Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - Printable Version
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Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-20-2024
1. The season remains an unmitigated disaster even with a new QB. If anything the offense looked the worst it has yet. Just imagine a game in which SMU hadn't coughed the ball up to us three times, committed a whopping 10 penalties for 100 yards, missed a field goal, dropped an interception that hit the linebacker in the hands, and benched their star running back the entire first half for discipline. As it stood, SMU played a thoroughly mediocre (maybe even bad) game by their standards and it was still the uncompetitive rout that it was, the fourth game in a row in which we've lost by 24 points or more. It's the most an FBS opponent has lost to SMU by this season and we again played so poorly that there were ages of garbage time, in this case fourteen minutes and five seconds after Brown sealed the game for SMU with his second interception. We are now a miserable contender-for-worst-team-in-Stanford-history, #103 in Sagarin and #92 in SP+, after being #101 and #108 last year. Stringing together Taylor's first 19 games, his first year had games befitting the #59, #205, #182, #19, #126, #37, #200, #34, #23, #203, #120, and #138 teams in the nation and his second year has so far had games befitting the #88, #59, #28, #104, #153, #167, and #163 teams in the nation. I defy anybody to look at that and tell me how we are building, much less improving. We ended on a bad skid last year but even that wasn't as bad as these last 3-4 games, nor was the pitiful end of Shaw's tenure (games befitting #135, #212, #138, #88, and #111). You have to go all the way back to Harris' one win 2006 season for the best comparison to what we're seeing: Harris got fired after just his second season after turning in performances befitting #187, #58, #172, #155, #156, #90, #107, #179, #144, #6, #121, and #22. If Taylor doesn't dramatically turn this around soon he should suffer the same fate. Show us something, coach.
2. That was one of the worst offensive performances you will ever see. Stanford had 0.77 points per non-garbage drive, making the #51 points per drive defense look like the #2 points per drive defense. Amazingly, that stat is super unfair to the SMU defense because the final score vastly overstates the Brown-led offense's effectiveness thanks to the gifts of field position provided by the turnovers and aforementioned SMU penalties. Our scoring drives gained a total of 19 yards. 19 yards. On all the scoring drives combined. The only thing that got us on the board at all were SMU miscues giving us gifts. Even Houston Christian (a worse team than Cal Poly, for context) edged us out in terms of yards per play against this year's SMU team. Databases only go back so far and I had to manually look at a lot of box scores to unearth this horrifying tidbit: I believe last night is the first time in the 18 years of Harbaugh-Shaw-Taylor football that we have been held under three yards per play. The last game this incompetent on offense was Walt Harris against Arizona State. I believe that is 223 games of Stanford football since an offense moved the ball that ineptly. That is especially discouraging because it comes as we give the reins to the ballyhooed QB people were hoping would change everything and because we weren't facing the 1985 Chicago Bears out there. SMU is now Defensive SP+ #30, a good defense but not great, much less hold a Power Four team to three yards per play great. This was an abomination by the offense.
3. The defense did more to pull its weight, as has usually been the case this season. They gave up 2.82 points per non-garbage drive, which made the #23 points per drive offense look like the #31 points per drive offense - hey, not bad at all! Yards per play looked much worse for the defense, almost identical to what Houston Christian gave up, but it wasn't as historically bad as the offense was - four games last year gave up more yards per play and we basically get sliced and diced like this annually in the last six year dark ages stretch, plus SMU's last game against Louisville also featured super potent offense. Our defense did better than our offense and had much more of an excuse against the SP+ #13 offense. Moreover, the defense had numerous gut checks in which it made life stressful for the SMU offense or even forced failures, and the numbers would have looked a lot better without the eventual touchdown drive-extending phantom roughing the passer penalty.
4. As you can guess (or as your eyes saw) from a game with such miserable offensive stats, it was a comprehensive disaster on that side of the ball. We converted on two of 15 third downs. We had less than a yard per carry rushing, the first time that has happened since the Utah atrocity near the end of Shaw's tenure and the first time this season we have been held under 113 yards rushing (much under, 33 yards, the second lowest of Taylor's tenure). SMU had a lot to say about that as they have a phenomenal run defense (now third in the nation in yards per carry allowed) but not as much as we made it look like. We had the lowest yards and yards per carry of anybody they've played, including, yes, Houston Christian. This was awful run blocking and run game. The offense loses a ton in the running dimension going from Daniels to Brown, so Brown needs to compensate for that with his passing, which didn't happen yesterday. In fact, the commonality for the offense regardless of which of our three QBs is playing is that we've been insanely consistent (in a very bad way) as a passing offense, in the 4.6-4.9 yards per attempt range every single game against an FBS opponent. This game at 4.7 yards per attempt fit right in that range, while the passer rating was the lowest we've had all season. SMU has a pretty good pass defense but a lot worse than Notre Dame. This was clearly yet another failure for the passing game, worse even than the much-maligned Florida State passing game did against SMU.
5. These are of course very sobering things to observe when we are talking about the game in which the QB reins got handed over to Brown. Can't really sugarcoat this performance. The offense was as bad as it's been in 18 years and if we're going to keep it real QB play remains the most glaring weak link. Sometimes Total QBR and PFF disagree but this time they were in depressing unity. Brown was 110th of 121 quarterbacks nationally this week in Total QBR (a worse rating than Daniels has had in any game this season other than TCU) and PFF also thought he had our worst game yesterday. Here's to hoping that the hand is still on the mend and he was knocking a lot of rust off (both reasonable hopes). What I'm not here for is people to say eye test showed something good in his play. That was not a good game. The best that can be said for it is that execution errors by others (especially Mosley) made it look worse than it was, but even then Brown had major errors he was bailed out on by opponent miscues or officiating, so on balance the ugly metrics and grades accurately reflect his play unfortunately. One of the worst parts about the game was that we let a team that does not sack the QB much normally (1.67 sacks per game prior to us, ten on the season in the other six games combined) get six sacks. Louisville, which gave up three, is the only other FBS team to give up more than one. Sacks are partly a QB sack so this is an ignominious way for Brown to start his career.
