Sunday morning thoughts - USC - Printable Version
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Sunday morning thoughts - USC - msqueri - 09-11-2022
1. It was nice to be back on campus and spend time with friends, though it's hard to be too happy about losing handily to USC. Through two weeks the team is looking like what most expected - an interesting and entertaining offense, a very bad defense, and a challenging task ahead to try to get back to a bowl. Shaw's post-game press conference went about as expected but had a bit of an edge to it. I think he knows the rest of this season could still go in various directions and some of his defensive guards are starting to come up in anticipation of circling sharks. He knows the team that's played the last two weeks will have challenges and probably feels some measure of optimism that turnovers will revert to the mean in a good direction, but is clear-eyed the defense will be bad enough that there's not much margin for error for the offense and special teams.
2. The level of error when it comes to ball security is appalling. These turnovers don't strike me as bad luck but rather a running back who can't protect the ball (coughing it up about once every ten touches right?) and a quarterback who's made a couple errant throws a game (usually an overthrow, though that wasn't the problem on the interception in the end zone) that make it anybody's ball. It amounts to two of our best players having a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to their play. Smith ran and caught the ball very effectively, but turning the ball over as often as he has the last two games really neutralizes the good he's done. Can't be a good player unless this gets cleaned up. For McKee, the skills he brings have been evident in both games but his Total QBR is only 43rd in the country. That so many of our turnovers have been in the red zone and given the opponent very short fields (or even a special teams touchdown) is a back breaker. Have to take care of the ball. Turnovers were the biggest reason we lost but we shouldn't flatter ourselves in thinking we were on USC's level otherwise. A 2.5 yard differential per play is big. USC was the better team, decidedly.
3. Aside from turnovers and being outgunned by USC's firepower, the story of this game was the unveiling of a new Stanford identity. As McKee said, we threw everything at USC. More to the point, it was completely different than the Shawfense of the last decade. This new slow mesh RPO offensive identity is very intriguing. McKee, the offensive line, and Smith (aside from ball security) seemed comfortable with it. To the extent Shaw talked all off-season about suiting schemes to personnel, cutting down concepts in the offense, and focusing on what we're good at, I think we should expect this to be an identity that's here to stay. We didn't secretly develop a whole new offense just to make it a one week game plan against USC. This is our offense. That means the Colgate game was subterfuge and we ran an offense different than our real offense, making that game more akin to a spring game than any real data point about the offense. With USC being the first game for our new offense, it will be interesting to see if we can grow into even more effectiveness with it.
4. The biggest thing that jumps out statistically about the new offense is the number of rushing yards - 221 yards is our most since October 2018. While a good chunk came on the inspired play call to Yurosek, we saw real evidence of the Smith-Filkins one-two punch, and I especially liked seeing how many first downs the two of them racked up. This week's moving the chains (first down) list: Smith (10), Filkins (8), Higgins (4, plus drew a pass interference), Yurosek (4), Wilson (2), McKee (2), Tremayne (plus three pass interferences he drew!), Humphreys (plus drew a pass interference). Nonetheless, I wouldn't crown the run game or be particularly confident in it going forward just yet. I have doubts about USC's quality as a run defense. Also, these yards were largely a product of the eye-popping number of plays we ran (80).
