Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . .

Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - Printable Version

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RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - Snorlax94 - 08-19-2022

I’m mostly with the optimists like BobK, Relself and Bampa.

I think this could be a suprisingly good season. One data point that supports the injury theory (excuse?) for 2021: let’s not forget that the 2021 squad started 3-2 with monster wins over USC and Oregon. Just imagine what the season could have been like if the team that started 3-2 had been available to play for the rest of the season?

As for the switch to the 4-3 defense, it feels like a crazy time to announce that because the dline tank has never been so empty in terms of returning production, but hopefilly the youngsters can surprise us. To me the switch to a 4-3 feels overdue — teams have been tearing up our front 7 for years (forever) and it felt like we just didn’t have the bulk up front to face an Alabama, not that I aee that happening anytime soon. But I like the new direction and to some degree it may be a multiyear journey where our 4-3 helps us recruit more of the right kinds of d linemen.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - Brickcity - 08-19-2022

(08-19-2022, 10:48 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: I’m mostly with the optimists like BobK, Relself and Bampa.

I think this could be a suprisingly good season. One data point that supports the injury theory (excuse?) for 2021: let’s not forget that the 2021 squad started 3-2 with monster wins over USC and Oregon. Just imagine what the season could have been like if the team that started 3-2 had been available to play for the rest of the season?

As for the switch to the 4-3 defense, it feels like a crazy time to announce that because the dline tank has never been so empty in terms of returning production, but hopefilly the youngsters can surprise us. To me the switch to a 4-3 feels overdue — teams have been tearing up our front 7 for years (forever) and it felt like we just didn’t have the bulk up front to face an Alabama, not that I aee that happening anytime soon. But I like the new direction and to some degree it may be a multiyear journey where our 4-3 helps us recruit more of the right kinds of d linemen.

'

Did you say "Alabama"? At this point I'd almost (almost) settle for not having our defensive line get blown off the line of scrimmage by anyone not named Colgate.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - gailtate - 08-20-2022

(08-19-2022, 05:17 PM)BobK Wrote: I would say our OLcoach was very EUTM today but then I was at practice so what do I know. Also quite vocal was David Shaw

"We talkin' 'bout practice, man, practice."
--Alllen Iverson

(08-19-2022, 06:08 PM)Row80Critic Wrote:
(08-18-2022, 08:55 AM)BobK Wrote: I used to post about practices on the bootleg. Usually about the Frosh. About 2007 I posted how walk on Frosh Ryan Whalen would play a lot for Stanford. Boy did posters laugh. Remember that Matt ?
Yes I was right
Yes I believe Stanford will be 8-4 and a bowl game

On September 10, 2021, while many were predicting embarrassment and disaster against #14 USC, I posted this about the USC game:

Stanford will smoke these guys, 38-21. McKee will wow the country and be put on multiple watch lists. Kyu Blu will lock down half the field, have a pick-6, and make Slovis second-guess all passes. The offensive line will gel big time, and NFL scouts will start looking at Fisk for their d-lines. Shaw will become wildly unpredictable on both sides of the ball, and we'll see everything from old-school option plays to spurts of pass-happy no-huddle. It will be a glorious day.

The next day Stanford smoked those guys, 42-28. McKee wowed the country and went on multiple watch lists. Kyu Blu Kelly locked down half the field, had a pick-6, and made Slovis second-guess all passes. The offensive line gelled to the tune of 375 yards, Tucker Fisk signed with the Falcons, and Shaw was as unpredictable as we've ever seen him (taking points and a lead off the board against USC)! It was a VERY glorious day. So glorious that USC promptly fired Helton.

What's my point? Sometimes the optimists are right. This team has all the tools to stay in every game they will play, every game. So if Bob K says they'll go 8-4, I'll tip my cap to my fellow optimist. With 53 seasons under my belt, I've learned to never expect the expected....

