Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - Printable Version
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Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - msqueri - 11-12-2023
1. Back to a no fun reality check. For the fifth time in ten games we looked like we don't belong in Power Five football. Manhandled at the line of scrimmage, thoroughly uncompetitive, and rattled into bad decisions in a way that somewhat complicates our self-image as resilient and composed. We've bounced back other times and maybe will again but that's kind of the point: right now this team is capable of being respectable and of being execrable. We could get either in a given week. Since we want to be able to say there are signs of improvement it's really disappointing to have a stinker like this in the last road game of the season. Nonetheless, we shouldn't endow this game with too much significance in the grand scheme. Oregon State is a very good team still technically alive to win a very good conference going into the penultimate week of the regular season and we've generally been uncompetitive against the very good teams. We have a long way to go to being a competitive program and to the extent we thought an ugly win against a Washington State team in freefall meant we had turned the corner last night was a wake-up call.
2. I am not going to calculate points per drive for either side of the ball as the proper calculation subtracts garbage time and it's a multi-pronged test this game isn't worth devoting that brainpower to (e.g., one of the four prongs is "a possession in the second half of a game in which eight times the number of the losing team's remaining possessions plus one is less than the losing team's scoring deficit at the start of the possession"). Suffice it to say we got horridly boat-raced, playing Oregon State about as competitively as UC Davis did. Oregon State has a great offense (#10 in points per drive, #12 in Offensive FEI, #9 in yards per play, #14 in scoring) but given our insane degree of difficulty for our defense it's only the fourth best offense we've played. In that context this really didn't go well. Only USC had more yards per play against us and nobody scored more. Even more disturbingly, the Beavers had a mammoth 1.1 yards more per play against us than they have against anybody else this season and 1.81 more than their season average (even more than the 1.5 yard per play differential to season average USC had). Conventional scoring metrics, opponent-adjusted yards per play analysis, and PFF all agree that last night surpasses the USC game as our worst defensive game of the season, a real gut punch from the perspective of wanting to see signs of improvement.
3. The offense was smack dab exactly on its yards per play average for the season and we had our fourth worst yards per play game against the third best yards per play defense we've played. We were right around the Beaver average for yards per play and had more than Colorado, Utah, San Diego State, UC Davis, and San Jose State. The offense did far better on a yards per play basis than our defense did. But there's a big but. Yards per play misses a big part of the story when the turnover margin is wildly one-sided. We played about how you'd expect against a defense like this.....except for the interceptions. So many interceptions. This was the first four interception game for the Beavers in just over a decade and the first one we've been on this end of in nearly two decades (since 2004 Arizona State). It's impossible to judge the offense writ large when there are so many turnovers. Daniels took us out of the game essentially right away with extremely poor decisions on two of the first three drives, and then sloppiness in the turnover game continued beyond that. In fact, the margin could have been even worse as both QBs fumbled but we recovered both (fumble recovery tends to be lucky/random). The QB ball security was the worst part about our game. We were outmanned in the trenches and almost certainly would have lost handily regardless, but the game could have been a lot closer if we were not so careless throughout the game and by both QBs.