5. 80 plays! Tempo! That's the second most regulation plays ever under Shaw (two plays fewer than against Oregon in 2015). This was a totally different offense than Stanford usually runs. As somebody who has called for tempo, creativity, less stubbornness, and matching scheme to personnel, this was very welcome. While fans can continue to point to the lack of coaching turnover as a lack of accountability, it now appears that the talk of reassessing and reimagining what we do was not empty talk. On both sides of the ball, we seem to have fundamentally overhauled the way we operate. But as of now it appears that we can no longer say Shaw is stuck in his ways and impervious to evidence his ways fail. An 80 play slow mesh RPO offense is a big change. It remains to be seen how committed we will be to the changes and, of course, how effective they will be.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - msqueri - 09-11-2022
6. Shaw's post-game comments about the defense not being terrible in the first half do not hold up to scrutiny and Harold Gutmann was quite right to point out that there was no evidence to support Shaw's assertion. Yes, we handed USC short fields but if the defense weren't terrible there would have been more positive plays. Two tackles for loss and a pass defended in a half is not putting up much resistance, no matter where you are on the field. The brightest spot for the defense was third down, only giving up two conversions....but USC didn't even have to try a third down until the last plays of the first half! We didn't actually stop them until the third quarter, and because the second half started with another bomb to Addison USC scored on that drive anyway. No, the defense was terrible. The culprit, contrary to our norm, was the pass defense, which was absolutely roasted to the tune of 12.6 yards per attempt, the most we've given up since the conference championship against USC in 2017 and the third most ever given up by a Shaw team. The enemy gets a vote and USC's passing attack is spectacular, but not that spectacular. 12.6 yards per attempt is worse than Rice allowed and worse than all but two Oklahoma opponents in 2021. Several DBs were victimized (and lack of pass rush plays a role too) but Kelly really stands out. I know Addison is the Biletnikoff winner and incredible, but a DB even close to the totally undeserved hype Kelly gets wouldn't give up a bomb every other game, which is his norm going back a long while now. In contrast, I will eat some crow, at least for a week, on Bonner, who had a very nice (totally quiet, as one likes to see for a corner) game. Granted, that may have been because Williams didn't need to target Bonner since Kelly and Wyrick were proving vulnerable, but still a very nice game for Bonner.
7. PFF thought Rogers bounced back quite credibly in his second start filling in for Bragg, Roush overtook Archer in snaps but had a brutal game, Williamson had another good game, Bailey was mediocre but did some nice things, and Herron (despite a stat-padding performance based on conventional stats), Mangum-Farrar, and Miezan had very rough games. Moi got 34 snaps, which is quite a lot but partly has to do with the tempo of this game compared to Colgate. Armitage played a significant amount more than against Colgate (16th in defensive snaps as opposed to 21st), which appears to have been a function of an unannounced absence entirely for Buckey. As Armitage is ostensibly an edge player and Buckey a DL, this is an example of the fluidity of personnel usage.
8. Sanborn's two punts were more effective than he tended to be last week: a 48 yard net punt inside the 20 and a 49 yard net punt inside the 20 (though three yards of that and being inside the 20 owed to a muff), though he let meat on the bone on both.
9. Game balls: Rogers (PFF thought McKee better but I could give McKee the ball every week and that's no fun), Bonner, Sanborn, Shaw
10. Now for the weirdly timed bye. I get the sense Shaw and the players are resolved to make lemonade out of a lemon and use this bye and our relative health to sneak in an extra week of practice (as opposed to the bye norm of largely taking a week off) and work on what film has revealed from the first two games. With a new offensive identity that we're no longer trying to keep under wraps, this is a chance to work on solidifying that identity. To the extent Bragg, Rouse, Smith, and Buckey are working through things, some rest may do them good. When we're back in action, we'll have a pair of road games that will go a long way to deciding what kind of season it is. Washington and Oregon are beatable. Given location, timing on the schedule, and other factors, the USC game was arguably one of our seven or eight most winnable games. If this is going to be a winning season, a game like the upcoming one at Washington is one of the ones that is likely needed to get us there. Will this be a Stanford team that responds to adversity or one where failures snowball?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - JohnR34231 - 09-11-2022
The Seattle papers are getting all hot and tingly about the Huskies. They say, yeah, we beat two cupcakes soundly, but one of the cupcakes (Kent State) played Oklahoma solid for the first 30 minutes at least. They appear to have a good QB and a good receiving corps. We'll see how they do against Michigan State, but I'm starting to get visions of 2016 dancing in my head if we don't go up there ready to play.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - Austroturf - 09-11-2022
Again, an excellent summary. Another middle-of-the-night game I couldn't watch. I checked the score at 04:30 AM CET to see that we were trailing 41-14 at the end of the 3rd quarter. My thought: we are going to lose, but maybe we can tack on two 4th quarter TDs to make it look respectable and get close to my final score prediction, which was 42-28. That happened, much to my surprise.