I have 64 seasons under my belt and this (and other things) taught me that broken clocks are correct twice a day. As for this team having "all the tools to stay in every game they will play", uhh...well...hmm...

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - CardinalSagehen - 08-20-2022

(08-19-2022, 10:48 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: As for the switch to the 4-3 defense, it feels like a crazy time to announce that because the dline tank has never been so empty in terms of returning production, but hopefilly the youngsters can surprise us. To me the switch to a 4-3 feels overdue — teams have been tearing up our front 7 for years (forever) and it felt like we just didn’t have the bulk up front to face an Alabama, not that I aee that happening anytime soon. But I like the new direction and to some degree it may be a multiyear journey where our 4-3 helps us recruit more of the right kinds of d linemen.

I agree. Our run defense was so incredibly poor last season. I don't lament the lack of returning production or experience on the D-line, and I welcome any change of scheme. We were at the stage of needing a complete rebuild. No one is denying that Booker was great, but as a unit, we were horrible in the front 7.

I'm glad that guys like Tobin Phillips and our many young Edges will have the opportunity to show everyone what they can do in a new scheme. It would have been more depressing if we had all the same personnel returning under exactly the same scheme.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - msqueri - 08-20-2022

I think having two of Booker, Wade-Perry, and Fisk back with the new scheme would have been preferable.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - PVTree - 08-20-2022

(08-18-2022, 01:53 PM)cctop Wrote:
(08-18-2022, 07:05 AM)msqueri Wrote: I've posted tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of words about the upcoming Stanford football season on the two other fan sites I frequent.

Just curious, what are the other two fan sites you frequent?

Most likely:
The Bootleg (247... Formerly Scouts)
Cardinal Sports Report (Rivals)

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - Spiny_Norman - 08-20-2022

A note - with his next loss, David Shaw will have lost more games as a Stanford head coach than anyone else. Currently, Shaw (90-36) is tied at 36 coaching losses with Jack Curtice (14-36), John Ralston (55-36-3) and Tyrone Willingham (44-36-1).

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - BostonCard - 08-20-2022

It’s shocking that despite the last three seasons, Shaw, with as many losses as Willingham and Ralston, has more than twice as many wins as the former, and 60% more wins than the latter.

Also, as many Rose Bowl appearances and wins as the two of them combined.

BC

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - SamuelMcF - 08-20-2022

(08-19-2022, 05:19 PM)newguy Wrote: i may get slammed for this, but i still believe that we should consider asking for volunteers among our offensive linemen to switch over to defense.....not necessarily for this season, but for next.
yes i know we have guys in the pipeline.
it's just an idea.

There is an OL who has switched.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - lex24 - 08-20-2022

(08-18-2022, 11:06 AM)msqueri Wrote: [quote="BostonCard" pid='360321' dateline='1660841933']

Ok, I’ll bite.

What is the theory for the case for the defensive line? It was, to put it charitably, a nightmare last season, and that was with a senior fifth round NFL draft pick and experience throughout. It is hard to imagine things being worse on the DL this year, but that is probably a failure of my imagination; objectively you would look and predict that it should be worse than last year.

Thoughts?

BC

Great question. Here's my opinion:

This is not an area in which the coaches have offered a theory of the case, which is why I didn't cover it in the previous post. I think the reality is it's not part of their theory of the case or, to put it another way, mitigating the DL disaster is as far as the theory of the case goes. The defense is banking on decisiveness, aggression, and simplicity. This is mostly about unlocking performance in the edge and inside linebacker groups that can mitigate what we're going to see at DL. That's not to say we don't have theories about how DL itself can mitigate the issue. There are two components of the DL theory. First, having more four man fronts (read: edge players playing at the line) will spread the pain around for the DL. Having Phillips, Franklin, Armitage, and Keneley (notionally; I don't think that will be our most common configuration) is more mass (or at least more individuals) up front than just having Booker, Wade-Perry, and Reid. Second, we are rationalizing to ourselves that lighter DL will allow guys like Franklin and Buckey to utilize more "movement" and compensate for physical weaknesses somehow.

