooking the fact that the third game was against LSU, as in the team in last year’s national championship game.

Jim: OK, let’s look at special teams and turnovers. Thanks to Drew Terrell, Stanford in 11^th in the nation in punt returns, 38^th in fumbles forced,  Washington is 114^th in punting, averaging less than 37 yards per punt. Jordan Richardson Williamson is 18^th in the nation in kickoffs with over 64 yards per kickoff. Washington’s kicker has them at 99^th nationally with an average of 59.73 yards per kickoff.

Jerry: You’re not talking about the kicking game, are you? Jordan Richardson Williamson also kicks field goals and extra points.

Jim: You are such a buzzkill.

Jerry: and you’re a Pollyanna. Let’s talk about intangibles. We’ve got a so-so quarterback starting in his first away game and fourth game overall.

Jim: Well, that’s mitigated a little by the fact that Washington is 97^th in sacks with only 1.33 per game. Also, Washington’s home field advantage is diminished a little by the fact that they’re playing at the Seahawks’ CenturyLink Field.

Jerry: CenturyLink Field, ugh!

Jim: Don’t worry. We won’t have replacement refs. We’ll have Pac-12 refs.

Jerry: Double ugh!

Jim: So what do you have?

Jerry: Their freshman running back, Erich Wilson II, from East Palo Alto, finally gets a touchdown. He’s been averaging 5.7 yards per carry and is a real stud. Bishop Sankey gets another. Our quarterback throws two picks, one of which is run back for a touchdown. Another leads to a field goal scoring drive. On our side, Drew Terrell busts one. Levine Toilolo catches one, and our workhorse, Stepfan Taylor gets a third. Washington 24-21. You?

Jim: I see our defense blanking them, just totally shutting them down. Josh throws a pick, but it’s inconsequential. Toilolo and Ertz both get touchdowns, and so do Montgomery and Taylor. Stanford 28-0.

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With the high degree of inexperience at so many places in the team, it’s hard to believe the offense will exhibit no progress; the question is the degree. It’s impossible to answer, really, which makes the guesswork exceptionally random. Still, we try:

It’s hard not to be positive, by the way, about the fact that Stanford opponents are unbeaten when not playing Stanford.

Week One: vs SJSU. Win, 1.

Week Two: vs. Duke. Win, 2.

Week Three: vs. USC. Win, 3.

Week Four: @ UW (80%, +0%) Since UW also went on a bye, there really isn’t much to budge the rating either way. Take some small comfort from strength of schedule—Stanford’s opponents are performing well (undefeated when not playing Stanford), and UW’s opponents aren’t as much (particularly LSU—which barely squeaked by a highly mediocre Auburn team.)

Aside from that, it’s hard to find a concrete piece of evidence that favors UW. Their offense has underachieved and their offensive line is very weak—this does not sound like the ideal formula to confront Stanford’s front seven. Their defense is improved but still appears vulnerable against the run. The only factors in UW’s favor are home field advantage, the suspicion that Nunes may get rattled in his first away game, and the suspicion that Stanford is susceptible to a trap game. The latter suspicions cannot be entirely dismissed but I do think the concerns can be allayed a bit: Nunes appeared supernaturally poised during some difficult circumstances (unexpectedly, against SJSU; and, well…unexpectedly, I suppose, against USC). Aside from that it’s hard to find much concrete, statistical evidence that UW is much of a threat right now. Aside from fear-based fears, the STAN (-7) looks too low.

Week Five: vs Arizona (80%, +5%): Modest bump up due to Oregon dominating, and the rumors of Matt Scott’s injury. The team looks like it needs overhauling and spackling, with some talented top-end players covering holes that get revealed against elite opposition.

Week Six: @ Notre Dame (55%, +0%): Again, expect articles re: echoes awakened, thunder shook down, Rudy, Touchdown Jesus, subway alums, leprechauns, stereotypically ornery and pugilistic Irish,  and so on. It is not entirely undeserved. The defense dominated—though I wonder how much of it is due to offensive coordinators trying to build elaborate fantasylands (let’s turn Denard Robinson into a pocket passer!) rather than, you know, trying to move the ball. (Michigan was running the ball at a 4.5 yards per carry clip in the third quarter and decided to…not do any of the things that were working for the rest of the game. Hm.) If both teams take care of business, it might well be ESPN’s Gameday choice. Sadly for the nation, the resulting game might end 9-7 or something.

