Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - Printable Version
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Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - msqueri - 11-19-2023
1. That was simultaneously a disappointing game yet also one totally typical of our season. It was disappointing because it was a winnable game that we didn't win (or even come all that close due to the frequency of getting in our own way), ostensibly our biggest rivalry game of the year yet one where we didn't come out with much fire outside a few notable performances, and our last real chance at a home win. [We are the only team in FBS not to have a home win this season. In the last 1,485 days we have won three games at home (one against very lowly Colgate). Nobody gets to enjoy home football games less than Stanford fans.] It was typical because this is how we typically play. That was our median performance of the season, a performance befitting our quality as a team. [With Sagarin now updated, the final results of our games this season have been befitting the #77 (at Hawaii), #209 (at USC), #184 (Sacramento State), #35 (Arizona), #135 (Oregon), #49 (at Colorado), #193 (UCLA), #40 (Washington), #26 (at Washington State), #193 (at Oregon State), and #125 (Cal) teams in the nation.] We are who we thought we were. At the same time, I do think we're seeing enough to put this team ahead of the 1960, 1983, and 2006 teams, and that wasn't a guarantee given how bad the roster is. We're treading water while we wait for some life rafts.
2. We have been modestly competitive this season against middling teams and that was again the case yesterday. The game could have gone differently were it not for the jaw-dropping amount of penalties (100 yards!) or if a few close officiating calls on massive momentum swingers went the other way. Alas, the penalty-prone Stanford team is not an anomaly. We are an extremely undisciplined team, 115th in penalty yards per game. This is the second game this season with 100 penalty yards and the fifth time with 8+ penalties. Shaw had 100+ penalty yards four times in 12 years. We shouldn't be obsessed with avoiding penalties nor should we play timidly, but it's time to acknowledge that against Sacramento State, UCLA, Washington, and Cal, penalties played a big role in losing and/or letting the game get out of control. I really do think Stanford could have been in this game with even just an average number of penalties. I don't want to dwell on that, though, because Cal was the better team and our performance was typical for us in many respects.
3. The best thing about this game for us (aside from our All-American of course) was some defensive fight. Cal's 2.45 points per non-garbage drive made the #52 offense in the country look like the #43 offense. Cal is the seventh best offense we've played in 11 games and, predictably, we did better against them than we have typically done this season. We also did slightly better on a yards per play basis than most teams do against Cal's offense, the fifth best defensive performance against them and below their average yards per play on the year (and well below our average allowed, but again that also has to do with Cal being a mediocre offense by our schedule's standards). This was our best defensive performance since the Washington game.
4. There was much less to like on offense. Our 1.36 points per non-garbage drive made the #124 defense in the country look like the #9 defense. Cal is fighting it out with Colorado and USC for the worst scoring defense on our schedule so being held to 15 points is profoundly pathetic and when you consider that nine of them were impressive kicks by our All-American that is really a horrendous offensive game. We have played six defenses better than Cal on a yards per play basis on the season yet only three defenses have stifled us worse than this in terms of yards per play. Bad offensive game.
5. The biggest unit-wide bright spot was one we've seen several times this season, run defense, which had been trending upward before getting mauled by Oregon State and yesterday bounced back very nicely. Most observers will miss this given Ott's extremely workmanlike game (36 carries) but we kept him over a yard per carry below his average, Cal as a team 1.31 yards below their average, and were more stifling on a yard per carry basis than anybody they've played other than Auburn and Utah. Very good run defense performance when taking the opponent into account. We aren't good enough to play with bullies like Oregon State, but against good but not great run games we can hold our own. That is not true for pass defense. This was one of Cal's most successful passing games of the season (second best passer rating, tied for second best yards per attempt, third most yards). We already knew we were one of the worst pass defenses in the nation and I think yesterday said as much about Cal as it did about us. Cal's two best passer ratings have been the last two weeks and I think the real story is they have found their QB (more so than we have). Mendoza is #65 in the nation in Total QBR and #61 in PFF while Daniels is #86 and #102 in those metrics.