6. The big question in folks' minds (asked but understandably not answered in the post-game press conference) is whether Brown is the new QB1. I am not positive that would help the team based on what we saw yesterday, but given Daniels' play this season I wouldn't miss seeing it. I agree with Taylor that Brown can play better than he did yesterday (and we all can see that Mosley did Brown no favors at all). I am basically agnostic whether the Wake Forest start goes to Daniels or Brown or is a game plan to play both. My guess is it's Brown, but Taylor has surprised me before. Regardless, I kept thinking last night that facing a College Football Playoff aspirant with a super balanced team that was coming off a bye, with our upcoming opponents being scrubs by comparison, was a rough place to give Brown, coming off a hand injury and on the aggressive end of the recovery timeline, his first major college football action. I'm not sure that set Brown up for success. I think maybe Taylor was so desperate for a change at QB given what we've seen that he was over-eager to see what Brown could do once we fell down 21-0, not to mention that making the change at that point makes it easier to answer QB controversy questions as a 21-0 deficit is an easy-to-defend place to make a change. On the other hand, maybe getting this rust off materially improves Brown's chances to play at a level that delivers a win next week. Ultimately I put the QB management in this game squarely in judgment call territory. As with so much else, Taylor needs to be judged by results. So far so disastrous, but let's see what QB play looks like against the weak part of the schedule.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-20-2024
7. The defense took its lumps but given the opponent, injuries in the secondary, and total lack of help from the offense, I am reasonably proud of the defensive effort. Notably, the run defense kept its streak going of doing better than the opposing run game's norm (though this one was close, 4.71 vs. 4.82 yards per carry, and perhaps Breshard Smith being benched for the first half should give this one a big asterisk). It continues to appear we have a solid and maybe even quite good run defense. We are now #61 in yards per carry allowed but considering who we have played that is very impressive and the stats should look a lot better after we play bad rushing teams Wake Forest and San Jose State and terrible rushing teams NC State and Cal. For the pass defense, 11.9 yards per attempts and a 192.40 passer rating are obviously gargantuan numbers to give up, the yards per attempt the most we have given up in over two years. But I don't view this as a defense-wide failing as it was the fault of one unfortunate soul more than practically ever see at this level. Also, Jennings is good - top 14 percent of Total QBR on the season - so us making him play like a top 29 percent QB in Total QBR is not bad.
8. That is especially the case when you consider that almost all of the biggest success SMU had yesterday was picking on a true freshman benchwarmer forced into duty against one of the better QBs in the nation. Cam Richardson was a lamb being fed to the wolves. That was tough to watch. Thoughts with Richardson right now. Taylor referenced in the post-game press conference better health ahead for the defense, so we have to hope that Manley and/or Morris (I really hope Manley) is back soon. Take out Richardson's first quarter and this game was a nice showing by the defense. We had a modest six players show up in the box score with multiple positive plays (Leigber, Sinclair, Frausto-Ramos, Bailey, Bernadel, Cooper) and Bernadel and Cooper only got there with garbage time but there was grit throughout, especially considering the limitations and scoreboard adversity. Bailey, whose pass rush forced two punts, is clearly our best player and hopefully his 41 snaps in this game is an indication that health really was limiting him in recent weeks and we will be able to benefit from his havoc in the coming weeks. He is now 57th in the nation in sacks after being 74th last year, the only Cardinal player to make the national leaderboard in the last half decade (before that Toohill 34th in 2019, Phillips 79th in 2017 and 70th in 2016, Thomas 47th in 2016). I am very encouraged that Frausto-Ramos followed up his excellent game last week with a good game yesterday, contributing a few stops that prevented the chains from moving and going back to back on sacks with Staples to push SMU far enough back to miss a field goal (continue to like what Staples is showing for this stage of his career). Three sacks for the defense is nice work against Jennings as SMU typically does a pretty good job keeping QBs clean. But to me the performance to most shout out from yesterday was Leigber. We really needed him to step up with so much of the secondary injured and he delivered, giving us our biggest play of the day on the interception (with major credit to Sinclair for pressuring the bad decision) and multiple third down stops, one of which forced a punt. These contributions were all prior to garbage time and were much appreciated.
9. Similar shout out to Sam Roush for stepping up. I have not been a fan of his play but he helped us yesterday and the offensive performance would have been even worse than it was without him and Ayomanor being the only people we could trust to move the chains. [Moving the chains (first down) leader board: Roush (4), Ayomanor (4), Ford (3), Daniels, Bachmeier] I especially liked the yards-after-catch and effort Roush showed. We need some fire all over the place in a season in danger of a morale implosion so getting it from a guy who has frankly struggled was nice to see. Conversely, Mosley really hurt us yesterday. I hope he bounces back soon. So far it's been a lot of hype and a lot of frustration. His fourth down drop ruined what was shaping up as by far our best drive of the game (a catch would have been our fourth first down of the drive) and almost certainly took points off the board, capping off a rough game for him. For the offensive line, by my naked eye and the commentary of the announcers (by the way, totally moronic, as bad as I have seen in major college football in a while) it seemed to be a mismatch, men against boys, etc. In PFF's view, Maikkula, House, Leyrer, Baklenko, and Pale graded in that order but all sub-par and none disastrous. Five sub-par OL explains pretty quickly the struggles we continue to see. I continue to really struggle to see the theory of the case for how this OL ever becomes good. I hope after this year we abandon hope in the current model and dedicate ourselves to building OL via the transfer portal.