Oh, yeah, and Notre Dame went back to Tommy Rees. It’s hard to see how this ends well.

Week Seven: @ Cal: (85%, +5%): Cal’s offensive line was ripped apart by the Trojans’ front seven, which, in turn, was negated by Stanford’s offensive line. It’s hard to come to a conclusion other than a dominant performance along both lines of scrimmage, a nice assured win.

An odd note: Jeff Tedford’s team—though dominated against USC and soundly beat by OSU—did not fold in typical Tedfordian fashion when given the opportunity to. It’s worth noting, I suppose, but this falls into the Chris Rock category of, “You’re supposed to try the whole game you low-expectation-having [vulgar and unprintable phrase, to borrow phrase from New York Times.]”

Week Eight: vs. Washington State (95%, +8%): Lost to Colorado. Little explanation needed here, right?

Week Nine: @ Colorado (95%, -4%): Colorado gets some credit due to beating a Pac-12 team on the road. But still.

Week Ten: vs. Oregon State (53%, -2%): These guys are quite good, though Mannion is wonderfully stationary/tall in the pocket, not unlike a man on stilts, which is surely a good category to be in from the front seven’s perspective. This is a threatening team, and Mike Riley teams—the good ones, at least—tend to get better as the season goes on.

Week Eleven: @ Oregon (15%, +0%): Little reason to change this.

Week Twelve: @ UCLA (60%, +5%): UCLA’s defense looked vulnerable for two halves, and I suspect the odd first-half/second-half splits from earlier in the year were just as much good fortune as inspired play. Meanwhile the offense was mostly limited. While the team can learn and grow—and this prevents me from a big, wild swing—I think Stanford’s largely in good shape for this game.

Expected Wins: 9.18 (delta: +.02)

The post Predicting the Football Season, Week-by-Week, Part Five appeared first on The CARDboard.

So how much? Keep on reading.

Week One: SJSU, Win.

Week Two: Duke, Win.

Week Three: USC, Win.

Week Four: @UW (80%, +10%): Objectively speaking I feel this game should be pretty easy. Think of UW as the discount version of USC: worse defense (though similarly stronger in the back four than front seven), similar though worse offense (quality QB, quality skill players). Critically, both teams are weak along the offensive line—UW was weak last year and went on to lose two of their OL starters in-season this year, all while looking not a whit improved. If Stanford’s front seven brings a good level of effort—and really, do you expect less from a front seven led by Shayne Skov and Chase Thomas?—it should shred UW’s OL and stop their offense before it even begins.

If it brings the same level of effort and emotion against USC, it could get beautifully ugly. But there’s my worry: it’s the first game on the road, offensive execution is still chugging along, and it’s just difficult to bring a high level of emotion every game. Fortunately there’s a bye week, but I wouldn’t be shocked by a somewhat flat game.

Week Five: vs Arizona (75%, +0%): Arizona’s offense doesn’t quite look like the spread-to-run we’ve typically seen from Rich Rod; instead, it looks like a blend of his system with some of the Airraid-type concepts from the Stoops regime. Historically Arizona’s Airraid concepts have given us a surprising amount of trouble, and Rich Rod’s a clever guy, so I wouldn’t be surprised by some trouble in this game.

On the other hand, Arizona’s win versus Oklahoma State has been overrated in many quarters. OK State was more efficient than Arizona on a per-play basis; turnovers were the edge for the Wildcats. Relying too much on turnovers can turn out to be fool’s gold. However, with the uneven execution of the offense, I can’t yet justify being too optimistic yet.

Week Six: @ND (55%, -5%): You’re going to read a lot of articles in the coming days proclaiming that Notre Dame is Back—the echoes have been revived from the coma, and so on and so forth. I’m not sure they’re totally inaccurate. Yes, hyping Notre Dame is an inflated currency. But it’s a rare inflated currency that’s totally valueless. So, yeah, make that adjustment in your head: Notre Dame is a solid team. Very good defensive line. Te’o is really good. The rest of their linebackers are solid.

