Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - Printable Version
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Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-12-2025
1. At least we made a game of it for three and a half quarters. If you told me that going in I would have taken it. Playing on the road at 9am by our body clocks against a top 40 team that was in the playoff last year and is led by a quarterback who has been on an upswing back to his all-conference form had ugly written all over it. The score ended up ugly - and when you dig into the details the game did turn out pretty ugly - but if one or two plays go differently at the goal line we are making SMU pretty nervous. I can only take so much solace in that though when it's clear we're a really bad team. We are now down to Sagarin #101 and SP+ #108 and have had scoreboard outcomes this year befitting #87, #120, #75, #136, #130, and #127. It's sobering that halfway into this season we have yet to have a single good game and our three best results relative to opponent were the first three games while the three most recent were the three worst. If one really wants to squint (e.g., we've slightly ticked up in scoreboard outcome relative to opponent the last few games) one can pretend there are signs of progress, but you have to squint pretty hard. You can't look at results on the field and say this team is improving year-over-year or even game-over-game in any meaningful way. More donations and a new coaching staff can't come soon enough.
2. The score was unfortunately not the only way the game was ugly. SMU had a whopping 2.06 yard per play advantage over us, the most they've dominated any game this season. It's very depressing to match up worse in this respect than East Texas A&M (1.85 yard per play delta) and Missouri State (1.35 yard per play delta). [For comparison to other games, Baylor was a 0.55 delta, Syracuse was 0.79, and TCU was the one opponent to be more efficient than the Mustangs, by 0.8 yards per play.] We scored 1.25 points per non-garbage possession (excluding the two possessions post pick six), making the #58 points per drive defense look like #12. With the pick six the net points when our offense was on the field was really brutal, a net of three points in eight non-garbage possessions. We gave up 3.0 points per non-garbage time possession (excluding the sole play to run out the first half clock and the field goal at the end), making the #46 points per drive offense look like #28. We can tell ourselves the scoreboard was misleading because of the swing of the pick six, the drive we got stopped at the one yard line, and all the costly penalties, but fundamentally the story of the game was SMU significantly outplayed us in two of the three aspects of the game. Again, to the point 1-5 FCS Texas A&M and 3-3 FCS Missouri State were more competitive than we were on a per play basis.
3. Penalties certainly didn't help but were only one aspect of ineptitude that led to such little scoring. Getting shut out in the first quarter was a good microcosm - one possession that never happened due to a muffed punt (with starting field position at midfield no less), another that fell apart due to multiple sacks, and third that couldn't get going after successive holding calls wiped first down runs out. That's the offense's day in a nutshell. I'm proud of the defense for keeping us in it amidst those early calamities and the offense for battling to have better moments at other points, but that first quarter set the tone for how little we could do on offense and how varied the reasons were. The second, third, and fourth quarters all saw drives where we got to the red zone and couldn't score a touchdown. The first and third quarters had drives stifled by sacks. Sadly, these things seem to typify us and are not new. We are 128th in punt return average. We are 126th in sacks allowed per game. We are 96th in penalty yards per game. We are 130th in red zone touchdown percentage. These are things we habitually struggle with, not things that just weirdly went wrong yesterday. I also am not going to pin this game on penalties when we had such a bleak yards per play delta and when the most egregious bad calls in the game went in our favor. Oh my god on the unsportsmanlike conduct call when SMU stopped us on 3rd down in the red zone in crunch time. Gulbranson throwing the pick six on the next play may have been football karma for that. If the ref swallowed his whistle like somebody not trying to screw SMU and/or with the world's biggest stick up his butt, we would have had 4th and goal from the 9 down 14 with 6:25 left, we probably go for it given the two score deficit and dwindling time, and probably get stopped and garbage time arrives just the same. In any case, like others, I don't view the pick six as the pivotal play as much as the touchdown to High that got erased by Brown inexplicably putting his hands to the face of somebody he wasn't blocking.