4. There was more to like on offense than defense (but the interceptions). We know there is no real run game this year outside of the QBs and indeed this was the fourth time in the last six contests we had under 100 yards rushing, but this was actually a relative bright spot last night, thanks largely to Daniels. Believe it or not, five of Oregon State's other nine opponents had even fewer yards per carry against them than we did. This Beaver team takes care of business in the trenches and not just against us. In the pass game, we were above-average in yards per play both by our standards and by the standards of teams that face Oregon State (but the interceptions). If we want to find a silver lining it may be continuing growth, or at least stability, in the offensive line. PFF judged this as our fourth best pass blocking game and fifth best run blocking game (and notably the best run blocking game since September). Not bad against such a famously high quality trench team. In contrast, this game was miserable for the defense. After being on a very encouraging uptick in recent weeks, the run defense fell apart against a genuinely spectacular run game (#9 in yards per carry). We tied with the 2021 Utah game for the most rushing touchdowns allowed in recent memory. The Beaver run game is spectacular but it's not this spectacular. Nobody other than UC Davis has been gouged like this. In fact, it's the most yards per carry the Beavers have had against a Pac-12 opponent in almost eight years. We've seen some glimmers of hope for run defense this year, but the two times we've faced a great run game (the two Oregon schools) we haven't even belonged on the field. Lots of work to do. In pass defense, it was the highest yards per attempt Oregon State has had in the last 22 games and their third best passer rating of the season (and very close to #2, but yikes what DJU & Co. did to Cal's pass defense). We've now played four top 20 passing offenses and been sliced and diced each time. We are clearly not capable of hanging with the great air attacks, which bodes poorly for the finale against Notre Dame.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - msqueri - 11-12-2023
5. Bad individual decision-making played a big role in the game being so out of control, but one of those individuals was Troy Taylor. Throughout the game it was evident that his attempted game planning innovation this week was heavy use of a two QB offense. Not playing both QBs during the game but rather playing them both at the same time. This was way too cute and didn't fool anybody. The plays of Lamson getting the snap were dismissed with prejudice. I doubt the Beavers were shaking in their shoes when Lamson went out for passing routes, and when we finally targeted him it resulted in bodily risk to him and a cherry on top interception on a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a snap with Daniels, Lamson, Shield Taylor, and Raines in it. What is that but inviting an 11 vs. 8 play? In general I've given Coach Taylor excellent marks for finding ways to get first downs at a very respectable clip (66th in the nation despite having the #109 yards per play offense); Lamson in the run game is a really big part of that and it would be disingenuous of me to bash Taylor for that now that it hasn't worked as opposed to all the weeks it has worked. But last night was something beyond that, this new wrinkle of playing both simultaneously. Ill-advised. Taylor bears some responsibility for the last interception. He also bears some responsibility for poor ball security insofar as Daniels' fumble came after visibly injuring his hand, yet we kept playing Daniels in an out of control game. Shame on Taylor for the subsequent aggravation of the injury when Daniels didn't give himself up on the scramble. Yes, Daniels could have avoided the contact but he shouldn't have been out there in the first place.
6. This gets to the thing that must irritated me about Taylor's decision-making yesterday: the abject refusal to give Patu or Jackson a chance to show what they can do. I find it inexcusable to play an injured QB1 deep in a blowout and I say that even knowing if I had had my way that would have likely meant no Daniels to Ayomanor bomb, so in a sense Taylor got a bit validated by the turn of events. But in the grand scheme that touchdown doesn't mean much and we already have had a lot of opportunity to see Daniels and his strengths and weaknesses. We've also seen enough to know Lamson isn't a Power Five QB. There is clearly no desire to see what Patu or Jackson can do if we aren't even going to play them in a game like this. I think it defies credulity if anybody thinks this says something about how bad those guys are if Taylor won't play them. We've seen Patu, two years ago, and it seemed quite plausible then that he is better than what Lamson has shown, to say nothing of any growth Patu has been able to muster under Taylor's tutelage. Lamson is #130 of 134 QBs in Total QBR, the dead last Power Five QB (Daniels is #78). You're telling me there's no chance either of the other guys could be better? I don't buy it. Seeing the depth of our unwillingness to go down the depth chart made me entertain a thought that maybe at Patu's request this year is being chalked up as a possible medical redshirt in the hopes of petitioning for a sixth year of eligibility at a transfer destination....but Taylor claims Patu got in for a few plays (was this as a receiver/continuation of the aforementioned silliness?). As for Jackson, maybe he's not ready.....but is Braden Marceau-Olayinka ready? Certainly not, yet BMO got to play on both defense and special teams. I think it's unfortunate Taylor has only given himself looks at two QBs this season. To me, Occam's Razor is one of two possibilities. First, as I've observed previously, Taylor goes into the bench in crunch time much less than April does so there could be a philosophical thing here whereby Taylor wants to play starters to the whistle and/or stubbornly stick by his evaluations and not give the bench a shot. Second, Taylor only wants looks at the two QBs and any utility shown by the others would only muddy the waters going forward. We want Patu to transfer and we don't want Jackson to block Elijah Brown, so QB3 and QB4 get a raw deal. As with so many things this season, we are running out the clock on the season and Lamson is the way to do it. I get the logic and Taylor could be making the right call, but to me QB is such a critical position that the upside of finding out if Patu or Jackson could be surprisingly better than the preferred options should carry the day.