Their passing game—both defensively and offensively—is still a question. Nevertheless they are at home. I think this is the swing game for the rest of the season.

Week Seven: @Cal (80%, +5%): Looked like they were about to get trashed in typical Tedford-goes-East fashion, before making some clever adjustments…and having Ohio State be completely flummoxed by them. It reminded me of the 2009 Big Game, in which coaches refused to throw on first down against Cal’s defense. Overall, the defense is just much too weak at the moment, however.

Week Eight: vs Washington State (87%, +5%): Struggled against 0-3 UNLV and looked tepid on offense. Some grumbling from Cougars fans. While nothing justifies struggling against UNLV, I’ll note two factors that may be at play here: one, Leach’s offense has a reputation of taking a while to fully take hold (you’ll think it wouldn’t with some good already-established personnel, but…); and two, I’m not sure anyone realizes that non-Pac-12 records and Pac-12 records require some translations. Simply put: the Pac-12 schedules good teams and other conferences do so much more rarely.

Take Leach’s career as an example. Leach coached 10 years at Texas Tech. His nonconference schedule, however, was never particularly strong. He left the state of Texas 6 times and played 4 ranked opponents during that time. Leach has already left Washington two times and played borderline top-25 team in BYU. In future years (which I realize isn’t strictly speaking relevant to this season, but I think is still interesting to illustrate the difference between the programs), they’ll play at Auburn, BYU, Wisconsin home and away,  at Nevada, and Boise State home and away. This is a vastly different slate than Leach’s Texas Tech experience.

Week Nine: @ Colorado (99%, +4%): I’m honestly unsure what the appropriate rating for this team is, in the sense that it seems really weird to be so close to 100% in an away conference game. But they just got blown out sixty-something to twenty-something by Fresno State. They are so bad I am too lazy to confirm whatever was the correct score.

Week Ten: vs Oregon State (65%, +10%): Beating Wisconsin looked like a fantastic upset when it happened; with Wisconsin struggling against Utah State at home this weekend, it appears any reasonably well-coached high school team could pose a challenge for the Badgers. So Oregon State will have to prove itself; they may well be a good team—in fact, I suspect they are the third-best team in the Pac-12 North—but there’s quite a bit of uncertainty.

Week Eleven: @Oregon (15%, +5%): The same way we own USC? Until Stanford proves it, the same is true of our relationship with Oregon. Defensively, I think things maybe might well possibly maybe be different—but I’m uncertain and maybe possibly could change my mind. Offensively, I think we need to be able to reach 30 against a credible defense before I’m convinced—and that includes field goal kicking. So we will see. I’m very willing to be proven wrong here.

Week Twelve: @UCLA: (60%, +5%): Still looking dynamic on offense. We don’t have an idea of how the defense will match up—personnel are too different (Brett Hundley is pretty clearly a high first-round pick at QB, offensive line is young and overhauled)—and it’s so deep in the season it’s hard to predict with much confidence how both teams will look at the end.

Expected Wins: 9.16 (delta: +1.14 wins)

The post Predicting the Football Season Week-by-Week, Part Four appeared first on The CARDboard.

People’s thinking, not unjustifiably, when analyzing the USC-Stanford matchup is that: a) it was close last time; b) USC returns the bulk of its influential players and Stanford does not; c) therefore USC will win, perhaps quite easily.

It’s worth asking why, however, the game was so close in the first place. There are a couple peculiarities about last year’s game that don’t seem likely to be as negative for Stanford this time around as last time.

Injury
During the stretch run of 2011, Stanford increasingly resembled the band at the end of Children of Men: members increasingly getting picked off and surviving out of sheer cussedness and guile. This was probably underappreciated by the national media and observers in general, who wouldn’t have acknowledged any injury—and by any injury, I mean any injury, up to and including the mass incapacitation of the coaching staff—that didn’t involve Andrew Luck.

The USC game was the beginning of that particular long march for the team, with the team having to deal with the last-minute loss of Zach Ertz and Jordan Williamson.