4. This was a team loss, not in the sense that everything was terrible but in the sense that nothing was good, captured by us ending up with the lowest yards per play anybody other than East Texas A&M has had against SMU this season and the highest yards per play anybody other than Baylor has allowed against SMU this season. In the passing game, we were fourth of SMU's six opponents in both yards per attempt and passer rating, not a good performance but far from terrible. Notably, only having one interception is a very good result as SMU is fifth in the nation in interceptions, true ball hawks. Of course our interception was a massive point swing, but it was the only one and it only came after a big-time fourth quarter touchdown was taken off the board by Brown's aforementioned boneheaded play. The run game was the fourth time in five games we've had 75 yards and 2.27 yards per carry or fewer, but on the positive side those marks came in this game, so at least it was a step forward against an excellent run defense (#16 in yards per carry allowed). We need to be honest, however, that this is improvement from a troubled baseline and not good in its own right, as only Missouri State has had a lower yards per carry against SMU. The statistical clear failing of the game was the run defense, but that was distorted by the catastrophic 87 yard touchdown when SMU was trying to run out the clock on the first half. On paper that meant that this was the first time we've given up over five yards per carry in the last eight games, over a yard per carry worse than SMU's average, and the first time SMU has broken five yards per carry in 14 games. That's bad but outside of the one unforgiveable play SMU only had four other rushing first downs in the game, one in garbage time. They were not effective on the ground outside of that one play, plus that gut punch gave us the urgency to offset that score with the awesome punch back 35 second drill to steal those points back. The pass defense may have been the biggest bright spot, giving up a half a yard per attempt than SMU's average and almost to the fraction identical to their season passer rating. Syracuse and Baylor don't have good passing defenses but out-performing them in this phase that had been failing us the last two games is the biggest silver lining of the game. Ultimately, we weren't more competitive because nothing was particularly good, but I think it's reasonable to think not being terrible in any of the four phases in a 9am body clock game against a team that has never lost an ACC game is a glimmer of progress to hang our hat on.
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-12-2025
5. Somebody watching that game who didn't know much about either team, especially somebody flipping to the games with ranked teams we were counterprogrammed against, would come away with a clear picture of Stanford football: hopeless up front on offense and lacking in athleticism on defense. There are two things that exemplified where we are. First, the six sacks showed both how little prayer our three young OL (Ugorji, Brown, House) have and how massively, historically inept Gulbranson is at feeling and avoiding pressure (now dead last 138th of 138 QBs nationally in the sack dimension of Total QBR). Second, Jennings' highlight reel evading pressure improvisational flip and the receiver's subsequent winding through so many defenders on the way to a dynamic 42 yard touchdown showed both the difference a playmaker at QB can make and the deficit between our defensive athletes and what good teams throw at us as weapons. There is no getting around that, while Gulbranson at his best can manage an offense and place a ball, he is a liability in other respects. In this game, he was 105th of 113 quarterbacks nationally in Total QBR this week. He now has an abysmal Total QBR in half the games this season and on the year is 127th of 138 in Total QBR and 111th in PFF when narrowing down to a similar sized field. There's Solid Ben and Bad Ben and halfway through the season the overall year has not been good. At this point it will be pretty tough for Gulbranson to match the level of play Daniels had the last two years, though I will still hold out hope for not only the kind of turnaround he had after the initial flubs but actually sustaining it rather than letting Bad Ben return like yesterday. For the future, unless we are cleverly holding Brown and Rizk out even in garbage time in order to hide assets from the surveillance of transfer portal suitors, there isn't much point in giving the current QBs on the roster much thought. A couple months out from one of the most intriguing aspects of our year, seeing what we can get at QB in the portal.
7. Luck is going to have quite a dilemma in figuring out where to focus resources in the portal. I can't imagine $15 million goes very far across the entire roster and snagging a QB1 and bolstering the offensive line, and there can be no debate we need to bolster the offensive line. This is the fourth year in a row under three different head coaches that we've been in the 120s nationally in sacks allowed. This is no way to live. As I have expounded ad nauseum and will rant about until the cows come home, it is not fair to play underclassmen linemen. Seniors or super seniors or mutants are all who should play at offensive line, and yet year after year we have a pipeline that necessitates playing youngsters. I would like to think it will be different next year but that depends on who we can keep among Prongos, Anderson, Mejia, and Leyrer (and I think by then Pale and Fattig could be physically ready to be useful) and what we can get in the portal. If we are projecting our 2026 OL and find ourselves counting on guys younger than seniors we are doing it wrong. Period. For now, we obviously can't have any hope the line will be competent this year. In that context I don't think yesterday was the worst. There were some pockets and some holes. Not nearly consistent enough but, again, not fair for us to expect teenagers to hold up in ACC football. Elsewhere on offense, there were several skill position players worth shouting out. Williams having a third straight 100+ yard receiving