7. As for how QB1 did, I think it really depends on just how much you want to nuke Daniels for the interceptions. As a window into this, there's a bizarre thing where Total QBR thought it was Daniels' best game of the season (!) and PFF thought it was his worst among games with 20+ snaps (USC was worse but with fewer snaps). It seems Total QBR gave Daniels a lot of credit for his effective running and for adjustment to strength of schedule. I tend to think Total QBR is the best metric for QBs so I'd be disingenuous if I dismissed this, though it is really hard for me to square three interceptions with ranking #36 of 120 QBs nationally this week in Total QBR. At the same time, PFF's absolutely brutal assessment of #122 of 122 QBs nationally seems harsh. This is an interesting window into the complexity of QB evaluation, the need to really spend quality time with the film, adjust for context, know what a QB was supposed to do on a given play, etc. I wonder what Taylor's true evaluation of Daniels's game will be. Given how much assessments of QB play can vary, I think best to look at what Daniels has done overall, whether statistically or impressionistically. He still strikes me as a decent gamer with a good long ball and solid pocket presence, but the decision-making hasn't been consistent. In Total QBR he is #78 in the nation and #9 in the Pac-12, in traditional passer rating he is #80 in the nation and #9 in the Pac-12, and in PFF he is #76 in the nation (though among many fewer qualifying QBs than other metrics) and #9 in the Pac-12. So zooming out to the big picture it isn't variable at all - below average but not abysmal in the Pac-12, despite all the limitations in supporting cast he is facing. This would be a credible returning QB to go into 2024 with, but I think it's an open question whether that's enough to hold off competition.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - msqueri - 11-12-2023
8. The other story of our season continues to be the young receivers. Ayomanor is such a stud. He is now 14th in the nation in receiving and the only football freshman receiver in the top 100 in the nation in yards from scrimmage (there are a few with 60 something yards per game....he has 90+!). This is a historic season and he/we are being robbed of narrative and hype by our moronic roster. Roxy Bernstein again foot-stomped this issue last night, but nobody watches the Pac-12 Network. I hope to be pleasantly surprised in the end but it will be such a shame if Ayomanor doesn't sweep all Freshman All-American honors and he very well should beat out Fifita and Brailsford for Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. In any other year we'd be talking about Bachmeier as one of our best ever freshman receivers. Really awesome to have this duo emerging like this. And then Harris is starting to emerge as a third guy. Probably the single best thing about this season personnel-wise is that a new generation of receivers have emerged. [This week's moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Daniels (4), Ayomanor (3, also drew an interference), Bachmeier (3), Roush (2), Smith, Farrell, Harris, Lamson] On the flip side, it is incredible how little we get from running backs. Stanford now only has two players in the top 50 in the Pac-12 in yards from scrimmage, Ayomanor and Bachmeier, who we are reliant to an extent to which in the last generation we only saw with McCaffrey-Love, McCaffrey-Rector, and Taylor-Ertz. It defies the imagination to have zero running backs in the top 50 in the conference in yards from scrimmage. In the last 15 years, the only times it's happened are 2023 Stanford, 2022 Stanford, 2016 Arizona, and 2012 Washington State. In other words, the last two Stanford teams have been among the four most irrelevant RB rooms in the last 176 Pac-12 teams. Incredible. Big opportunity for Taylor's first full class to step into a void at this position. Elsewhere on offense, McLaughlin and Rogers graded solidly against Oregon State, Mayberry and Maikkula graded competently, and Baklenko had his wake-up call after a solid first two games. Personally I would have strongly considered not dressing Baklenko in other to preserve his redshirt and now that he has played three games I hope he plays Big Game and then sits out the finale. The major downside is it sends a signal we are operating based on factors other than merit/winning and that we aren't playing one week at a time, but on the other hand if Baklenko plays the two remaining games he, like Pale, will have burned a redshirt just to play in five games. That would be a potentially grievous injury to the 2027 team. Maybe we shouldn't be thinking like that, especially in the new era of college football, but to me it is poor strategic planning to have promising but not yet particularly good true freshmen offensive linemen play five games. Play them four or play them more, but five is a brutal burnt redshirt.