6. Speaking of those metrics, for the second straight week there is fundamental difference between the two on whether Daniels played well. Interestingly, against Oregon State Total QBR liked Daniels and PFF nuked him while against Cal it was the reverse. Total QBR had his performance #120 or 131 QBs nationally this week while PFF thought it was the best game of his career. I don't know what to make of this other than to try to look holistically at the various measures, which continues to give us a picture of a below average QB who isn't horrible. I don't think that is enough to hold off a QB competition next year. Indeed, anybody who wanted Daniels to seize the starting role and demonstrate improvement over the course of the season has to be disappointed with his November. This was our third straight game with a passer rating among the worst in the nation. That's even more sobering considering Cal has an awful pass defense (#110 in passer rating allowed, #102 in yards per attempt allowed) and we let them hold us under our passing norms in every respect. We had the dead last lowest yards per attempt anybody has had against them and barely edged out Idaho in passer rating. I assume this can at least partly be explained by Daniels playing less than 100 percent health-wise, but this was really bad.
7. Our run game continues to be focused around QB runs. It's interesting that in a game Lamson barely played we had our highest yards per carry in the last eight games, despite Cal being an average run defense (better than Washington, Washington State, and Colorado). I am torn on whether this is an indictment of Lamson's importance (clearly he gives an important dimension on high leverage short yardage runs but it's interesting we had some relative success on the ground without having to switch up QBs) or the fact that the offense particularly stunk means we missed Lamson out there. It was a jarring pendulum shift in game planning/QB usage that a week ago we played a third of our plays with both of them in the game together and then yesterday we barely played Lamson. As much as anything this may speak to Taylor tinkering and adjusting game plans to try to squeeze blood out of this turnip. I respect the effort to see what sticks but proof is in the pudding and three weeks in a row the pudding hasn't lifted. Looking back at our season it is becoming clearer that the second half of the season has been really ugly offensively outside of Ayomanor's brilliance. I'm starting to get somewhat concerned by the theory of the case for the offense improving.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - msqueri - 11-19-2023
8. The theory of the case for either side of the ball improving hinges, of course, on getting better players. This wasn't a good game for our promising receiving corps, though the Daniels to Bachmeier long touchdown was a thing of beauty and I think we have seen enough from Ayomanor and Bachmeier to be more bullish about the receiving corps next year than we were heading into this year. I still don't think Roush has shown enough to be a stud TE in our tradition, but he's definitely showing something and yesterday was the best game of his career. [This week's moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Roush (3), Ayomanor (3), Daniels (2), Bachmeier, Farrell, Smith, Lamson] On the offensive line, it might not be a coincidence that a good yards per carry game for us coincided with Pale's return. We probably haven't talked enough about the impact Pale's injuries had on the run game this year. The coaches appear to be right Pale has a real affinity for run blocking. Considering the critical importance of old man strength in run blocking, I find it pretty astounding for the second best run blocking grade on our roster to be a true freshman. Among the 69 Pac-12 linemen with the most snaps this season, Pale is #24 in run blocking. We have a road grader in training. I don't want to overstate this as he only had two games really standing out in run blocking (USC and Cal) and pass blocking is a massive liability (#67 of 69) but it's a potential silver lining in a season without many. But back to the theory of the case thing, I do wonder about how we are going to realize improved offensive line play anytime. The worst development for me this week was not anything that happened yesterday but rather Taylor and McLaughlin comments at the Tuesday press conference that give me the strong impression our culture remains conflating graduating from Stanford with a college football career. I don't see how this gets better if guys like Rogers and McLaughlin leave, we burn redshirts for promising OL Pale and Baklenko, and we don't upgrade our OL recruiting. Very nervous about the state of OL play at Stanford for the foreseeable future.