game certainly catches attention. I haven't fact-checked the announcers but they said that was the first time a Stanford players has done that since Alex Smith a generation ago. Williams is now 9th in the ACC in receiving, with Farrell (another pleasant surprise) 14th. Believe it or not, it was a career day for Roush in both catches and yards. I didn't love that he fumbled and two of his first downs came in garbage time, but that was the good game it would seem he would often have if coaches and announcers are going to talk about him like they do. Ford and Tabb both ran hard and well. Ford had some first downs but my favorite run of his was the one to get to the one on 2nd and goal. That may seem an odd choice since he got stonewalled a couple plays later, but I thought that was an excellent run to get to the doorstep. In retrospect, it's easy to agree with the announcers that we should have run twice from the one given how Ford was running that drive (or we could have put Irvin in), but we're not even talking about that if Blackburn makes a catch he needs to make. In addition to moving chains competently, Ford's effort running downfield on the pick six was extraordinary. What a winning play the moment the game turned to garbage. Tabb had a few first downs and could have had one or two more without penalties (hard to say as sometimes the holds help spring the run). I really hope we can hold on to these two beyond this season. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Williams (5), Roush (5), Ford (4), Tabb (3), Farrell (2), Libman]
8. Considering the back-handed compliments I gave the defense above, one would have thought there would be several players I could shout out given the box score. Nope, as close to a one man show as you can see. Galvan showed how much we've been missing with his absence this season, racking up eight quality plays in the box score across a range of skills, mostly run defense but also a pass breakup and a tackle for no gain on a pass play. Really good game. Otherwise? Well, Edwards had the sack to force a punt on the opening series and another tackle that was a good result. Every single other player who had multiple quality results needed garbage time to do it, pretty amazing considering there wasn't even that much garbage time. Patterson (though he did have the hurry/pass breakup on the first play of the game, setting a fantastic tone), Leigber (though he did have a pass breakup to force a punt), Staples (though he did have a sack to force a punt, albeit an insanely terrible play by Jennings not to throw it away), and Rose all needed garbage time to show up positively multiple times. There were other singleton good plays, like Wright's red zone pass breakup on third down and Barth (who has been bad as a Cardinal, sadly) getting a red zone third down stop to force a field goal, showing this was really a bunch of random plays to keep us somewhat in it and one guy, Galvan, truly being all over the place. I am especially disappointed in the outside linebackers doing bupkis outside of garbage time.
9. Special teams were generally good for us with one massive caveat. I am bummed I can't give a game ball to Pulispher for two totally awesome tackles on punt coverage but Flintoft was on one. Holy cow. Flintoft had net punts of 45 to the 35 without the penalty on SMU and to the 25 with (excellent), 53 to the 20 (excellent), 54 to the 18 (excellent), 58 to the 32 (unreal), and 51 to the 24 (excellent). This has to be one of the greatest punting games in Stanford history. Just flat out balled. I would say this is an underrated reason we were in the game for three and a half quarters despite doing worse net yards per play than East Texas A&M and Missouri State. Kenney made a 34 yard field goal but the highlight of his day was the 52 yarder that we took off the board. I felt bad for him losing a 50+ yarder on his resume. Reich's call there, for what it's worth, is not what I would have done but I think was the right call. Not going to front that my lack of confidence in this team would be the right mentality for a coach to have or fault Reich for making a call to get more points against a tough opponent. High doesn't look like the most natural kick returner and in this one it was kind of a wash, getting an 18 yard return to the 29 and a 21 yard return to the 22. As for the caveat, I trust better days are ahead for Thorpe. A muffed punt after the defense had started us off so amazingly, letting two punts go that pinned us within the 8, and even not looking comfortable in judging space around him on the fair catch.....tough day in Dallas.
10. Game balls: CJ Williams, Jahsiah Galvan, Aidan Flintoft, Fred Guidici
11. I don't think highly of this team, its trajectory, or this season's relevance in the big picture but every week is a new chance to show they're making progress and to try to lay foundation for the rebuild to come. The coming matchup against Florida State is one I've long had circled as a home game (that appears to matter a lot!) against a team I have been saying for weeks is overrated and is facing the raw end of the travel gauntlet to fly cross country to face us. It will be surprising if we win but I don't think nearly as surprising as it would have been to beat SMU. What I want to see is the same fight and glimmers of progress (e.g., all four phases approaching competence) we saw yesterday but with more discipline and more finish. Over the course of the middle part of the schedule I want to see competitiveness and not the collapse that happened in between the byes last year. The main opportunities for additional wins come in the latter part of the season but it would not be crazy to steal this one. If we did this season would have a different complexion. Beat the Noles!
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - BigJohn043 - 10-12-2025
(10-12-2025, 12:26 PM)msqueri Wrote: 7. Luck is going to have quite a dilemma in figuring out where to focus resources in the portal. I can't imagine $15 million goes very far across the entire roster and snagging a QB1 and bolstering the offensive line, and there can be no debate we need to bolster the offensive line.
Is $15M for next year true?
