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Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - Printable Version

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Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - dabigv13 - 09-28-2012

First a bit of a digression- I went to my local sports bar in NYC to watch the game last night, and the only other two people in the bar watching were a couple in UW clothes. Turns out it was the owner/founder of dawgman.com, the UW scout.com website, and his new wife, on their honeymoon in NYC. They were great to sit with, and as terribly dissapointing as the game was to watch, it hurt just a little bit less to watch it with them. Dave had a lot of insight into our program as well, as he knows Randy Hart our DL coach (the most dominant unit on the field last night). He also had a few other tidbits too, saying Harbaugh was a pain in the ass for the media, pretty much yes or no was the best response you ever got from him, whereas Shaw is a much better interview. Was at the UW-Stanford game last year, and with that in mind shared a lot of my surprise at our playcalling...

...which in my estimation was the number one reason we lost that game. Our run/pass balance was completely out of wack. We got away from Stanford football with a significant number of 1st and 2nd down passing plays, which went incomplete and forced us into 3rd down passing plays. As the saying goes, 4 things can happen on a pass play, and 3 of em are bad (actually 4 bad things if you count a quarterback fumble, which ended up happening). Now, granted UW did a good job limiting our running game, but so did USC early on with the exception of our one long run. We need to pound teams early so we can reap the rewards later. Also worth mentioning that it's easier for young OL to runblock than to pass protect, and that was evident last night as Peat was beat several times by edge speed, and several delayed stunts got through untouched to Nunes up the middle. I also noticed that when we did run, we ran outside, which played to UW defensive strength which was LB speed.

The second reason we lost was Montgomery. If we're gonna blame one player, it's him. By my count he dropped 5 passes, most of them of the long, game changing variety. True, they weren't necessarily easy catches, but they were the sort of catches that I've made playing intramural football plenty of times. He wasn't going to be on Sportscenter for pulling those in. Our supposed best WR should bring in most of those catches.

Not far behind Nunes...hate to say I told ya so, but 50% completion percentage will not get it done. Neither will multiple delay of game penalties (not new to this game, and perhaps some of that blame lays with our offensive playcalling staff as well). JN has shown he can make some nice throws, but it's clear they are the exception and not the rule. While JN had a few hurries, his overall protection was decent.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - oman - 09-28-2012

Um hmm.


Was his new wife attractive?

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - pincemob - 09-28-2012

I didn't love the play-calling either but our longest run was 7 yards.  Whenever we ran in running situations, they stuffed it.  3rd and 1?  Stuffed.  Same was true in the passing downs.  First and 15, 2 yards.  1st and 20, 2 yards.  They were fired up, and I didn't think they were wearing down.  I didn't think stubbornly running was the way to go honestly. 

My problem was that (as usual) the throws to the WRs were all low percentage.  For as long as our playbook is, we don't seem to have a lot of the pass plays you see in the NFL every week.  Stops, back shoulder timing throws, stuff like that.  The kind of plays where the QB throws to a spot and the WR at least gets his hands on the ball.  I get the feeling that even with no defense Nunes might only complete 60% of his tosses to the WRs in part because of the plays we call for them. 



Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - doug - 09-28-2012

I sort of agree but with somewhat different emphasis. In my view, this loss is almost completely on Shaw/coaching staff. We appeared to have a poor game plan and made no changes or adjustments I could see, and frankly I thought the play-calling was atrocious. The stubbornness in sticking with Nunes was truly frustrating. It was clear to me -- and has been since before the season -- that we need a passing game the opponent has to respect, and we didn't have that last night. If Josh's supposed strength and the reason he won the QB job is his ability to get us into the right play, we got none of his supposed strength last night while paying the price for his lack of accuracy and threat as a passer. But that's a coaching error. The coaches have to see the game that is unfolding before their eyes, and they didn't last night. I predicted UW would win with about 12 minutes to go in the 4th quarter -- any astute observer could sense the dramatic change in momentum and mentality, but apparently not DS.

But I completely disagree that the problem with our play-calling was too much passing too early. In my view it was precisely the opposite. UW was fully committed to stop the run, and our o-line simply was outnumbered and frankly not good enough right now to deal with that. We had to make them respect the pass in order to be able to run like we want. I don't (and didn't even before this game) think Josh has enough ability to do that. I am even more convinced of that now. 

I disagree that Montgomery was a bigger reason for the loss that Nunes. Ty was terrible granted, and that's another place where a change should have been tried, but in my view all of these things were coaching errors. Every player will have a bad game. The coach has to have the ability to handle that without making the team pay the price. In my view, as well as UW played, they could not beat us unless we beat ourselves.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - ATLCard - 09-29-2012

dabigv nailed it on the biggest three reasons we lost -- coaching decisions, Montgomery, Nunes.  I don't agree on the order though (other than counting Nunes as a coaching decision).  UW sold out to stop the run and dared Stanford to throw over the top -- we wouldn't be arguing about play-calling if Nunes/Montgomery had made UW pay.  Unfortunately UW didn't pay for their strategy and we will continue to see it from everyone else we play until we can consistently hit passes.  While most of Montgomery's misses were tough catches not flat-out drops, a good receiver needs to come up with at least one of them.