10. Special teams helped us quite a bit, obviously, given the turnovers in the punt phase. Not sure how much of that skill and how much is luck but I'll always take takeaways. Flintoft had a very busy night, with net punts of 14 to our own 49 (obviously a disaster but he may have done well to not have it blocked given how poorly we blocked the rush), 38 to the 7 (very good), 29 to the 45 (first of several odd results defined by muffs and what ensued), 35 to the 45 were it not for the muff (would have been very bad without the muff but with it a great result), 41 to the 6 (very good), 48 to the 20 (solid), 40 to the 36 were it not for the forced fumble (would have been meh were it not for the forced fumble but with it a great result), and 40 to the 20 (pretty bad from that part of the field. A question I'd have for special teams cognoscenti is whether all the drama in this phase was to our credit/game planning/execution or more akin to luck. Is it good that punts were coming down 35-40 yards downfield and resulting in screw-ups or did we just get lucky? Regardless, what I do know is Dubre put on massive hits on both kick coverage and punt coverage, the latter resulting in a fumble and key turnover. That was certainly good, and also shout out to Sinclair for recovering that one and Bernadel for recovering the one that was a pure muff. Also noteworthy was Nicholson making multiple coverage tackles on special teams. In the kicking game, not much opportunity for Kenney but he made the 42 yard field goal he attempted. Don't know if Kasemervisz or anybody else did anything wrong, but field position at the 30 after an unnecessary roughness post-touchdown penalty was mildly disappointing.
11. Game balls: Roush, Leigber, Dubre, Gregory
12. The season isn't over yet. We just finished a streak playing, in succession, the #55, #13, #28, #5, and #16 teams and are now going to play, in succession, the #88, #75, #26, #57, and #93 teams. It gets so much easier from here. Let's see if the team, including possibly with a new QB1, can do something with that. We can still make this season a success if we win three of the last five games. That would be a trajectory I think we could sell and that would give the team some credible internal and public-facing sense of momentum. More likely is something less successful than that. But I do think there has to be some success in the remaining weeks. Taylor says all the right things about our players being the most resilient and resourceful he's ever been around, but everybody has a limit. At some point they will lose belief in themselves, each other, and their coaches. Frankly, the way they have played the last months fans could be forgiven for wondering if that point has already arrived. This coaching staff needs to start showing us results that banish those dark thoughts. Wake Forest at home is the best time to do it as it may be our easiest game the rest of the season. I don't think it's too dramatic to call this a must win.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - MV72018 - 10-20-2024
(10-20-2024, 12:43 PM)msqueri Wrote: 1. The season remains an unmitigated disaster even with a new QB. If anything the offense looked the worst it has yet. Just imagine a game in which SMU hadn't coughed the ball up to us three times, committed a whopping 10 penalties for 100 yards, missed a field goal, dropped an interception that hit the linebacker in the hands, and benched their star running back the entire first half for discipline. As it stood, SMU played a thoroughly mediocre (maybe even bad) game by their standards and it was still the uncompetitive rout that it was, the fourth game in a row in which we've lost by 24 points or more. It's the most an FBS opponent has lost to SMU by this season and we again played so poorly that there were ages of garbage time, in this case fourteen minutes and five seconds after Brown sealed the game for SMU with his second interception. We are now a miserable contender-for-worst-team-in-Stanford-history, #103 in Sagarin and #92 in SP+, after being #101 and #108 last year. Stringing together Taylor's first 19 games, his first year had games befitting the #59, #205, #182, #19, #126, #37, #200, #34, #23, #203, #120, and #138 teams in the nation and his second year has so far had games befitting the #88, #59, #28, #104, #153, #167, and #163 teams in the nation. I defy anybody to look at that and tell me how we are building, much less improving. We ended on a bad skid last year but even that wasn't as bad as these last 3-4 games, nor was the pitiful end of Shaw's tenure (games befitting #135, #212, #138, #88, and #111). You have to go all the way back to Harris' one win 2006 season for the best comparison to what we're seeing: Harris got fired after just his second season after turning in performances befitting #187, #58, #172, #155, #156, #90, #107, #179, #144, #6, #121, and #22. If Taylor doesn't dramatically turn this around soon he should suffer the same fate. Show us something, coach.
2. That was one of the worst offensive performances you will ever see. Stanford had 0.77 points per non-garbage drive, making the #51 points per drive defense look like the #2 points per drive defense. Amazingly, that stat is super unfair to the SMU defense because the final score vastly overstates the Brown-led offense's effectiveness thanks to the gifts of field position provided by the turnovers and aforementioned SMU penalties. Our scoring drives gained a total of 19 yards. 19 yards. On all the scoring drives combined. The only thing that got us on the board at all were SMU miscues giving us gifts. Even Houston Christian (a worse team than Cal Poly, for context) edged us out in terms of yards per play against this year's SMU team. Databases only go back so far and I had to manually look at a lot of box scores to unearth this horrifying tidbit: I believe last night is the first time in the 18 years of Harbaugh-Shaw-Taylor football that we have been held under three yards per play. The last game this incompetent on offense was Walt Harris against Arizona State. I believe that is 223 games of Stanford football since an offense moved the ball that ineptly. That is especially discouraging because it comes as we give the reins to the ballyhooed QB people were hoping would change everything and because we weren't facing the 1985 Chicago Bears out there. SMU is now Defensive SP+ #30, a good defense but not great, much less hold a Power Four team to three yards per play great. This was an abomination by the offense.