9. On defense, the standout in both my box score analysis and PFF was Leigber, who made numerous run stops and also made a third down tackle before the sticks (although Oregon State then converted on fourth down). Tafiti continues to make multiple plays a game, establishing himself as our playmaker if Bailey isn't going to play (amazingly, despite how little he has played for weeks, Bailey still has the second most sacks per game of any Stanford defender in the last decade). I thought Moi had a nice game. Of all people, Jorgensen was actually in a significant number of plays, though he also had a bad personal foul that led to the highlight reel Fenwick hurdling over Williams and then breaking multiple tackles on the way to a humiliating touchdown. As I mentioned above, a lot more players got to play in garbage time on defense than offense. Caughey actually got starter-level snaps, though graded horribly. Ojarikre, whose redshirt has long been burnt due to special teams action, finally broke through on defense. Cooper more than doubled his previous season high in snaps, though didn't do much with it. Career high in snaps for Lester. Williams, Morris, and Rose have played more before but this was significant action by their standards. Debuts for Marceau-Olayinka and, after all these years, Dubre. I wouldn't say anybody showed anything per se. Most interesting is probably the signal that Ojarikre and Morris are on the way up and could be in line for bigger roles next year with upper class attrition.
10. Speaking of Morris, he was credited with yet another big special teams tackle, though I thought in real time it may have been Kasemervisz. In any case, those two seem to be the coverage units' standouts this season. Karty made his one try. One try. Ugh. Now just 18th in the nation in field goal attempts per game. Honestly on merit alone he doesn't even deserve to be a Groza finalist. Disappointing last season, partly due to a few uncharacteristic misses and mostly because Taylor doesn't let Karty eat (though this week Daniels' interceptions deserve more of the blame). By the way, I say last season because of the vibe I got from his recent interview regarding his NFL dream, including the obligatory disclaimer that he won't think about it until these last three games are over. Even putting it in the context of the last three games makes me think he is planning to depart. As the top prospect in America and a fourth year player it would be odd if he didn't. Flintoft had net punts of 48 to the 30, 24 to the 47 (ugh), 44 to the 33, and 34 to the 26. Not great. Farrell had a nine yard punt return, which is ok, and mostly fair caught in his various opportunities, which is fine by me given his lack of track record of success. A lackluster special teams day across the board. With a stinker like last night attention will understandably be elsewhere, but no units played well yesterday.
11. Game balls: Elic Ayomanor, Mitch Leigber, Joshua Karty, Viane Talamaivao
12. While this season has been more fun and less soul-crushing than the last few because at least now we can think about it as the foundations of a rebuild rather than a deep dark hole, we now find ourselves in a familiar place going into Big Game: playing for bragging rights and vibes rather than more tangible stakes. One stake I have in mind is getting Taylor his first home win at Stanford. It would be unfortunate to have to go into a long off-season unable to accomplish that most modest of steps. A related stake is giving the home crowd some reason to believe better days are ahead. We and national observers rightfully lament the pitiful crowds at Stanford Stadium, but for non diehards think about how bleak it is to root for a team that has won only two home games against major college football teams (Colgate doesn't count) at Stanford Stadium in the last four calendar years. If Taylor is going to succeed he is going to have to start giving fans reasons to think their treks to the stadium may be enjoyable. It is not essential that start happening next Saturday but it would be nice. The final stake I have in mind is the superficial but meaningful to many barrier of breaking past Shaw's win total from the last two years. A four win season in Taylor's first year would be something we could sell within the program and on the recruiting trail as being on the right track. Crazier things have happened than beating Notre Dame to close the season, but based on everything we have seen this Stanford team does not strike me as very capable of that, so to the extent we are still fighting for some stakes I think it's all about Big Game at this point. Beat Cal!
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - newguy - 11-12-2023
I've been dreading this since last night.
Maybe I'll go back and reread the one from the Colorado game.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - JeffInCorvallis - 11-12-2023
According to the box score running backs had 5 carries for 9 yards. Taylor has given up on this bunch. Is Filkins still injured?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - JohnR34231 - 11-12-2023
Yeah, we are tough to predict this year.
We come within a few bounces of the ball of defeating the #5 team in the nation, and then we beat a team on their home field that we had compiled a six game losing streak to.
So maybe we have started to turn the corner, right?
Nope, we get curb stomped by a very good team, but certainly not better than the #5 team (I guess we will find out next week).
So how will we do against Kal? Who knows?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - Goose - 11-12-2023
(11-12-2023, 02:16 PM)JohnR34231 Wrote: Yeah, we are tough to predict this year.IMO the "key" to next week is whether Ott is injured or not. If he is "full go", Stanford is in a lot of trouble. If Kal can run and we cannot, our offense simply isn't good enough to beat them. Of course, Wilcox could do something stupid and not utilize Ott aggressively :-).
We come within a few bounces of the ball of defeating the #5 team in the nation, and then we beat a team on their home field that we had compiled a six game losing streak to.