The former loss’s impact is pretty obvious; the latter not-so-much at the time, though I’m sure post-Fiesta Bowl, we all gained an appreciation of what it meant. But at the time it was pretty bad, with replacement kicker Eric Whitaker getting the field goals in but doing a, ah, poor job on kickoffs (which will be dealt with later).

A year later, injuries look like more of a positive factor for Stanford than a negative. With Ryan Hewitt coming back from injury, Stanford essentially has its full set of bullets in the chamber. On the other hand, it’s USC’s kicker that’s out—which caused the Trojans to go for it in many odd 4th down situations. In addition, most people seem to think USC’s starting center is out for Saturday’s game, which is potentially hugely important. Injuries are especially significant for USC, which is operating at a scholarships deficit.

EDIT: I forgot the most obvious injury difference between 2011 and 2012. It starts with “S” and ends of “kov.”

Field Position/Special Teams

The other factor that no one seems to have mentioned in analyzing the team’s change from last year to this one is in the special teams category. Brian Polian departed Stanford after the season, and while no one seems to know whether he jumped or was pushed, it remains that Polian was a highly incompetent special teams coach and the USC game was one in which the team nearly paid for his incompetence.

Stanford’s kicker gave USC a free pass to the 40 yard line on two separate occasions, and punter David Green managed a wonderful 18 yard shank to give SC access to Stanford’s 40 yard line. Naturally USC did quite well in the field position game—if you take average field position, SC started drives on (basically) its 32 yard line while Stanford (basically) started drives on its 28 yard line. Yet this understates the advantage—if you remove the high and low outliers from each team’s starting positions, SC started just in front of its 32 yard line, while Stanford started on its 26 yard line. SC dominated the field position game, due to injury and coaching incompetence.

While no one has exactly nominated Polian replacement Pete Alamar for canonization yet, the special teams unit does give the refreshing sense that complete catastrophe will probably be avoided. (I mean, Polian’s kickoff coverage units got surprised on onside kicks on three separate occasions. After the first time—Oregon 2010—the opposing coach admitted in print they’d noticed Stanford’s kickoff coverage units tended to backpedal too quickly, rendering them easily surprised by onside kicks. Did Brian Polian learn from this? No, the special teams were surprised twice more. This is something like the opening chapter in the novella-length case against Brian Polian at Stanford by referencing various disasters that happened. Brian Polian is the special teams equivalent of Michael Brown, the FEMA administrator during Katrina, only if Brown had overseen the BP oil spill and a couple more hurricanes for good measure.) It’s hard to imagine Alamar is worse than Polian, and therefore an advantage for USC has been closed—perhaps not totally, but at least substantially.

These things won’t be enough to turn a lopsided game close, but I bet they can tip a close game one way or another.

The post A couple of small Stanford advantages against USC appeared first on The CARDboard.

The big mystery to many fans after two games has been pretty simple: where’s the running game? The answer, however, is just as simple: the season is beginning, and this is roughly what happens every season. It’s just that, without the brilliance of Andrew Luck, the running game’s warm ups look a bit too deliberate.

But the 2012 edition of the running attack, as you can see below when comparing primary running backs, is the median of running attacks of the Harbaugh/Shaw era (2007 not considered).

If you believe in trends from small sample sizes, you should be highly encouraged: the trend in terms of numbers of yards in the third games from primary running backs is up; basically the same is true for yards per carry. It’s hard to imagine Stanford not making (at worst) a close game of it with Taylor running for 150+ on a high yards per play. Then again, none of these third games was against a team as good as USC. (Note, also, that the 2008 edition of the team’s stats were skewed by: a) playing in a hurricane and b) playing TCU’s defense. Being redundant, I realize, but it needed to be repeated.)

Nevertheless, if you’re the pessimistic sort who believes we won’t beat USC anyway, the statistics should perhaps comfort you: eventually, the running game gets there by the middle to end of the year. The assumption here is, with top tier incoming talent like Andrus Peat and Josh Garnett, plus the continuing maturation of still-young (in offensive lineman terms) Cameron Fleming and David Yankey, that the running game will be in its typical bulldozing mode by the end of the season, treating opponents like dandelions under a lawnmower.

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I’ve seen a lot of content on the internet and elsewhere suggesting that people are looking at the wrong statistics from Stanford’s game with Duke. They all make similar errors.