3. The defense did more to pull its weight, as has usually been the case this season. They gave up 2.82 points per non-garbage drive, which made the #23 points per drive offense look like the #31 points per drive offense - hey, not bad at all! Yards per play looked much worse for the defense, almost identical to what Houston Christian gave up, but it wasn't as historically bad as the offense was - four games last year gave up more yards per play and we basically get sliced and diced like this annually in the last six year dark ages stretch, plus SMU's last game against Louisville also featured super potent offense. Our defense did better than our offense and had much more of an excuse against the SP+ #13 offense. Moreover, the defense had numerous gut checks in which it made life stressful for the SMU offense or even forced failures, and the numbers would have looked a lot better without the eventual touchdown drive-extending phantom roughing the passer penalty.
4. As you can guess (or as your eyes saw) from a game with such miserable offensive stats, it was a comprehensive disaster on that side of the ball. We converted on two of 15 third downs. We had less than a yard per carry rushing, the first time that has happened since the Utah atrocity near the end of Shaw's tenure and the first time this season we have been held under 113 yards rushing (much under, 33 yards, the second lowest of Taylor's tenure). SMU had a lot to say about that as they have a phenomenal run defense (now third in the nation in yards per carry allowed) but not as much as we made it look like. We had the lowest yards and yards per carry of anybody they've played, including, yes, Houston Christian. This was awful run blocking and run game. The offense loses a ton in the running dimension going from Daniels to Brown, so Brown needs to compensate for that with his passing, which didn't happen yesterday. In fact, the commonality for the offense regardless of which of our three QBs is playing is that we've been insanely consistent (in a very bad way) as a passing offense, in the 4.6-4.9 yards per attempt range every single game against an FBS opponent. This game at 4.7 yards per attempt fit right in that range, while the passer rating was the lowest we've had all season. SMU has a pretty good pass defense but a lot worse than Notre Dame. This was clearly yet another failure for the passing game, worse even than the much-maligned Florida State passing game did against SMU.
5. These are of course very sobering things to observe when we are talking about the game in which the QB reins got handed over to Brown. Can't really sugarcoat this performance. The offense was as bad as it's been in 18 years and if we're going to keep it real QB play remains the most glaring weak link. Sometimes Total QBR and PFF disagree but this time they were in depressing unity. Brown was 110th of 121 quarterbacks nationally this week in Total QBR (a worse rating than Daniels has had in any game this season other than TCU) and PFF also thought he had our worst game yesterday. Here's to hoping that the hand is still on the mend and he was knocking a lot of rust off (both reasonable hopes). What I'm not here for is people to say eye test showed something good in his play. That was not a good game. The best that can be said for it is that execution errors by others (especially Mosley) made it look worse than it was, but even then Brown had major errors he was bailed out on by opponent miscues or officiating, so on balance the ugly metrics and grades accurately reflect his play unfortunately. One of the worst parts about the game was that we let a team that does not sack the QB much normally (1.67 sacks per game prior to us, ten on the season in the other six games combined) get six sacks. Louisville, which gave up three, is the only other FBS team to give up more than one. Sacks are partly a QB sack so this is an ignominious way for Brown to start his career.
6. The big question in folks' minds (asked but understandably not answered in the post-game press conference) is whether Brown is the new QB1. I am not positive that would help the team based on what we saw yesterday, but given Daniels' play this season I wouldn't miss seeing it. I agree with Taylor that Brown can play better than he did yesterday (and we all can see that Mosley did Brown no favors at all). I am basically agnostic whether the Wake Forest start goes to Daniels or Brown or is a game plan to play both. My guess is it's Brown, but Taylor has surprised me before. Regardless, I kept thinking last night that facing a College Football Playoff aspirant with a super balanced team that was coming off a bye, with our upcoming opponents being scrubs by comparison, was a rough place to give Brown, coming off a hand injury and on the aggressive end of the recovery timeline, his first major college football action. I'm not sure that set Brown up for success. I think maybe Taylor was so desperate for a change at QB given what we've seen that he was over-eager to see what Brown could do once we fell down 21-0, not to mention that making the change at that point makes it easier to answer QB controversy questions as a 21-0 deficit is an easy-to-defend place to make a change. On the other hand, maybe getting this rust off materially improves Brown's chances to play at a level that delivers a win next week. Ultimately I put the QB management in this game squarely in judgment call territory. As with so much else, Taylor needs to be judged by results. So far so disastrous, but let's see what QB play looks like against the weak part of the schedule.
Re the first sentence of your 6th point, if you call TT's cameo appearance and massively uninformative remarks a "press conference." Check it out: he couldn't wait to get out of there as soon as possible, throwing in his forgettable and uninspiring "Go Card!" tag line as he beat a hasty retreat.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-20-2024
Pretty sure this press conference was 4-5 times as long as the Notre Dame one. I actually thought it was a very good press conference as far as losing team post-game press conferences go.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - needle - 10-20-2024
Quote: What I'm not here for is people to say eye test showed something good in his play.
Challenge accepted!
Here's something quantitative: Per StatBroadcast, Brown had four "Big" plays (pass plays going for 15 yards or more).
NO OTHER STANFORD QB THIS YEAR HAS HAD MORE THAN THREE "BIG" PASS PLAYS IN ONE GAME*.