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-12-2025
(10-12-2025, 02:37 PM)BigJohn043 Wrote:(10-12-2025, 12:26 PM)msqueri Wrote: 7. Luck is going to have quite a dilemma in figuring out where to focus resources in the portal. I can't imagine $15 million goes very far across the entire roster and snagging a QB1 and bolstering the offensive line, and there can be no debate we need to bolster the offensive line.
Is $15M for next year true?
The institutional NIL/House settlement revenue sharing is $20.5 million. $15 million is an approximation of what would go to football with the rest to other sports. I'm decently confident that's the ballpark but acknowledge there is a lot uncertain/unknown about all this. I believe where we are is scholarships plus approximately $15 million for football players on top of that plus whatever legitimate NIL can be approved.
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - ADPinWDC - 10-12-2025
"
Is $15M for next year true?
[/quote Wrote:The institutional NIL/House settlement revenue sharing is $20.5 million. $15 million is an approximation of what would go to football with the rest to other sports. I'm decently confident that's the ballpark but acknowledge there is a lot uncertain/unknown about all this. I believe where we are is scholarships plus approximately $15 million for football players on top of that plus whatever legitimate NIL can be approved.
YES! "bolster the offensive line."
Find a way to get NIL# to O-Line.
Everything else pivots from that.
Then we get QBs, RBs, WRs respond to QBs.
That is how Harbaugh led the turnaround 2007-2010.
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - george - 10-12-2025
Hey Matt -- as always, thank you so much for the quality analysis here. Let me know where I can subscribe to your podcast...
I'm curious though. Watching this game, I actually felt better about the team than at any point last year. Is that because my bar has dropped so low? Penalties and final score aside, we seem to be a much better coached team this year -- sounds like statistically we are not. But last year felt so much like we were just running around hoping Daniels or Ayomanor could pull off some heroics. This year we play more like a team and for some non trivial amount of the game seemed to belong on the same field as SMU. Last year really felt like a hapless high school team struggling to compete. Am I deluding myself?
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - ADPinWDC - 10-12-2025
Denbrock gets $2M a year at NDAM, one of the highest paid OCs in NCAA, and at a selective institution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Denbrock
Spent one year coaching TEs at Stanford in 2001.
Could we hire him for $6M+ ?
Someone else will.
We need an Offensive mind as HC with elite level experience
Any NDAM coach brings a network to "Catholic School" football America for recruiting nationally.
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - msqueri - 10-12-2025
(10-12-2025, 03:13 PM)george Wrote: Hey Matt -- as always, thank you so much for the quality analysis here. Let me know where I can subscribe to your podcast...
I'm curious though. Watching this game, I actually felt better about the team than at any point last year. Is that because my bar has dropped so low? Penalties and final score aside, we seem to be a much better coached team this year -- sounds like statistically we are not. But last year felt so much like we were just running around hoping Daniels or Ayomanor could pull off some heroics. This year we play more like a team and for some non trivial amount of the game seemed to belong on the same field as SMU. Last year really felt like a hapless high school team struggling to compete. Am I deluding myself?
Thanks! I don't have a podcast but have been a guest a few times on the Talking Trees podcast, including one last week to talk about coaching candidates. Think you can subscribe to that here: https://open.spotify.com/show/40OnCc6Z27UUapweabYTVE.
I don't think you're deluding yourself, I just think we all want to discern evidence of improvement and are more likely to focus on the signs that exist than the (more substantial) signs we're still stalled. I think last year's Louisville and Syracuse games were far more substantial evidence we were capable of good football than anything we've seen this year. I don't disagree that we are "better coached" this year in the narrow sense that I think Reich is cultivating a more professional, stable, supportive culture and, at least so far, vibes aren't cursed like they became last year. But virtually all the coaching below Reich is Taylor guys, and many of those guys are unqualified and unaccomplished. I don't think we are particularly well coached generally and I am looking forward to having a new staff with hopefully higher compensated and more legitimate coaches than what Taylor brought in.
RE: Sunday morning (err, afternoon) thoughts - SMU - fullmetal - 10-12-2025
(10-12-2025, 03:34 PM)msqueri Wrote: I don't disagree that we are "better coached" this year in the narrow sense that I think Reich is cultivating a more professional, stable, supportive culture and, at least so far, vibes aren't cursed like they became last year. But virtually all the coaching below Reich is Taylor guys, and many of those guys are unqualified and unaccomplished. I don't think we are particularly well coached generally and I am looking forward to having a new staff with hopefully higher compensated and more legitimate coaches than what Taylor brought in.
Glad to hear similar agreement on the coaching staff's overall resume. I've read a lot of coaching resumes in my sport, and I've seen a lot of hand-wavy, smoke and mirrors language in my time.