The CardBoard
WSU Game Thread - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: WSU Game Thread (/thread-22431.html)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

RE: WSU Game Thread - ADPinWDC - 10-16-2021

Much self-inflicted.  Wazzu is beatable.  
We ran 35 rushing downs for 76 yards, and 32 pass attempts for 273 yards.  Hmmm.  
We narrowly held possession, 33m to 27m for Cougs.  
Defense could not stop the long pass play.  
DeLaura burned us too many times, just 17 of 30, but for 3 TDs.

[Image: giphy.gif]

RE: WSU Game Thread - Phogge - 10-16-2021

No Lex you need to recruit a different kind of player. They have two dual guys in the pipeline so now it’s time to change. Will take some time.

RE: WSU Game Thread - CowboyIndian - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:16 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  Then, in my opinion, you don't care much about Stanford playing winning football. The naming of Tavita Pritchard as O coordinator really tells one all one needs to know about choosing competent assistants, personal accountability, arrogance, and being able to adapt on the fly. The running game might as well not even exist.

He's not playing or coaching the OL, now, is he? Nor is he coaching our cringe-worthy safeties.

RE: WSU Game Thread - Goose - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:16 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  The running game might as well not even exist.
As near as I can tell, it doesn't. I think that is (one of several) the issue.

RE: WSU Game Thread - needle - 10-16-2021

I think the truth is that all the Pac-12 North teams are about the same (ignore the lofty ranking of a certain team, as time will show it to be undeserved).

Today, Stanford wasn't quite good enough to beat one of those teams on the road.

I have no idea what will happen against Oregon State, Kal or Washington. Each are basically pick-em games.

Not sure if Utah or Notre Dame are winnable games, but as I write this (Utah - Arizona State still playing) I don't believe those teams are better than Arizona State, at least.

Health will probably be the biggest factor going forward. While the Stanford offense would be much improved with both Tremayne and Humphreys, that's not happening. Maybe the team gets a lift when/if Wilson and/or Humphreys returns. Or maybe there will just be other guys who get hurt.

The loss tonight kills the dream of winning the Pac-12 North division, but Stanford still has a real chance to make a bowl game.

RE: WSU Game Thread - Brickcity - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:27 PM)needle Wrote:  I think the truth is that all the Pac-12 North teams are about the same (ignore the lofty ranking of a certain team, as time will show it to be undeserved).

Today, Stanford wasn't quite good enough to beat one of those teams on the road.

I have no idea what will happen against Oregon State, Kal or Washington. Each are basically pick-em games.

Not sure if Utah or Notre Dame are winnable games, but as I write this (Utah - Arizona State still playing) I don't believe those teams are better than Arizona State, at least.

Health will probably be the biggest factor going forward. While the Stanford offense would be much improved with both Tremayne and Humphreys, that's not happening. Maybe the team gets a lift when/if Wilson and/or Humphreys returns. Or maybe there will just be other guys who get hurt.

The loss tonight kills the dream of winning the Pac-12 North division, but Stanford still has a real chance to make a bowl game.

Even in a weak Pac-12 North, Stanford never had a chance to win it. Stanford is simply too soft all around. And that is on the head coach.

RE: WSU Game Thread - BostonCard - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:16 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:07 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:05 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:03 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  4-8 now looking like the most likely result, and even Cal could give us trouble.

BC

I'd like to see someone say with conviction that David Shaw deserves to be the head football coach of the Cardinal going forward. FORGET ABOUT IT!

Ok, I will say that David Shaw deserves to be the head football coach of the Stanford Cardinal going forward.

BC

Then, in my opinion, you don't care much about Stanford playing winning football. The naming of Tavita Pritchard as O coordinator really tells one all one needs to know about choosing competent assistants, personal accountability, arrogance, and being able to adapt on the fly. The running game might as well not even exist.

No, I realize that if we fire Shaw, we have about a greater than even chance of winding up with a worse coach, and even if we wind up with a better coach, chances are he would bolt for greener pastures after a few years, and even if we had a better coach who stayed, chances are he’d at some point have a down year or two and people would be calling to have him fired.

Let’s rewind the last ten Stanford coaches, shall we?

Walsh (first tour): brilliant coaching mind who coached two successful seasons and then bolted for the NFL.
Dowhower: one year, and the definition of average: 5-5-1
Wiggin: he was given Elway, and all he could do as post a 16-28 record over four years.  Fired.
Elway: one winning season in five.  Fired.
Green: three seasons, improving each year, but bolted for the NFL at the first opportunity
Walsh 2: three seasons, two losing ones, retired after realizing he didn’t have the energy for college coaching any more.
Willingham: up and down coach, had three losing seasons in seven, and was still thought good enough to get hired away as Norte Dame’s head coach.
Teevens:  zero winning seasons in three, fired.
Wlat: zero winning seasons in two, fired.
Harbaugh: resurrected the program, but bolted for the NFL.