For sure, tough running by Roush, in particular, contributed to the total, but the QB (and perhaps playcaller) should get at least some credit when a pass is thrown with enough accuracy for such tough RAC yards to be gained. I believe this stat backs up what many of us fans saw with the "eye test" in the SMU game.
*Excluding the game against FCS Cal Poly
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - BostonCard - 10-20-2024
TL; DR we suck. I do appreciate the analysis, but I don't think there is a weird divergence where we are somehow better than we look or that we've had a few lucky breaks make us look better than we are. The analytics and the eye test converge here; this is a putrid football team.
BC
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - Farm93 - 10-20-2024
(10-20-2024, 01:55 PM)BostonCard Wrote: TL; DR we suck. I do appreciate the analysis, but I don't think there is a weird divergence where we are somehow better than we look or that we've had a few lucky breaks make us look better than we are. The analytics and the eye test converge here; this is a putrid football team.Living quite a few hours from the stadium the back-to-back weekend games have been a bit of a challenge. I remember in the middle of the last decade I would sometimes skip the games with teams in the lower tier of the conference if the game was part of a back-to-back weekend scenario.
BC
On Friday I decided I would skip SMU. IMHO the Wake game represents the best chance to see a possible conference win at Stanford Stadium, so it is the must attend game of the season.
So I have gone from viewing Oregon or USC as the must attend games, to believing that Wake Forest is the must attend game. Sigh....
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - gailtate - 10-20-2024
This is the worst football I can remember Stanford playing, and my history goes back to high school when "Jack" was HC. Curtice, not Christiansen.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - Goose - 10-20-2024
(10-20-2024, 12:43 PM)msqueri Wrote: 1. Harris got fired after just his second season after turning in performances befitting #187, #58, #172, #155, #156, #90, #107, #179, #144, #6, #121, and #22. If Taylor doesn't dramatically turn this around soon he should suffer the same fate. Show us something, coach.As always, interesting and informative commentary. I admit I look forward to reading it each week. Some comments below.
True, but the situation is vastly different in two important ways. First, Harris arguably got fired so quickly because he was not liked. His players didn't like him and he clearly was a poor "fit" at Stanford. Second, his teams had a horrible record that was arguably worse than the talent of the players should have produced.
AFAIK TT isn't disliked and there is no player "revolt" going on. That may change but hasn't yet. Similarly, nobody would argue that this team has a lot of raw talent. The OL isn't good and there is no particular reason to believe it should be. Of course, the coach is responsible for the recruiting. Two years may not be long enough to evaluate TTs ability to recruit. So far, returns are not positive. Not sure it is definitive enough to get him fired after year 2.
Quote:4. <snip>We had the lowest yards and yards per carry of anybody they've played, including, yes, Houston Christian. This was awful run blocking and run game. The offense loses a ton in the running dimension going from Daniels to Brown, so Brown needs to compensate for that with his passing, which didn't happen yesterday.Yep. Our poor pass blocking makes it real hard on a QB even if he can run a bit. Brown isn't a runner so he needs to be efficient enough in the passing game to compensate. Some of our alleged progress in the run game was with Daniels being the leading rusher much of the time. We are giving that up and so far that hasn't been a positive.
Quote:6. The big question in folks' minds (asked but understandably not answered in the post-game press conference) is whether Brown is the new QB1. I am not positive that would help the team based on what we saw yesterday, but given Daniels' play this season I wouldn't miss seeing it.Agree. We need to see if a different approach will work better.
Quote:Ultimately I put the QB management in this game squarely in judgment call territory. As with so much else, Taylor needs to be judged by results. So far so disastrous, but let's see what QB play looks like against the weak part of the schedule.Also agree. It wasn't a given we would have two wins at this point in the season. The abysmal performance in the recent losing streak obscures that point. We do suck, make no mistake. However we may be better than we recently have appeared to be. Football is real non-linear. If a team is just better that you are in all aspects of the game you aren't going to succeed at anything. There is no "partial credit". Results against teams that are not uniformly "better" than Stanford will show whether TT is going in the right direction.
Quote:9. <snip>Strongly agree that having five sub-par linemen explains a whole lot about our offensive woes. Disagree strongly that we should "dedicate ourselves to building OL via the transfer portal". That strategy is doomed to fail for several reasons, one of which has been beat to death. Stanford doesn't accept enough transfer students to make this a viable option and that isn't going to change, at least in the near term and probably ever.
Five sub-par OL explains pretty quickly the struggles we continue to see. I continue to really struggle to see the theory of the case for how this OL ever becomes good. I hope after this year we abandon hope in the current model and dedicate ourselves to building OL via the transfer portal.
A second reason is that the vast majority of all football teams are looking to upgrade their offensive line. Brief visits to other team's sports boards disclose frequent laments about OL play. Kal is the most proximate example. Stanford will be competing with all those other schools. Not going to be easy to attract the requisite talent that is also admissible. That doesn't mean we ignore the possibility of getting an OL transfer. Stanford needs to both recruit OL and try to get transfers in so far as we can. Doing it all through the portal is impossible. Doing it all via high school recruiting is "possible". However, the portal works both ways and promising OL can leave as well as arrive. Forgoing the portal is stupid, but ignoring recruiting of the OL is worse.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - MV72018 - 10-20-2024
(10-20-2024, 01:25 PM)msqueri Wrote: Pretty sure this press conference was 4-5 times as long as the Notre Dame one. I actually thought it was a very good press conference as far as losing team post-game press conferences go.
The post-SMU-game presser lasted 8:39, while the one after the ND debacle lasted 2:51. So, you're basically right; the SMU one was a skosh more than three times longer than the one after the ND game.