I'm not a Nunes hater; there was a lot of "who's got the better arm" chatter before but Nunes' arm seems fine and he appears to throw an okay deep ball.  However, the Shaw QB decision as announced as being around consistency and execution and I don't think I have ever seen more delay penalties from Stanford (maybe > 10 so far?), including first play of games, first play of quarters, etc where it is all about just getting the team lined up and going.  Also, while the deep balls are generally not bad the short 10yd and in passes are inconsistent -- the occasional Cordivot passes are frustating but even the connections are often tough catches (high, low, behind) that don't put the receiver in position to gain yardage.

The combination of the delay penalties and missing on the relatively easy short/open passes means the Shaw offense can't execute -- you can't do run-heavy ball-control offense if you need to get 15 yards in 3 plays because of penalties or 10 yards in 2 plays because you bounced a short pass.  In that regard Nunes reminds me of Tavita Pritchard -- good guy, good team player, but not a good enough QB to make the team successful (and it's mentally tough trying to lead the team knowing you are a weak link).  I agree with the sober commentors that it's not clear Nottingham or Hogen would be an improvement (might throw more interceptions, etc.), but why wouldn't you find out at this point?  How much worse can you do than mainly three and out drives and 6 pts total for a game?  And, since Nunes is a senior (redshirt junior) who has been in the program four years and hasn't substantially improved execution/consistency four games into the season, why would you expect anything different for the rest of the season?

So, while I don't think Shaw's play-calling/game plan was the #1 reason we lost, I do worry that his decision-making is too rigid and I wish he had the flexibility (or maybe self-confidence) to say "okay, I'm adjusting my thinking and we are going to do something different" -- i.e. play Nottingham the second quarter to see if he brings something new; rotate Hogan in on the wildcat to see if he brings something new; use the Kelsey Young flip on fourth and 1 from the 40 sometime and maybe get an unexpected score; decide that maybe we never will hit more than 30% of the Toilolo "I'm taller than you" plays and it shouldn't be our favorite pass play.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - fullmetal - 09-29-2012

(09-29-2012, 06:51 AM)garvin link Wrote:We didn't run outside an undue amount. There were plenty of running plays directed between the guards and tackles. But after a while -- a short while -- they weren't working very well.

Taylor can run outside, can't he?  I favor outside runs when the box is stacked--send the fullback straight up as a decoy and get some razzle dazzle going off the edge.  But isn't that usually Wilkerson's job?  How much of the playbook is suited for Wilkerson and not suited for Taylor?

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - JohnR34231 - 09-30-2012

One thing I think people are forgetting is that we are 3-1 this year, (not 1-3, or 0-4, although you might think that from some of the comments people are writing). Maybe we haven't got a lot of style points doing it, but you'd have to say we have at least met the won/loss expectations of all but the most delusional Stanford fans. I can understand Shaw's desire not to mess with a combination of players that has produced that record. Given who we lost on offense this year, our offensive woes weren't (or at least shouldn't have been) unanticipated. Maybe not to the degree we're having them, but once again, let's look at the record.

If we go out and lose to Arizona with another lackluster (OK, poor) game from Nunes, then I think a QB change would be warranted.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - fullmetal - 09-30-2012

I expected that a team that beat U$C *should* have beaten UW.  If it turns out that UW beats Oregon, I'll feel less mortified about the loss.  But expectations had a lot to do with it.  If our fourth game was against SJSU, and we had previously beaten Duke, U$C, and UW--and if we had lost to SJSU, I would say something had gone terribly wrong.  UW is better than SJSU, but the consensus is that U$C is probably better than UW, so Stanford should have beaten UW.  It wasn't a quality loss...it felt like a choke job, and that's something to worry about.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - washingtonismoney - 09-30-2012

I think the problem here is a category problem. Why must every loss be either "quality loss" or a "choke job"? If I had to choose I'd choose the latter, but it seems disingenuous to claim that losing to a team on the road, with a high-quality QB and some very good skill players is some sort of offense against nature.* I think we all expected some problems and growing pains during the course of this season, so it's more than a bit amusing to see people freak out that we've experienced exactly what we expected to experience.

* Of course, I was as aggressive in predicting a win against UW as anyone. However I tried to make clear that they posed some problems, every time. Even if you think you'll win 75 or 80% of the time, 20-25% is a pretty substantial minority.

For me, I always expected some problems along the way. The loss is not necessarily disturbing in of itself. For me, what I'm interested in is what we see against Arizona, ND, and so on. Does it get better, stay the same, or get worse?

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - fullmetal - 09-30-2012

I guess it wasn't quite a choke job.  But it certainly felt like one, and as with others on the board, I will look first to the offensive playcalling for putting the team in that situation.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - washingtonismoney - 09-30-2012

(09-30-2012, 07:38 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:I guess it wasn't quite a choke job.  But it certainly felt like one, and as with others on the board, I will look first to the offensive playcalling for putting the team in that situation.