Shaw: his 9 winning seasons as many as his seven predecessors combined.

But sure, let’s go back to that treadmill of bad coaches who get fired after three or four years or good ones that leave to the NFL (or a better college job) after two or three.


BC

RE: WSU Game Thread - Red80 - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:01 PM)Phogge Wrote:  Time for Lance and Akina to adios. Kelly got smoked on the last drive. Time to smoke the offense and go modern.

The offense has gone "modern" and it's the reason Stanford football has declined. Bring back smash mouth football and recruit the type of players to make it work! Stanford used to beat the shit out of their opponents with violent, downhill running up until 2018. Since then they've relied far too much on the forward pass.

RE: WSU Game Thread - Card07 - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:39 PM)Red80 Wrote:  The offense has gone "modern" and it's the reason Stanford football has declined. Bring back smash mouth football and recruit the type of players to make it work! Stanford used to beat the shit out of their opponents with violent, downhill running up until 2018. Since then they've relied far too much on the forward pass.

This team lacks an identity.  Not athletic enough to play Oregon football.  Not stout enough up front to play smashmouth.  The result is a weird mishmask that asks McKee to run the read option like he's Anthony Brown.  McKee looked like our best rusher out there today, but that's not going to get it done against good opponents.  

I'd certainly love to go back to run-run-run-run-run-run-PA pass with the QB under center and 3 tight ends.  Not sure we have the personnel to do that right now, though...

RE: WSU Game Thread - winflop - 10-16-2021

We suck in the trenches. On both sides of the ball

Coach Reynolds needs to go for sure. It’s been like this on the DL for too many years. And I don’t get why Anderson doesn’t blitz more. Vanilla defense generates no pressure and leads to opponents racking up 30+ far too often

RE: WSU Game Thread - old spanish trail - 10-16-2021

Don't have ESPNU so had to rely on Reiss and Platz. Sounded like they thought the last 1 1/2 minutes were a cluster f@#$%. I gather Hinton was out at that point and Hornibrook came in at rg and (Miller or Bragg) moved to rt. Did WSU load the left side of the DL? Whatever, they thought TO should have been called after first sack rather than running around trying to get organized which used mucho clock.

I'm going to ask again, is Heffernan doing the job? We weren't great at running last year, but were far better than this. So, what happened besides Nugent replacing Dalman and Hinton replacing Sarrell?

Also sounded liike, even though he was w/o his three best wr's , McKee had another eye opening game.  Before the season I heard that Yurosek was placed on the national best TE list and I wondered how they got the info. Still do. Great prediction.

Several new faces this eve. db Brandon Jones, wr Raines(?), Silas Starr caught 2 or 3, etc.

RE: WSU Game Thread - Red80 - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 09:05 PM)Card07 Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:39 PM)Red80 Wrote:  The offense has gone "modern" and it's the reason Stanford football has declined. Bring back smash mouth football and recruit the type of players to make it work! Stanford used to beat the shit out of their opponents with violent, downhill running up until 2018. Since then they've relied far too much on the forward pass.

This team lacks an identity.  Not athletic enough to play Oregon football.  Not stout enough up front to play smashmouth.  The result is a weird mishmask that asks McKee to run the read option like he's Anthony Brown.  McKee looked like our best rusher out there today, but that's not going to get it done against good opponents.  



I'd certainly love to go back to run-run-run-run-run-run-PA pass with the QB under center and 3 tight ends.  Not sure we have the personnel to do that right now, though...

You're right, they don't have the personnel to run Power O. It's most disappointing because I think Shaw's recruiting emphasis has strayed away from that type of offense. It seems as though he's over-recruited at WR with the idea of going 4-5 wide, and also smaller, less physical RBs. The current TEs are okay, but I don't see the stud in-line blocking TEs that were such a brobdingnagian part of Stanford's running success in the past. 

I also wonder about the S&C coach and how he compares to Turley. Stanford had a reputation for being the most physical OL in the P12 and one of the most in the country. Anybody with two eyes can see that that's no longer the case.

RE: WSU Game Thread - MV72018 - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 08:38 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:16 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:07 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:05 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  
(10-16-2021, 08:03 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  4-8 now looking like the most likely result, and even Cal could give us trouble.

BC



I'd like to see someone say with conviction that David Shaw deserves to be the head football coach of the Cardinal going forward. FORGET ABOUT IT!