1) Here’s a piece in the Stanford Daily claiming that Stanford’s secondary encountered “pass-defense woes.”

2) Jon Wilner writes, “… Nunes’ completion percentage after two games is just 57.1. It needs to in the low-to-mid 60s.”

3) In an otherwise good review and breakdown of Stanford’s prospects versus USC, Todd Husak writes: “Stanford bounced back from a shaky week 1 performance to blow the doors off of an overmatched Duke team, although the stats don’t necessarily show that. The Blue Devils outgained the Cardinal, possessed the ball for eight more minutes, threw for 363 yards, and ran 26 more plays (but lost 50-13). However, Stanford dominated field position thanks to four Duke turnovers and a 76 yard punt return by Drew Terrell which led to one fewer possession for Stanford’s offense. Also, nearly 200 yards of Duke’s production came in the 4th quarter, when the game was already out of hand and Stanford turned to the reserves on defense.”

Husak ends up getting it right, though he doesn’t explain the reason why. The reason, here, is that total yardage isn’t really relevant. A team can accumulate more yardage from another team by having worse field position, or having more possessions to accumulate them. What matters, ultimately, in a football game is efficiency rather than production. Generally football teams have equal numbers of possessions. Probably the best way of assessing overall how an offense or defense is doing, then, is yards per play.

And that stat reflects perfectly well what happened on Saturday: Stanford domination. Stanford’s offense averaged 6.3 yards per play; its defense allowed 4.3 yards per play. The offense was about a half-yard below its average last year; not great, but certainly a good performance. Such an average, extrapolated over a season, would’ve placed Stanford 4^th in the Pac-12 last year, above Washington and below USC. The yards per play difference would’ve placed Stanford in even better stead this year than last. In other words, a dominant performance without considering special teams play, which if not special was pretty darned good.

The same analysis shows why Stanford had nothing resembling pass-defense woes, garbage time included or not—with garbage time stats included, Duke only averaged 5.7 yards per pass. Renfree, the starter, averaged 5 yards per attempt. Both these statistics are awful. These statistics only reflect woes if you expect your defense to be a mutant combination of the ’87 Bears and actual bears.

As to Wilner’s criticism, that Nunes’ pass completion needs to be (we’ll say) between 60 and 65 percent or so, the standard is completely arbitrary. Having such a completion percentage is helpful for some things, but it depends on how you view it in context. For example, Sean Renfree’s completion percentage against Stanford was 70 percent. And yet it’s hard to come to a reasonable description of the game that doesn’t involve Stanford’s defense dominating Duke. The reason, of course, was that Renfree’s passes were not exactly threatening.

Nunes, on the other hand, passed for a stellar 9.2 yards per attempt. That it came accompanied with a so-so completion percentage reflects the amount of attacking Nunes did downfield—exactly the thing everyone claimed they wanted to see from the offense. That Nunes was able to achieve such production means he was pretty darn successful in doing that. Of course, an offense based on that will be prone to booms and busts absent a low-variance, consistent option.

A perfect example for how an offense can succeed in such a situation is Andrew Luck’s redshirt freshman year. Luck only completed 56.3% of his passes, which would seem to be in a danger zone. Yet Luck averaged 8.9 yards per attempt, the class of the then-Pac-10. Luck’s completion percentage, rather than signifying failure, actually signified success. The key was that the offense had low-variance, consistent options to which it could turn to get 4, 5, 6 yards when it needed it. That was known as “Toby Gerhart,” and to a lesser extent, “Andrew Luck’s legs.” (Luck ran for 358 yards that year.) The question is whether the 2012 version of the offense—if the plan is to have Nunes slinging the ball downfield as against Duke—has such a consistent option. Given the laudatory comments about Stepfan Taylor in the offseason , the guess is the coaches think they do (and, obviously, his name is Stepfan Taylor). We will see if this is accurate. Against Duke, the running game was not consistent or productive enough to serve as that option (and Nunes does not have the same running proficiency as Luck did.)

So, yes, the stats and your eyes actually agree: a dominant performance for Stanford, though one not without flaws. If the team’s line can improve as it did in 2009 and 11, the team will be in excellent shape by the end of the year.

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