My major concern is the suspect defense. What used to be the calling card of Shaw's early teams (2011-2015) has become a glaring weakness. Back then, we all railed against the vanilla offense and the overall lack of creativity. Now, I would trade a truckload of offensive creativity for a few Shane Skov and Solomon Thomas stalwarts on the defensive side of the ball. Back then, we always knew we had a shot with our defensive prowess. Today, there is no guarantee that our offense will be able to keep pace with what our opponents rack up against our threadbare defense.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - Farm93 - 09-11-2022
The Stanford offense looked OK. It will be interesting to see if Stanford can continue to have success when teams have film on Stanford's RPO. My fear is that USC was not prepared and therefore gave relatively easy reads to McKee. What happens once teams clue up and try to confuse Stanford? That concern noted, I do like the idea that two of the most talented threats are literally touching the ball on almost every play.
The Stanford defense was horrible. I believe that is where the transfer portal's impact was evident in last night's game. USC's has lots of accomplished players from other systems that came to USC recently via the portal. Meanwhile, Stanford usually has a tough time finding DBs capable of getting through admissions, many of the recent DBs left with eligibility remaining, and then there is no way to use the transfer portal to address gaps or early departures.
The portal is a long-term worry. Here in 2022 I can only imagine that a lot of WRs are looking to secure NFL draft highlight reel material when they face the Stanford DBs.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - lex24 - 09-11-2022
(09-11-2022, 02:00 PM)Austroturf Wrote: Again, an excellent summary. Another middle-of-the-night game I couldn't watch. I checked the score at 04:30 AM CET to see that we were trailing 41-14 at the end of the 3rd quarter. My thought: we are going to lose, but maybe we can tack on two 4th quarter TDs to make it look respectable and get close to my final score prediction, which was 42-28. That happened, much to my surprise.
My major concern is the suspect defense. What used to be the calling card of Shaw's early teams (2011-2015) has become a glaring weakness. Back then, we all railed against the vanilla offense and the overall lack of creativity. Now, I would trade a truckload of offensive creativity for a few Shane Skov and Solomon Thomas stalwarts on the defensive side of the ball. Back then, we always knew we had a shot with our defensive prowess. Today, there is no guarantee that our offense will be able to keep pace with what our opponents rack up against our threadbare defense.
Shaw’s early teams played smart, physical, complimentary football. And won. Those days are long gone. Won’t be back. Those who complained simply didn’t get that they were missing the best years of Stanford football in their lifetimes.
It would be nice to bitch and moan over a few “bad” play calls on their way to 10-2….. Ain’t gonna see that again.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - Treebound - 09-11-2022
I will tip my had to Shaw and co for implementing the RPO and running it reasonably well last night. It clearly threw the Trojans off and we had some great drives. The issue for the O (again) was taking care of the damn football and punching it into the end zone when we are within the 5 yard line. EJ's fumbles and McKee's Int's cost us, otherwise we are in a shootout.
The D on the other hand, was downright ugly. Lance and co, better be working on some new schemes over the bye week as that defense was as bad as I've seen at Stanford in a long, long time. Special teams, although better yesterday than they were vs the fighting toothpaste, still has room to improve. The onside kick was horribly executed and what was Filkens thinking as he fair caught that last punt inside the five?
Transfer portal, NIL and Alston: I don't see Stanford adjusting much to any of these issues, with maybe the exception being some Alston payment level. The cost is too high to fund/promote the last two areas across all 36 sports. We won't recruit mercenaries like SC and throw out admission standards for talented transfers (as if $C had standards). The stat came out on Friday that something like 44% of last years eligible QBs had entered the portal! I think the only thing that can help us is Congress getting involved in this arms race, and that won't happen before the mid-terms...if at all.
The only path that I see is that Shaw and co need to really double down on the recruiting up front. I don't think he's hungry enough to actually do that, but we need some marquee players to pick Stanford in order to turn this thing around. Toby, Luck, CMac, Love.....it's been way too long. Great to see Andrew being honored and here's hoping he can join the staff, even as a Grad Assistant, to hep rebuild. We need him!
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - winflop - 09-11-2022
(09-11-2022, 09:42 PM)Treebound Wrote: The D on the other hand, was downright ugly. Lance and co, better be working on some new schemes over the bye week as that defense was as bad as I've seen at Stanford in a long, long time. Special teams, although better yesterday than they were vs the fighting toothpaste, still has room to improve. The onside kick was horribly executed and what was Filkens thinking as he fair caught that last punt inside the five?