Thank you for the detailed and illuminating post-game analysis week after week.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-20-2024
Goose, one of the reasons why I am becoming convinced we need the portal to field a competent OL is it is becoming clear to me Taylor fundamentally misunderstands what makes OL effective in college football and he is doomed to always have crappy OL play without a fundamental change to his personnel model. He is not dead-set on developing redshirt habits, retention dynamics, etc. that allow us to have fifth and sixth year OL, and that is a death knell in my view (and not for nothing, I have done an incredible amount of empirical research that I think is pretty compelling, if I don't say so myself). He thinks his assistants can identify and recruit OL (who if we're being real are going to overwhelmingly be 3-stars with occasional 4-stars) who they can then develop to be good college players. This is an ignorant and arrogant viewpoint. He will not have good OL without 23 year olds. Period. Fact of college football. That Taylor burns OL redshirts and doesn't bring in major transfer reinforcements and benches a proven fifth year OL proves he simply does not get it. His OL is always going to suck. The one thing I think he could do to fix it is to get jealous of what other opponents are putting out there and lean into roster management avenues that get him those 23 year olds.
Maybe the transfer portal is a difficult avenue for us (though basketball is using it) but if Taylor doesn't plumb it aggressively I have high confidence (very unfortunately/unhappily) that his OL play is not going to be good.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - needle - 10-20-2024
(10-20-2024, 04:35 PM)msqueri Wrote: Goose, one of the reasons why I am becoming convinced we need the portal to field a competent OL is it is becoming clear to me Taylor fundamentally misunderstands what makes OL effective in college football and he is doomed to always have crappy OL play without a fundamental change to his personnel model. He is not dead-set on developing redshirt habits, retention dynamics, etc. that allow us to have fifth and sixth year OL, and that is a death knell in my view (and not for nothing, I have done an incredible amount of empirical research that I think is pretty compelling, if I don't say so myself). He thinks his assistants can identify and recruit OL (who if we're being real are going to overwhelmingly be 3-stars with occasional 4-stars) who they can then develop to be good college players. This is an ignorant and arrogant viewpoint. He will not have good OL without 23 year olds. Period. Fact of college football. That Taylor burns OL redshirts and doesn't bring in major transfer reinforcements and benches a proven fifth year OL proves he simply does not get it. His OL is always going to suck. The one thing I think he could do to fix it is to get jealous of what other opponents are putting out there and lean into roster management avenues that get him those 23 year olds.
Maybe the transfer portal is a difficult avenue for us (though basketball is using it) but if Taylor doesn't plumb it aggressively I have high confidence (very unfortunately/unhappily) that his OL play is not going to be good.
I don't have a comment on your thesis specifically, but in the midweek presser before the SMU game TT said something in response to a question about the O-line that made me raise my eyebrows (emphasis mine): "They've had incredible challenging defensive lines these last three weeks especially, and I think they've held up pretty good. Obviously to get to the level we want them to be at, we've got to continue to play better. But if you're looking at comparison in terms of last season and this season, it's not even close. We're so much better up front than we were last year."
I agree that, before the Rogers injury, the O-line was playing better than last year. But, to say that it's "not even close?" Just a stange comment.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - Goose - 10-20-2024
(10-20-2024, 04:35 PM)msqueri Wrote: Goose, one of the reasons why I am becoming convinced we need the portal to field a competent OL is it is becoming clear to me Taylor fundamentally misunderstands what makes OL effective in college football and he is doomed to always have crappy OL play without a fundamental change to his personnel model. He is not dead-set on developing redshirt habits, retention dynamics, etc. that allow us to have fifth and sixth year OL, and that is a death knell in my view (and not for nothing, I have done an incredible amount of empirical research that I think is pretty compelling, if I don't say so myself). He thinks his assistants can identify and recruit OL (who if we're being real are going to overwhelmingly be 3-stars with occasional 4-stars) who they can then develop to be good college players. This is an ignorant and arrogant viewpoint. He will not have good OL without 23 year olds. Period. Fact of college football. That Taylor burns OL redshirts and doesn't bring in major transfer reinforcements and benches a proven fifth year OL proves he simply does not get it. His OL is always going to suck. The one thing I think he could do to fix it is to get jealous of what other opponents are putting out there and lean into roster management avenues that get him those 23 year olds.I do agree with you totally that the good OLs in college football are populated by "old men". Freshmen/Sophomores (18/19 year olds mostly) just aren't physically mature/strong enough to compete with "upperclassmen". Most "really good" teams have a mixture of 21-23 year olds, with more on the older end. Of course there are exceptions, but in general that is the case.
Maybe the transfer portal is a difficult avenue for us (though basketball is using it) but if Taylor doesn't plumb it aggressively I have high confidence (very unfortunately/unhappily) that his OL play is not going to be good.
I would like to know why you are so certain that TT doesn't in general value mature players and doesn't want to do the things necessary to keep them. Given how poorly the OL has played in the past two years I would guess that retaining upperclassman has not been a priority. You say that TT believes his assistants can identify and recruit OL that can be developed into good college players. You identify that belief as arrogant and ignorant. Since the job description of his assistants is to do exactly those things (which you believe they cannot) should they be replaced forthwith? If TT is so misguided in believing they can in fact do their job should he meet the same fate? It seems to me that is the only possible logical conclusion of your evaluation.
Benching a "proven" fifth year lineman has been discussed on this board a bit. I guess the question is whether his replacement(s) are "worse". If so, that is another "error" by TT. If not, why shouldn't he play the best players? Right now we are all endorsing replacing the junior Daniels with the freshman Brown, at least to evaluate which player is more effective. Why is that different? In both cases the answer may not be immediately obvious or a simple "yes/no".