Ok, I will say that David Shaw deserves to be the head football coach of the Stanford Cardinal going forward.

BC

Then, in my opinion, you don't care much about Stanford playing winning football. The naming of Tavita Pritchard as O coordinator really tells one all one needs to know about choosing competent assistants, personal accountability, arrogance, and being able to adapt on the fly. The running game might as well not even exist.

No, I realize that if we fire Shaw, we have about a greater than even chance of winding up with a worse coach, and even if we wind up with a better coach, chances are he would bolt for greener pastures after a few years, and even if we had a better coach who stayed, chances are he’d at some point have a down year or two and people would be calling to have him fired.

Let’s rewind the last ten Stanford coaches, shall we?

Walsh (first tour): brilliant coaching mind who coached two successful seasons and then bolted for the NFL.
Dowhower: one year, and the definition of average: 5-5-1
Wiggin: he was given Elway, and all he could do as post a 16-28 record over four years.  Fired.
Elway: one winning season in five.  Fired.
Green: three seasons, improving each year, but bolted for the NFL at the first opportunity
Walsh 2: three seasons, two losing ones, retired after realizing he didn’t have the energy for college coaching any more.
Willingham: up and down coach, had three losing seasons in seven, and was still thought good enough to get hired away as Norte Dame’s head coach.
Teevens:  zero winning seasons in three, fired.
Wlat: zero winning seasons in two, fired.
Harbaugh: resurrected the program, but bolted for the NFL.

Shaw: his 9 winning seasons as many as his seven predecessors combined.

But sure, let’s go back to that treadmill of bad coaches who get fired after three or four years or good ones that leave to the NFL (or a better college job) after two or three.

BC

Those bad coaches were hired in the bygone era when Stanford wasn't paying decent money to its football coaches. Shaw gets between $4-6 million per year. Why is it clear, as you seem to think, that we would get a mediocre or lousy coach for that lofty money? I don't see that as inevitable at all.  

RE: WSU Game Thread - BostonCard - 10-16-2021

Because coaches will chafe at the recruiting limitations, and again, those who are successful will bolt to greener pastures.

Shaw is well-paid, but would Stanford really pay that much to a coach who hasn’t demonstrated he can win at Stanford?

BC

RE: WSU Game Thread - Brickcity - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 09:58 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Because coaches will chafe at the recruiting limitations, and again, those who are successful will bolt to greener pastures.

Shaw is well-paid, but would Stanford really pay that much to a coach who hasn’t demonstrated he can win at Stanford?

BC

The bottom line is that the program is mediocre. To accept this crap is in essence to give up and say, "well, I guess this is good enough." 


RE: WSU Game Thread - Goose - 10-16-2021

(10-16-2021, 09:58 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Shaw is well-paid, but would Stanford really pay that much to a coach who hasn’t demonstrated he can win at Stanford?


BC
Probably, but then when he didn't win at Stanford they would be looking at an astronomical buy-out to get another guy who may actually be as bad or worse.

RE: WSU Game Thread - BostonCard - 10-16-2021

I would take Kyle Wittingham, though.

The only time in my lifetime that Stanford has ever been anything other than mediocre in my fandom has been the last year of Harbaugh and the first five years of Shaw.

BC

RE: WSU Game Thread - Austroturf - 10-17-2021

The program has been trending down since 2016; and over the last three seasons, Shaw is 11-14, which is sub-mediocre.  And this at a time when the Pac-12 has been arguably the weakest of the Power 5 conferences.  This is our current football reality; and the glory years of 2009-2015 will not change this.  The level of football on display yesterday was subpar on so many fronts that it makes a mockery of the strengths the program once claimed to possess.  Feeble line play, no running game, porous defense.  Let's bury the term "Intellectual Brutality" once and for all, because none of this was on display against Wazzu and has been absent from the program for years.      

I buy the argument that being head football coach at Stanford is not a "destination job", so any truly successful coach at Stanford will probably be looking to trade up at some point to some perceived better opportunity for even more money.  That is a quandary.  However, David Shaw has clearly made Stanford HIS destination job, and his skill-set combined with a strong coaching staff and excellent players resulted in some fabulous seasons in the first five years of his tenure as head coach.  But that is all history now, and the current state of the program requires a complete overhaul.  And, frankly, I am not convinced Shaw possesses the skill-set for such a turnaround.  So having Shaw at the helm will, in my view, merely perpetuate the current malaise.  He has shown no appetite for retooling the program, has endless patience for subpar performance from his coaching staff and continues to run Stanford football as a cozy, family affair.  With Shaw, our current football reality will also be our future: mediocrity.  