9. On defense, the story of the game was Sinclair's inspired if complicated Big Game performance. It was inspired in obvious ways - around the ball and closer to the line of scrimmage than he practically ever has been (and in fact getting tackles behind the line of scrimmage a few times), laying the wood on game-changing (it turned out for the worse but easily could have gone the other way) hits - and complicated in equally obvious ways, with PFF continuing to not like the overall player and the personal foul penalties being killers. On balance I appreciated the performance. We need fire and effort, as well as productivity, and he gave all three. In less than two thirds of a game I counted eight positive box score plays and he was split seconds/referee discretion away from two game-changing forced fumbles. On the other hand, his personal fouls were arguably the biggest things in the entire game that cost us the win. I really feel for him on those, though. All three were questionable calls. I didn't find them egregious calls, but they were questionable and it's a really tough break for him to have his effort and impact marred by all three calls going against him, especially the most pivotal play of the game, the awesome hit and forced fumble that was called for targeting and will cost him at least half of what could be the last game of his career. Really feel for him. Related to Sinclair's performance, I think it's really notable that our ILBs are coming into their own. Sinclair and Bernadel both made a lot of plays against UCLA, Washington State, and Cal, and Jorgensen did against Oregon State and Cal. All of a sudden, after years of ineptitude at this position, we are starting to see plays made by ILBs near the line of scrimmage. Big development. It's not yet consistent quality but it's visible improvement in seeing the personality of the defense come to life and result in actual production. Elsewhere on defense, Wright, Tafiti, and Franklin are somewhat uneven but make plays and I think can be built around. Our safeties seem somewhat interchangeable in terms of aiding the run defense and I mean that as a compliment. Frausto-Ramos battled and made a few plays but he was the big negative for me. That Trond guy really exposed JFR (though the long touchdown was on Porter, who otherwise had a solid day). Trond Grizzell had five first downs against JFR. The last time a Stanford player gave up five first downs was Mangum-Farrar in the second game of the season last year against USC. The last time a single opposing receiver victimized a Stanford corner like this was back when the Pirate roamed the conference and Dezmon Patmon worked Alijah Holder in the 2018 Wazzu game, but Patmon was a top 10 receiver in the Pac-12 whereas Grizzell isn't quite top 20 at the moment. This struck me as a rough game in a rough year for JFR. I must say, though, that PFF actually thought it was his second best game of his career, so some of the volume of getting beat may be a function of the big uptick in snaps to now be one of our most key defenders.
10. We let Karty eat! The All-American made field goals of 44, 53, and 50, and they were low stress things of beauty too. He is now 10th in the nation in made field goals per game and among the top guys only Miami of Ohio's Graham Nicholson, UNLV's Jose Pizano, and North Carolina's Noah Burnette have a higher percentage. But Nicholson and Pizano only have one 50+ yarder and Burnette has zero, while Karty now has three, matching his total from last season. Karty is now tied for seventh in the nation on 50+ yarders. Yesterday puts Karty squarely back in the Groza hunt, right there with guys like Miami's Andres Borregales, Alabama's Will Reichard, Missouri's Harrison Mevis, and Texas A&M's Randy Bond. I say this is what we're playing for against Notre Dame, give Karty more chances to do his thing. It will be a shame if the many decisions to take the ball away from Karty's foot this season deprive him of the Groza. Going to miss this guy. Flintoft didn't dominate like Karty but it was a pretty good game, nets of 47 to the 22, 31 to the 12, 44 to the 25, 53 to the 22 (49 without the muff), 47 to the 29, and 41 to the 33. I think Flintoft's season (middle of the pack in overall average, a bit above average in PFF grade) is really nice for a true freshman punter. In the return guy, my anti-guy Farrell muffed a punt and got lucky it didn't cost us possession. Grrr. But he did have a 16 yard return.
11. Sam Roush, Tristan Sinclair, Joshua Karty, Mark D'Onofrio
12. We are almost there in getting to turn the page on this season and start getting back to work in earnest on the recruiting, roster construction, culture building, and strength and conditioning that will determine whether this rebuild works out. You have to play the games but if we're being honest this fall is one Taylor just needs to get through and never offered much hope of winning or excitement. That we've gotten a modicum of both and that we've had young receivers show out and signs of life in run defense has made this bearable, but the real season starts in a week. Not much upside in playing the #5 schedule in the nation (and maybe that goes up as we're about to play arguably the second best team on our schedule) with a hollowed out roster. I don't expect next week will be competitive but I'm excited for Taylor to get back in the lab and his assistants back on the trail.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - Goose - 11-19-2023
As always, I enjoyed your thoughts. Thanks for doing this
(11-19-2023, 03:00 PM)msqueri Wrote: <snip>I wonder about his on-field conduct. The first penalty he got on the Manley interception was a hit that simply didn't need to be made. It was way downfield from the play and just didn't matter. IMO it was borderline dirty. I think he also complained about the call. From then on, the refs were going to watch him carefully (or be out to get him, take your pick). He needed to understand that and not give them an excuse. He has enough experience he should understand that. He did the opposite. That seems to be a far too common trait in this years team. You need to play with passion while NOT doing anything stupid. Too many times, we have see the latter.