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-21-2024
Goose dateline='[url=tel:1729480606' Wrote: 1729480606[/url]']
I do agree with you totally that the good OLs in college football are populated by "old men". Freshmen/Sophomores (18/19 year olds mostly) just aren't physically mature/strong enough to compete with "upperclassmen". Most "really good" teams have a mixture of 21-23 year olds, with more on the older end. Of course there are exceptions, but in general that is the case.
I would like to know why you are so certain that TT doesn't in general value mature players and doesn't want to do the things necessary to keep them. Given how poorly the OL has played in the past two years I would guess that retaining upperclassman has not been a priority. You say that TT believes his assistants can identify and recruit OL that can be developed into good college players. You identify that belief as arrogant and ignorant. Since the job description of his assistants is to do exactly those things (which you believe they cannot) should they be replaced forthwith? If TT is so misguided in believing they can in fact do their job should he meet the same fate? It seems to me that is the only possible logical conclusion of your evaluation.
Benching a "proven" fifth year lineman has been discussed on this board a bit. I guess the question is whether his replacement(s) are "worse". If so, that is another "error" by TT. If not, why shouldn't he play the best players? Right now we are all endorsing replacing the junior Daniels with the freshman Brown, at least to evaluate which player is more effective. Why is that different? In both cases the answer may not be immediately obvious or a simple "yes/no".
I was quite encouraged in the off-season when we got Rogers, McLaughlin, and Phillips to come back and Patterson to transfer in for super senior years. That was a major development and I hoped a signal that we got it that competing in the trenches fundamentally depends on such anchors. It has been discouraging this season to see McLaughlin buried on the depth chart in favor of a younger and clearly worse player. I don’t believe there is a credible case that second year Baklenko can do the job like fifth year McLaughlin. [PFF is not infallible but the delta between the two is significant enough that in my view it’s incontrovertible: among 854 OL McLaughlin is #469 and Baklenko is #759; last year in a bigger data set and without McLaughlin benched, among 848 OL McLaughlin was #378 and Baklenko was #781.] I believe Baklenko is playing BECAUSE he is a second year player. We are falling in love with the idea of this “young” (by our own making) OL developing and being better in future years than they are now. The problem is that the guys we’re building around - Pale, Baklenko, House - likely won’t be at Stanford long enough for it to really pay off because we’ve (by our own making) shaved years off their careers by burning the redshirts. And that’s not to even mention that Pale and Baklenko aren’t improving enough that one should have confidence they will ever be great under this coaching. I am really struggling to see what the theory or trajectory is that will give us a competitive OL in 2025, 2026, 2027, unless it’s transfer ex machina.
Yes, I do think we should talk about whether Netter and Talamaivao and, yes, Taylor, should keep their jobs. Not showing much. But for what it’s worth my point on trusting in the coaches being an arrogant and ignorant view wasn’t about these coaches per se. Rather, the idea you can develop a good OL as a reliable and sustainable strategy is itself arrogant and ignorant. What happens is players get old enough to be good and coaches then take credit for that “development.” I’d rather have a line studded with seniors and super seniors than have a “good” coach. You have to be pretty damn good to overcome the overwhelming effect sheer age has in the trenches.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - cctop - 10-21-2024
(10-21-2024, 05:37 AM)msqueri Wrote: I am really struggling to see what the theory or trajectory is that will give us a competitive OL in 2025, 2026, 2027, unless it’s transfer ex machina.
I really love the phrase "transfer ex machina". Exactly the position it feels like we're in right now.
But what allowed Stanford to build the Tunnel Workers Union in the pre-transfer era? Was it EUTM, Shannon Turley, looser admissions standards, steroids as was oft-rumored on the Cal boards, a rare bit of luck, some combination of them all?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-21-2024
(10-21-2024, 09:35 AM)cctop Wrote:(10-21-2024, 05:37 AM)msqueri Wrote: I am really struggling to see what the theory or trajectory is that will give us a competitive OL in 2025, 2026, 2027, unless it’s transfer ex machina.
I really love the phrase "transfer ex machina". Exactly the position it feels like we're in right now.
But what allowed Stanford to build the Tunnel Workers Union in the pre-transfer era? Was it EUTM, Shannon Turley, looser admissions standards, steroids as was oft-rumored on the Cal boards, a rare bit of luck, some combination of them all?
Those were important parts of it but you missed three big ones. First, if there was ever a coach good enough to overcome the forces of nature (e.g., OL is all about age), it was Dalman. Lucking into one of the NFL’s best coaches being an alum whose season of life made coaching for us the right move for him at exactly the right time for us was a profound development in the history of Stanford football. Second, having two of the best OL in Stanford history be the same class and that class to also have arguably the best player in Stanford history (DeCastro and Martin joining Luck) was even more profound. Third, again: OL is all about age. I have a detailed empirical analysis of this I can try to post later (because I never remember how to paste in plain text from a phone) but a teaser:
2009: Marinelli was fifth year, Beeler and Phillips fourth, DeCastro and Martin two of our best players ever
2010: Beeler, Phillips, Hall were fifth year, DeCastro and Martin two of our best players ever
2011: DeCastro, Martin, and Schwartzstein fourth year (and two of our best players ever) and Yankey and Fleming two of our best OL ever
2012: Schwartzstein fifth year, Wilkes and Danser fourth, Yankey and Fleming two of our best OL ever
2013: Wilkes and Danser fifth year, Yankey and Fleming fourth and two of our best OL ever, Peat one of our best OL ever.