So what do we have to lose by making a coaching change?  Yes, we might get some version of Teevens or Harris again; or we might get a second Harbaugh.  History doesn't repeat itself, but the program definitely needs some form of renewal; and I don't think Shaw is the coach to provide it.  How many on this board believe that the program would have reached its historic heights (2009-2015) if Shaw had been hired to turn the football team around in 2007?  I believe that period of success was the happy coincidence of two coaches with complementary skill-sets running the program in two successive regimes (2007-2010, 2011-2015).  But without Harbaugh leading and completely overhauling the program, Shaw's years of success in building on that program would not have happened.      

Of course, I don't believe Shaw is going anywhere, either forced or on his own.  Unless the bottom absolutely drops out of the Stanford program and he goes 0-12 for a couple of seasons, Shaw virtually has "tenure" in his current spot, so the discussion is academic.  I would love to be wrong, but unless Shaw, at the very minimum, goes out and hires some legitimate top-flight coordinators, nothing is going to change, and losing to mediocre teams like Wazzu will become our new normal.  So we get mediocrity with coaching stability?  Is that better than the prior coaching carousels, with all the attendant risk, but also with the possibility of renewal?  Shaw has done great things at Stanford, but I don't think he has the skill-set to right the foundering ship.  Just don't see it happening.

RE: WSU Game Thread - gailtate - 10-17-2021

(10-17-2021, 01:54 AM)Austroturf Wrote:  The program has been trending down since 2016; and over the last three seasons, Shaw is 11-14, which is sub-mediocre.  And this at a time when the Pac-12 has been arguably the weakest of the Power 5 conferences.  This is our current football reality; and the glory years of 2009-2015 will not change this.  The level of football on display yesterday was subpar on so many fronts that it makes a mockery of the strengths the program once claimed to possess.  Feeble line play, no running game, porous defense.  Let's bury the term "Intellectual Brutality" once and for all, because none of this was on display against Wazzu and has been absent from the program for years.      

I buy the argument that being head football coach at Stanford is not a "destination job", so any truly successful coach at Stanford will probably be looking to trade up at some point to some perceived better opportunity for even more money.  That is a quandary.  However, David Shaw has clearly made Stanford HIS destination job, and his skill-set combined with a strong coaching staff and excellent players resulted in some fabulous seasons in the first five years of his tenure as head coach.  But that is all history now, and the current state of the program requires a complete overhaul.  And, frankly, I am not convinced Shaw possesses the skill-set for such a turnaround.  So having Shaw at the helm will, in my view, merely perpetuate the current malaise.  He has shown no appetite for retooling the program, has endless patience for subpar performance from his coaching staff and continues to run Stanford football as a cozy, family affair.  With Shaw, our current football reality will also be our future: mediocrity.  

So what do we have to lose by making a coaching change?  Yes, we might get some version of Teevens or Harris again; or we might get a second Harbaugh.  History doesn't repeat itself, but the program definitely needs some form of renewal; and I don't think Shaw is the coach to provide it.  How many on this board believe that the program would have reached its historic heights (2009-2015) if Shaw had been hired to turn the football team around in 2007?  I believe that period of success was the happy coincidence of two coaches with complementary skill-sets running the program in two successive regimes (2007-2010, 2011-2015).  But without Harbaugh leading and completely overhauling the program, Shaw's years of success in building on that program would not have happened.      

Of course, I don't believe Shaw is going anywhere, either forced or on his own.  Unless the bottom absolutely drops out of the Stanford program and he goes 0-12 for a couple of seasons, Shaw virtually has "tenure" in his current spot, so the discussion is academic.  I would love to be wrong, but unless Shaw, at the very minimum, goes out and hires some legitimate top-flight coordinators, nothing is going to change, and losing to mediocre teams like Wazzu will become our new normal.  So we get mediocrity with coaching stability?  Is that better than the prior coaching carousels, with all the attendant risk, but also with the possibility of renewal?  Shaw has done great things at Stanford, but I don't think he has the skill-set to right the foundering ship.  Just don't see it happening.

You got it.

RE: WSU Game Thread - JustAnotherFan - 10-17-2021

(10-17-2021, 01:54 AM)Austroturf Wrote:  The program has been trending down since 2016; and over the last three seasons, Shaw is 11-14, which is sub-mediocre.  And this at a time when the Pac-12 has been arguably the weakest of the Power 5 conferences.  

There's a possibility that the Pac-12's only ranked team this week is Oregon (and they'll still be overrated). UCLA and Utah do not deserve to sneak in. The Pac-12 is awful and we are middling at best in the awful Pac-12. Excellent post, Astroturf. We can like Shaw and still recognize that he does not have the willingness or the skillset to stop this ship from sinking.