It doesn't matter what scheme Lance comes up with, the defense simply lacks the talent on the front seven
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - CardinalSagehen - 09-11-2022
Great recap by msqueri, as always.
Here's my Sunday morning/evening thought, in reaction to the overall tenor of many posts (not just on this thread):
We played the #7 team in the AP Poll and the #8 team in the Coaches Poll. Herbstreit has them at #5. If not for four untimely turnovers, it would have been close. Many of us might think that USC is overrated, but maybe we are underrating Stanford a bit?
USC did not take their foot off the gas in the second half. They regressed to the mean, and in addition, our defense improved. (Note that both Riley and Williams made comments to the effect that they didn't accomplish everything they meant to accomplish in the second half, but they were proud of the win.)
Our offense will be able to move the ball in the air and on the ground. The defense is not going to face this kind of talent at the skill positions, combined with great offensive coaching, for the rest of the season. We are certainly going to be vulnerable defensively, but that should be no surprise to anyone.
Overall, I am more optimistic about our season than before the game.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - lex24 - 09-12-2022
(09-11-2022, 09:59 PM)winflop Wrote:(09-11-2022, 09:42 PM)Treebound Wrote: The D on the other hand, was downright ugly. Lance and co, better be working on some new schemes over the bye week as that defense was as bad as I've seen at Stanford in a long, long time. Special teams, although better yesterday than they were vs the fighting toothpaste, still has room to improve. The onside kick was horribly executed and what was Filkens thinking as he fair caught that last punt inside the five?
It doesn't matter what scheme Lance comes up with, the defense simply lacks the talent on the front seven
Bingo.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - murky - 09-12-2022
(09-11-2022, 10:43 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote: Great recap by msqueri, as always.
Here's my Sunday morning/evening thought, in reaction to the overall tenor of many posts (not just on this thread):
We played the #7 team in the AP Poll and the #8 team in the Coaches Poll. Herbstreit has them at #5. If not for four untimely turnovers, it would have been close. Many of us might think that USC is overrated, but maybe we are underrating Stanford a bit?
USC did not take their foot off the gas in the second half. They regressed to the mean, and in addition, our defense improved. (Note that both Riley and Williams made comments to the effect that they didn't accomplish everything they meant to accomplish in the second half, but they were proud of the win.)
Our offense will be able to move the ball in the air and on the ground. The defense is not going to face this kind of talent at the skill positions, combined with great offensive coaching, for the rest of the season. We are certainly going to be vulnerable defensively, but that should be no surprise to anyone.
Overall, I am more optimistic about our season than before the game.
I came away with a similar impression, assuming players are healthy.
Offense showed a high ceiling and especially heartening was the run game.
We all knew that the defense has serious concerns.
Special teams wasn't an embarrassment.
Need better ball security.
USC was the highest ranked team we will face.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - msqueri - 09-12-2022
On USC being the highest ranked team we'll face, that is very much speculative and uncertain. Sagarin, which I don't trust yet because there hasn't been enough data, thinks Utah is better and Oregon and Notre Dame are essentially USC's level. I am sure the results of the season will shuffle things around, and it's not at all clear yet that USC will end up the top team on our schedule.
Regardless, we played USC at home. Oregon, Notre Dame, and Utah are harder games on paper. Based on computer rankings/home field adjustment/Vegas lines, it is quite possible Washington will be too. Right now Sagarin would have Washington as a 12.5 point favorite against us, significantly bigger than the line for the USC game.
Being at home in the second week of the season after a coaching change for USC and with our history of beating USC at home over the last decade and a half, the USC game was actually a relatively gettable game for us. We're going to have several games where we're bigger underdogs.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - TriangleTree - 09-12-2022
(09-12-2022, 10:27 AM)msqueri Wrote: with our history of beating USC at home over the last decade and a half, the USC game was actually a relatively gettable game for us
I thought that going into the game. Three things made me change my mind:
1) 20+ transfers including a Biletnikoff, Oregon superstar RB, and one of the (if not THE) best QB/WR combo in the country. No one may be able to compete with SC going forward in the free agent transfer market.