This theory does not hold water in my view, which is another reason I didn't mention it above, but it's complicated and a source of at least some mystery heading into the year. We actually transitioned to a 4-3 defense at the end of last season and all here know those last three games did not work well, but the picture was mixed. We tried the more four man front thing against Oregon State, Cal, and Notre Dame. Against Oregon State, the run defense was effective and the pass defense was a disaster, albeit without Kelly, McGill, and Manley. Against Cal, we had possibly the worst defensive game in Stanford history and, notably, possibly the worst run defense game in Stanford history. Against Notre Dame, the run defense was actually a relative triumph to end the season but pass defense was a disaster. Obviously this trio of games was pretty schizophrenic for the defense. An optimistic read, I guess, is that the scheme change was experimental and didn't benefit from an off-season of focus, plus a lot of the failures may have been symptomatic of team-wide morale/buy-in problems as we collapsed at the end of the year. A pessimistic read is that whenever Stanford tries to focus on one problematic aspect of defense it becomes whack-a-mole and even if we become stouter in run defense we may then become less stout in pass defense.

Moreover, we had Booker, Wade-Perry, Fisk, and Johnson last year and now have to redo the experiment with much less physically developed DL. You are absolutely right that objectively one would project the 2022 Stanford DL to be worse. My read of Shaw and Anderson's recent comments is that they're aware of this and not sugar-coating it. Anderson recently referred to the DL as young, inexperienced, and small. Is that all? Yikes. We know this is going to be a problem. Think about the two prongs of the DL theory I mentioned above. For the beefier fronts prong, is it actually going to be beefier than last year? The majority of the individuals comprising any three or four man fronts are going to less than 270 pounds. If one were to do the thought experiment of forecasting out the schematic alignments for the defense and the rough proportion at which we'd be running them and then mapped weights of the "fronts" against what Stanford has put out there in past years, I don't think we're going to be beefier up front in 2022 than previously, to put it mildly. For the trust in small DL movement prong, we'll see what that can compensate for but it's not clear to me agility is more important for DL than old man strength or that Franklin and Buckey even are more agile than Booker.

P.S. All good Phogge, I get you and appreciate you. I kind of shudder at what will happen to my time management when I don't have my day job as the raison d'etre of my life. Over the years people have asked me why I don't try to work in sports or journalism or write a book and the honest answer is that public service/national security/foreign policy animate me even more than sports and I'd much rather have public service/national security/foreign policy as a calling and sports as a hobby than the other way around.

Anderson comment on the d-line brings to mind a comment Fred Von Appen made. My dad a couple of his buddies and I went to lunch with Von Appen a couple weeks prior to the ‘83 season. Von Appen was, I believe DC at the time. Someone asked him how the defense looked. He responded: “Not very good. We’re small. But we’re slow.” We laughed. He wasn’t kidding….

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - winflop - 08-20-2022

(08-20-2022, 12:32 PM)msqueri Wrote: I think having two of Booker, Wade-Perry, and Fisk back with the new scheme would have been preferable.

At this point I'd settle for one...

Switching to a 4-3 when DL is your weakest position both in terms of talent AND depth makes absolutely no sense to me. But time will tell.

I'd love to be more optimistic about this season but I'm in Missouri mode with Shaw at this point.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - Phogge - 08-20-2022

I don't know about pissing in your cornflakes BC but as kids we pissed in orange juice bottles and left them in the mens restrooms at Big Rec hoping that some winos would bite. I know, despicable but hell we were only 9 or 10. Some of my pals did some REALLY shitty things and one of them wound up at Q.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - newguy - 08-21-2022

(08-20-2022, 08:46 PM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(08-19-2022, 05:19 PM)newguy Wrote: i may get slammed for this, but i still believe that we should consider asking for volunteers among our offensive linemen to switch over to defense.....not necessarily for this season, but for next.
yes i know we have guys in the pipeline.
it's just an idea.