My full analysis goes 2009-2023 and analyzes not just starters but the entire depth charts and maps it out based on various efficacy metrics per year. I have also done tons of equally or even more detailed analyses for the Pac-12 or college football generally. You need old men at OL. Period. Even when we had Peat, Murphy, and Garnett we took a step back until they could get old. There is no reliable or sustainable way to recruit or develop quality OL other than to manage your roster to have as many bullies as possible. You can help yourself with a whale or two (which we now haven’t gotten for years) and coaching can matter at the margin, but ultimately just stocking your line with older guys is the way Stanford has succeeded and the way teams nationally generally succeed. Exceptions are few and far between.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - jacket3ree - 10-21-2024
Back in the day, the third year usually told you what you needed to know.* I don't know if or how that's changed with the portal. We should be coming out of the Covid strange times of insane eligibility where there are so many men among the boys.
Interesting thinking back on Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh, the most recent coaches with relatively short careers here. How where they doing after two years?
Teevens won six games in two years. Canned after three full seasons. Well liked (?), but I heard rumblings of great player dissatisfaction with how lax everything was. That was going nowhere. Easy decision. At the time they had no trouble attracting a legitimate coach that looked OK on paper. Some more due diligence would not have hurt.
Harris won six games in two years and 2006 was a total disaster. Somehow they beat UW, but he was rightfully canned by Bowlsby without destroying the University's reputation or the ability to find the next coach. Apparently players went to Bowlsby, which is why Harris didn't get Teevens' third year. That and Bob wasn't Ted. These days players can just leave without penalty, so they probably won't revolt. (A good thing. It shouldn't take player revolts.) Harris' quick termination didn't phase Harbaugh. Coaches don't think they are owed anything other than their super-lucrative contracts.
Harbaugh won nine games in two years. Not a world beater, but five awful years preceded him and there was something there, especially in 2007. I mean we watched the dude paint Marinelli's face with his blood during a game. Not Stanford at all and I don't know whether people liked the guy, but as the late great Denny Green once said, 'sometimes what a Stanford player needs most is a boot up his ass.' I recall some open muttering after 2008 (odd mix of close loses and blowout losses and five wins) but the payoff came soon thereafter. I'll never understand why Luck was redshirted. Heard it was at his request, but he was better than anything Stanford rolled out there and hard to believe Luck was that worried about playing behind a leaky line.
It is the AD's job to figure out how long to hang on to coaches that are losing. Or winning. I think Stanford can financially afford to churn coaches, but I don't know. I don't think Taylor has a Norvellesque buyout attached.
*My Stanford fandom started with Elway in his second year, but I looked back to Ralston to check out third seasons. For the most part, every coach did about as well or better as he was going to do in total, by that third year. Walsh's third season with an echo of Green's team is an outlier. Probably all moot now in the professional era, but for what it is or isn't worth:
Ralston (1965) 6-3-1 (0.650) record at Stanford 0.601
Christiansen (1974) 5-4-2 (0.545) record at Stanford 0.573
Walsh (1992) 10-3 (0.769) record at Stanford 0.585
Dowhower (n/a) record at Stanford 0.500
Wiggin (1982) 5-6 (0.455) record at Stanford 0.364
Elway (1986) 8-4 (0.667) record at Stanford 0.464
Green (1991) 8-4 (0.667) record at Stanford 0.471
Willingham (1997) 5-6 (0.455) record at Stanford 0.549
Teevens (2004) 4-7 (0.364) record at Stanford 0.303
Harris (n/a) record at Stanford 0.261
Harbaugh (2009) 8-5 (0.615) record at Stanford 0.580
Shaw (2013) 11-3 (0.786) record at Stanford 0.640
Taylor sits at 5-14 (0.263) with five games left this year. If he wins them all, he's at 0.417 and a good year next year probably gets him going. He's not going to win them all. Two more wins seems reasonable enough. That would put him at 0.292 and out of dead last among all coaches since 1960. I would then give him another year. Lose them all and all by double digits? I've seen enough.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - SMU - CardinalSagehen - 10-21-2024
Interesting stuff, jack3ree. Three years does seem like the ideal timeframe in most cases, including TT's.
In the current case, I'd be in favor of canning TT after this season under ANY of the following conditions:
- the team fails to win another game.
- the team fails to look competitive in all but one or two of the remaining games against easier teams.
- credible player outcry and obvious "giving up," the likes of which we haven't seen yet.
I hope and expect that the team will look somewhat better down the stretch. However, even if it doesn't, I don't think TT would be sacked (so to speak) after this season due to the following factors, all of which I disagree with:
- Buyout cost. I'm guessing $4M+, at a time when Athletics is already being floated $25M/year due to the move to the ACC. It might be easier for Muir to ask for player money than buyout money at this time.
- Alternative options. We had a much better chance of pulling a great, proven coach 2-4 years ago than now. We'll probably have to speculate on an unproven head coach at the FBS P4 level, as we did with TT.
- Explaining away bad performance due to the new landscape of college football. This has some validity, but it's moot - either we're playing the game at the FBS level or we're not. P4 coaches don't earn millions per year to make excuses. (To TT's credit, he does not make many excuses.)
- Saving face (optics). Muir is in self-preservation mode. This is too much failure, too soon.
- Lack of urgency. It just matters less here.
To be clear, these would all be bad reasons not to fire TT if the team continues to look as bad as it has.
I think the team will turn things around to some degree against weaker competition, and we'll end up with at least three years to evaluate TT, for better or worse. In this case, I'd take the would-be buyout money and spend it on several experienced players in the trenches (as others suggested above) and possibly at QB, depending on what we see from Brown. I'd also force TT to reassess and replace his offensive assistants.