So maybe we have started to turn the corner, right?
Nope, we get curb stomped by a very good team, but certainly not better than the #5 team (I guess we will find out next week).
So how will we do against Kal? Who knows?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - SamuelMcF - 11-12-2023
(11-12-2023, 02:13 PM)JeffInCorvallis Wrote: According to the box score running backs had 5 carries for 9 yards. Taylor has given up on this bunch. Is Filkins still injured?
Yes
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - msqueri - 11-12-2023
(11-12-2023, 02:13 PM)JeffInCorvallis Wrote: According to the box score running backs had 5 carries for 9 yards. Taylor has given up on this bunch. Is Filkins still injured?
Taylor has indeed given up on this bunch, though it's been that way for a while. RB carries by game:
Hawaii - 19
USC - 15
Sacramento State - 26
Arizona - 11
Oregon - 19
Colorado - 8
UCLA - 7
Washington - 12
Washington State - 4
Oregon State - 5
Running backs are excluded from the operation of the offense to a very startling degree. I think it's pretty clear, as you say, that Taylor has given up on this bunch. It may be because he doesn't trust them, because he doesn't trust their availability and reliability (and, indeed, Filkins has again shown himself to not be reliably available), because he wants to focus on the future-looking aspects of the offense, because his version of training wheels/running out the clock on this season prioritizes QB runs, because he thinks young and inexperienced linemen are better suited to pass blocking than run blocking, or some combination. Almost certainly some combination. Whatever the cause, we know RBs are not a prioritized part of this team.
It will be very interesting next season when the room almost entirely turns over, with what I expect to be several cases of attrition and several new scholarship backs. Just like Ayomanor, Bachmeier, and now Harris as new receiving weapons has been one of the most interesting stories of this season, I suspect Davis, Tabb, and Ford vying for carries will be one of the most interesting stories next season. On paper our RB class does not look standout, but they're credible enough for it to be pretty intriguing.
The big question for the team in this regard, though, will be whether we can expect run blocking to improve next season. Too early to opine on that until we know who is back, particularly Rogers.
(11-12-2023, 02:16 PM)JohnR34231 Wrote: Yeah, we are tough to predict this year.
We come within a few bounces of the ball of defeating the #5 team in the nation, and then we beat a team on their home field that we had compiled a six game losing streak to.
So maybe we have started to turn the corner, right?
Nope, we get curb stomped by a very good team, but certainly not better than the #5 team (I guess we will find out next week).
So how will we do against Kal? Who knows?
Actually, on paper playing at Oregon State is tougher than playing Washington at home. Heading into yesterday Sagarin would have expected Stanford to lose to Washington by 19.5 in Palo Alto and to lose to Oregon State by 19.99 in Corvallis. Essentially equal challenges, but the Beavers slightly tougher. If this is counter-intuitive to you, in addition to factoring in home field advantage keep in mind that in reality Washington is definitely not the fifth best team in the nation. Heading into the weekend, Sagarin says #14, FEI says #9, and SP+ says #9.
In terms of how we will do against Cal, I don't think it's that mysterious how we are likely to do. With the normal caveat of how things can go lots of ways on any given Saturday, this Stanford team has been mostly execrable against the very good teams, but at teams below that level we have been much more consistent. We have played four teams that are legitimate Power Five teams but not what I'd characterize as very good (the top 20 kind of teams) and in those games we've lost by 1 (Arizona), won by 3 (Colorado), lost by 35 (UCLA), and won by 3 (Washington State). There is of course the possibility we will lay a stinker like we did against UCLA, but Cal is a much worse/less stressful of an opponent. Cal is most comparable, actually, to Colorado and Washington State, both of which we beat. I think Cal should be very nervous to play us. We should be very live dogs in this one and it is likely to be a very close game.
(11-12-2023, 02:28 PM)Goose Wrote:(11-12-2023, 02:16 PM)JohnR34231 Wrote: Yeah, we are tough to predict this year.IMO the "key" to next week is whether Ott is injured or not. If he is "full go", Stanford is in a lot of trouble. If Kal can run and we cannot, our offense simply isn't good enough to beat them. Of course, Wilcox could do something stupid and not utilize Ott aggressively :-).
We come within a few bounces of the ball of defeating the #5 team in the nation, and then we beat a team on their home field that we had compiled a six game losing streak to.
So maybe we have started to turn the corner, right?