There is an OL who has switched.

thanks for the info.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - SamuelMcF - 08-21-2022

(08-20-2022, 09:43 PM)winflop Wrote:
(08-20-2022, 12:32 PM)msqueri Wrote: I think having two of Booker, Wade-Perry, and Fisk back with the new scheme would have been preferable.
At this point I'd settle for one...

Switching to a 4-3 when DL is your weakest position both in terms of talent AND depth makes absolutely no sense to me. But time will tell.

I'd love to be more optimistic about this season but I'm in Missouri mode with Shaw at this point.

A 4-3 is precisely BECAUSE DL is the weakest position. There will now be only 2 DL on the field instead of 3.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - BostonCard - 08-21-2022

I think we just have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that a 4-3 defense in 2022 means something different than it did in 2006, which I think was the last time we had a 4-3. Back then it mean two defensive tackles, two defensive ends, one “Mike” inside linebacker and two Outside linebackers (a “Sam” and a “Will”). It looks like now, we are talking about two defensive linemen, three “Edge” players, who are defensive line/linebacker hybrids and two inside linebackers, at least when we play 7 defensive players up front, which in any case is the minority of the time.

BC

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - winflop - 08-21-2022

(08-21-2022, 10:03 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(08-20-2022, 09:43 PM)winflop Wrote:
(08-20-2022, 12:32 PM)msqueri Wrote: I think having two of Booker, Wade-Perry, and Fisk back with the new scheme would have been preferable.
At this point I'd settle for one...

Switching to a 4-3 when DL is your weakest position both in terms of talent AND depth makes absolutely no sense to me. But time will tell.

I'd love to be more optimistic about this season but I'm in Missouri mode with Shaw at this point.

A 4-3 is precisely BECAUSE DL is the weakest position. There will now be only 2 DL on the field instead of 3.

How do you figure? In a 3-4 you have 1 NT, 2 DEs, 2 OLBs, and 2 ILBs. That's 3 DL & 4 LB. In a 4-3 you have 2 DTs, 2 DEs, 2 OLB's and 1 ILB. That's 4 DL and 3 LBs, and in particular it requires twice as many inside DL as a 3-4 which is and has been our weakest position for multiple seasons

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - cardcrimson - 08-21-2022

I guess I need a primer on what a 4-3 is. As a simpleton, I figured it to be 4 defensive (down) linemen backed by 3 linebackers. . . .

(08-21-2022, 10:03 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote: A 4-3 is precisely BECAUSE DL is the weakest position. There will now be only 2 DL on the field instead of 3.

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - BostonCard - 08-21-2022

Winflop and cardcrimson, see my post two up. I share your confusion, but it seems clear that this iteration of a 4-3 defense will be very different than what a 4-3 defense has traditionally meant.

BC

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - Mick - 08-21-2022

(08-20-2022, 09:27 PM)lex24 Wrote: Anderson comment on the d-line brings to mind a comment Fred Von Appen made. My dad a couple of his buddies and I went to lunch with Von Appen a couple weeks prior to the ‘83 season. Von Appen was, I believe DC at the time. Someone asked him how the defense looked. He responded: “Not very good. We’re small. But we’re slow.” We laughed. He wasn’t kidding….

That line's been around a while. My high school coach used to say that about us all the time. Big laugh line. He also referred to us as "Menehunes" (think Hawaiian version of leprechauns).

RE: Two weeks before the 2022 season and. . . . - cardcrimson - 08-21-2022

So more like a 2-5, or even a 5-2?

(08-21-2022, 10:38 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Winflop and cardcrimson, see my post two up. I share your confusion, but it seems clear that this iteration of a 4-3 defense will be very different than what a 4-3 defense has traditionally meant.

BC