2) An interview posted here with an SC blogger talking about the culture of accountability that's taken hold at SC. I normally don't buy much into these things, but somehow this one sounded convincing.
3) Watching the game. The offense looks like they should be playing on Sundays. The skill players were awesome of course, but the SC line just looked incredibly mature.
I don't know that we know that much about our team yet, we'll find out more in the next few games.
Longer term, I'm not sure we'll be able to compete with SC. If they're recruiting for proven CFB upper classmen with NIL money whilst we are looking at HS kids, we'll be playing in a different league. The silver lining is we may have less competition for the HS kids...
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - qwerty49 - 09-12-2022
How many PI calls did $C get? 5? I remember one DB got 3 and Herbie said he'd been holding every play and only got caught 3 times.
Pretty aggressive 1-on-1 coverage to say the least. Those guys reminded me of the old Raider DBs. One of their safeties put a Tatum/Atkinson hit on one of our receivers and I was surprised our guy got up that quickly.
Maybe they were inspired by Ronnie Lott on the sidelines. He and Jerry Rice seemed to be having a good time.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - murky - 09-12-2022
(09-12-2022, 10:27 AM)msqueri Wrote: On USC being the highest ranked team we'll face, that is very much speculative and uncertain. Sagarin, which I don't trust yet because there hasn't been enough data, thinks Utah is better and Oregon and Notre Dame are essentially USC's level. I am sure the results of the season will shuffle things around, and it's not at all clear yet that USC will end up the top team on our schedule.
Regardless, we played USC at home. Oregon, Notre Dame, and Utah are harder games on paper. Based on computer rankings/home field adjustment/Vegas lines, it is quite possible Washington will be too. Right now Sagarin would have Washington as a 12.5 point favorite against us, significantly bigger than the line for the USC game.
Being at home in the second week of the season after a coaching change for USC and with our history of beating USC at home over the last decade and a half, the USC game was actually a relatively gettable game for us. We're going to have several games where we're bigger underdogs.
I didn't say USC was the best team we'll play, or the toughest game, I said "was the highest ranked".
I guess its possible Utah could be top 10 when we play them.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - JohnR34231 - 09-12-2022
U$C strikes me as having somewhat of a cupcake schedule. They don't play either Washington or Oregon and have the Domers at home. Their other OOC game is against Fresno State.
Their big game will be against the Utes in SLC. If they can win that one an 11-1 or 12-0 season strikes me as a definite possibility.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - Phogge - 09-12-2022
SC will not be able to run on Georgia, Clemson or Alabama unless it's Williams running. So they may waltz through the season and get stoned in the playoffs. Stanford's D is butter, Georgia's is steel.
Not so sure about the Domers. Marshall was able to run on them and the new Domer QB while mobile, has plenty of work to do throwing.
The RPO offense needs backs who can take the pounding and hang onto the ball. Need to recruit a big back but Toby's don't grow on trees.
Recruiting needs to find some kids who are smart and not very nice to play D. Harballs found them. Don't know the office schedule but 9-5 hours doesn't cut it when you are desperate.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - Brickcity - 09-12-2022
[quote="Phogge" pid='362721' dateline='1663010888']
SC will not be able to run on Georgia, Clemson or Alabama unless it's Williams running. So they may waltz through the season and get stoned in the playoffs. Stanford's D is butter, Georgia's is steel.
Not so sure about the Domers. Marshall was able to run on them and the new Domer QB while mobile, has plenty of work to do throwing.
The RPO offense needs backs who can take the pounding and hang onto the ball. Need to recruit a big back but Toby's don't grow on trees.
This: "Recruiting needs to find some kids who are smart and not very nice to play D. Harballs found them. Don't know the office schedule but 9-5 hours doesn't cut it when you are desperate." Some Stanford fans are saying we'll never see another 10-win Stanford season. I do think it's possible to get there if Stanford's coaching staff recruited with a little EUTM.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - USC - BostonCard - 09-12-2022
Wait, are we talking about 0-2 Notre Dame who just lost to Marshall?
BC