Nope, we get curb stomped by a very good team, but certainly not better than the #5 team (I guess we will find out next week).
So how will we do against Kal? Who knows?
We are definitely good enough to beat Cal. That doesn't mean we necessarily will but Cal is super mediocre. Their only Pac-12 wins are beating cellar dweller Arizona State by 3 at Cal and beating free falling (six straight losses) Washington State by 3 at Cal. I'd probably favor Cal barely in close to a pick 'em for the Big Game. This is two pretty crappy teams by Power Five standards. We have a very solid shot.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - drnoodleman - 11-12-2023
As many have observed in the past this game again demonstrates the deficiencies in our OL and DL lines. Recruiting 17-18 year olds to man these positions is noble: the fact remans that we need seasoned "men, not boys" in the trenches to sustain a running game and to stop the opponents' running game which means reaching into the portal to find "these men" which is not what I am in favor of but I do not see any other alternative even with an effective S&C program.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - French Rage - 11-12-2023
The good news is we got the "didn't even try" game out of this week so we'll be back to "relatively competent" next week in time for Big Game.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - chrisk - 11-12-2023
Patu has at least 2 years of eligibility regardless of how much he plays this year.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - murky - 11-12-2023
(11-12-2023, 01:10 PM)msqueri Wrote: ...
6. This gets to the thing that must irritated me about Taylor's decision-making yesterday: the abject refusal to give Patu or Jackson a chance to show what they can do. I find it inexcusable to play an injured QB1 deep in a blowout and I say that even knowing if I had had my way that would have likely meant no Daniels to Ayomanor bomb, so in a sense Taylor got a bit validated by the turn of events. But in the grand scheme that touchdown doesn't mean much and we already have had a lot of opportunity to see Daniels and his strengths and weaknesses. We've also seen enough to know Lamson isn't a Power Five QB. There is clearly no desire to see what Patu or Jackson can do if we aren't even going to play them in a game like this. I think it defies credulity if anybody thinks this says something about how bad those guys are if Taylor won't play them. We've seen Patu, two years ago, and it seemed quite plausible then that he is better than what Lamson has shown, to say nothing of any growth Patu has been able to muster under Taylor's tutelage. Lamson is #130 of 134 QBs in Total QBR, the dead last Power Five QB (Daniels is #78). You're telling me there's no chance either of the other guys could be better? I don't buy it. Seeing the depth of our unwillingness to go down the depth chart made me entertain a thought that maybe at Patu's request this year is being chalked up as a possible medical redshirt in the hopes of petitioning for a sixth year of eligibility at a transfer destination....but Taylor claims Patu got in for a few plays (was this as a receiver/continuation of the aforementioned silliness?). As for Jackson, maybe he's not ready.....but is Braden Marceau-Olayinka ready? Certainly not, yet BMO got to play on both defense and special teams. I think it's unfortunate Taylor has only given himself looks at two QBs this season. To me, Occam's Razor is one of two possibilities. First, as I've observed previously, Taylor goes into the bench in crunch time much less than April does so there could be a philosophical thing here whereby Taylor wants to play starters to the whistle and/or stubbornly stick by his evaluations and not give the bench a shot. Second, Taylor only wants looks at the two QBs and any utility shown by the others would only muddy the waters going forward. We want Patu to transfer and we don't want Jackson to block Elijah Brown, so QB3 and QB4 get a raw deal. As with so many things this season, we are running out the clock on the season and Lamson is the way to do it. I get the logic and Taylor could be making the right call, but to me QB is such a critical position that the upside of finding out if Patu or Jackson could be surprisingly better than the preferred options should carry the day.
...
I would like to see Patu. It seemed like he could throw in the brief time I'd seen him before.
But perhaps an alternative reason for Taylor's reluctance to play him is that he isn't getting the snaps in practice and isn't close to being ready/able to survive with the protection and game plan that we have.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Oregon State - SamuelMcF - 11-13-2023
(11-12-2023, 06:26 PM)drnoodleman Wrote: As many have observed in the past this game again demonstrates the deficiencies in our OL and DL lines. Recruiting 17-18 year olds to man these positions is noble: the fact remans that we need seasoned "men, not boys" in the trenches to sustain a running game and to stop the opponents' running game which means reaching into the portal to find "these men" which is not what I am in favor of but I do not see any other alternative even with an effective S&C program.
The alternative is to wait 3 years.