9. On defense, the story of the game was Sinclair's inspired if complicated Big Game performance. It was inspired in obvious ways - around the ball and closer to the line of scrimmage than he practically ever has been (and in fact getting tackles behind the line of scrimmage a few times), laying the wood on game-changing (it turned out for the worse but easily could have gone the other way) hits - and complicated in equally obvious ways, with PFF continuing to not like the overall player and the personal foul penalties being killers. On balance I appreciated the performance. We need fire and effort, as well as productivity, and he gave all three. In less than two thirds of a game I counted eight positive box score plays and he was split seconds/referee discretion away from two game-changing forced fumbles. On the other hand, his personal fouls were arguably the biggest things in the entire game that cost us the win. I really feel for him on those, though. All three were questionable calls. I didn't find them egregious calls, but they were questionable and it's a really tough break for him to have his effort and impact marred by all three calls going against him, especially the most pivotal play of the game, the awesome hit and forced fumble that was called for targeting and will cost him at least half of what could be the last game of his career.
Quote:<snip>Agree. It is far too soon to know what the future holds. Going forward, it is obvious Stanford needs better players and also needs to hold on to the "better" ones we have. Everyone knows it isn't going to simple or easy. We all need to take a breath and see what unfolds. Next year, with the change in conference alone, "everything will be different". Not necessarily better, but different :-). Let's hope TT et al have success.
12. We are almost there in getting to turn the page on this season and start getting back to work in earnest on the recruiting, roster construction, culture building, and strength and conditioning that will determine whether this rebuild works out. You have to play the games but if we're being honest this fall is one Taylor just needs to get through and never offered much hope of winning or excitement. That we've gotten a modicum of both and that we've had young receivers show out and signs of life in run defense has made this bearable, but the real season starts in a week. Not much upside in playing the #5 schedule in the nation (and maybe that goes up as we're about to play arguably the second best team on our schedule) with a hollowed out roster. I don't expect next week will be competitive but I'm excited for Taylor to get back in the lab and his assistants back on the trail.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - drnoodleman - 11-19-2023
On another note regarding our offensive woes, our 2 offensive transfer recruits from the portal, Lamson and Butler together, to date, have accumulated a net of 793 yards rushing and passing.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - old spanish trail - 11-19-2023
Thanks alot, Square. Re Sinclair, I thought the late hit call was unfortunate. Looked to me like Sinclair thought Manley was running it back and the whistle didn't blow until the block was being made.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Big Game - Goose - 11-19-2023
For those of you that want to take a closer look at the Manley interception play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0zBr3Vk4Qw
Look at the time period from 10:51 to 10:40. Stanford's #40, Phillips is right there. He thought about hitting Mendoza and decided not to do it. #8 Sinclair comes running up and hits him, not very hard, but totally uncalled for. Mendoza is backing up. Even if Manley was still running and got that far, Mendoza had no shot at tackling anybody with two Stanford players right there. It is also right in front of an official. IMO Sinclair thought it was an opportunity to take a free shot at the opposing QB and did so. If an official is watching, you will get penalized ever time. It is true that Mendoza "sold" the call, but the action was so far outside what was called for it was an easy sell. This all happened so far off the ball that it isn't even in the camera field of most of the "highlight" videos.
The targeting call can be viewed from 14:55 onward. IMO it was a legit call. Sinclair lead with his head. Got Mendoza right below or in the facemask. Can't do it.
The first penalty is at 4:00 in the video. The QB slides. You can't hit him if he does that. Both Stanford players were late. They didn't try to pull up or avoid the hit. It is not a case when they were already committed to make the hit and had no choice. IMO the penalty could equally have been called on #10, Spencer Jorgensen (I think).