Of course--that's stipulated. I also wasn't particularly happy with that. But I think a lot of people are really underestimating the trickiness of the coaches' situation on offense. As it stands, with Ty Montgomery disappointing, we probably have the worst wideouts in the Pac-12. That impacts the passing offense. On the other hand, the offensive line is not as dominant as it was in the running game. That's what you refer to as a catch-22: can't run, can't pass. People like to criticize gameday stuff, because it's what we can see, but really it usually comes back to personnel. Personnel-wise, we are undermanned, due to some disappointments (Montgomery) and some things that were happening a while ago (Harbaugh's recruiting and coaching decisions did not set the table for the longterm on offense.)

So to me the main thing is to remedy the lack of playmakers. Kodi Whitfield was targeted a couple times against UW; that's a start, but a wider variety should be tried, with more opportunities given to guys like Kelsey Young and Remound Wright. And the offensive line youth movement should probably be accelerated. And, of course, a shot given to one of the QBs, though my guess is that, at the moment, both are about the same as Nunes.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - fullmetal - 09-30-2012

The WR targeting issue is, I think, due to JN's ability to correctly read progressions.  I'm not sure he's all the way there, either in speed of reading his offensive options or speed of execution once he sees an opportunity.  Ertz seemed like a safety blanket in the second half of the game with JN constantly throwing to him.  Personally, I think that's a slightly dangerous option in that once a receiver starts getting hot, opponents will start trying to game that (jumping routes, anticipating, etc.).  But JN still went to Ertz, either because Ertz (or his route) is too good to cover, or because JN trusted Ertz to make a defended pass catchable over another WR.

The offensive playcalling didn't showcase a lot of variety for the OL.  I feel like I'm talking to brick walls here--there's plenty of room for deception in the run game if you have the speed, and that facet of the run game can mask deficiencies in the OL.  Don't tell me we couldn't run the ball against UW--I think we could have run the ball against UW if Stanford hadn't been so stubborn about running the same basic plays for the most part.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - washingtonismoney - 09-30-2012

(09-30-2012, 08:47 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:The WR targeting issue is, I think, due to JN's ability to correctly read progressions.  I'm not sure he's all the way there, either in speed of reading his offensive options or speed of execution once he sees an opportunity.  Ertz seemed like a safety blanket in the second half of the game with JN constantly throwing to him.  Personally, I think that's a slightly dangerous option in that once a receiver starts getting hot, opponents will start trying to game that (jumping routes, anticipating, etc.).  But JN still went to Ertz, either because Ertz (or his route) is too good to cover, or because JN trusted Ertz to make a defended pass catchable over another WR.

The offensive playcalling didn't showcase a lot of variety for the OL.  I feel like I'm talking to brick walls here--there's plenty of room for deception in the run game if you have the speed, and that facet of the run game can mask deficiencies in the OL.  Don't tell me we couldn't run the ball against UW--I think we could have run the ball against UW if Stanford hadn't been so stubborn about running the same basic plays for the most part.

In terms of your second point, I would agree there's more variety to be had, but I still don't think you can get around the reality that if you don't have a physically dominant offensive line--and you're still basically using a pro-style rushing attack--you're going to have major difficulties running against a stacked box.

That feeds into your first point. Nunes is, indeed, not terribly good. That's why basically every fan would like to look at a change. However, I'm frustrated by people's lack of acknowledgement that Nunes' receivers have been doing him less than no favors, either in getting open, or catching the ball once thrown to them (assuming it's accurate, which again, is a big issue.) If Montgomery has an average day catching the ball, Stanford beats Washington, to take one example.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - fullmetal - 09-30-2012

Stacked box?  Run outside really, really fast, faster than the defense's LBs.  Motion TEs one way or the other to help with blocking or to decoy.  The jet sweep or toss play isn't exactly black magic.

Re: Nunes was only the 3rd biggest reason we lost - washingtonismoney - 09-30-2012

(09-30-2012, 09:27 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:Stacked box?  Run outside really, really fast, faster than the defense's LBs.  Motion TEs one way or the other to help with blocking or to decoy.  The jet sweep or toss play isn't exactly black magic.

We tried a few pitches to Stepfan. They didn't end well; speed is not exactly a Stanford strength at the moment.

This is where we'd like to see Kelsey Young, of course. Would love if some enterprising reporter asked Shaw about this, instead of rehearsing what will inevitably be the 1000th question about changing quarterbacks. (It's pretty annoying when journalists pile on with questions they know very well won't elucidate a revealing response. In this case, I'm pretty sure that even if Shaw were planning a change, he wouldn't talk about it to the reporters. Element of surprise and all that.)

Best explanation I've read - Redrum - 10-01-2012

I kept trying to remember the word, then somebody else talked about it elsewhere.  The "Yips".  A great coined word from baseball.  It is a name that non-clinically assigns a cause for otherwise inexplicable failures to perform routine functions. 
Things like  short-arming the throw from shortstop to first base.  Or muffing what should be routine pop-fly.  A function of pressure.    It's the best-fit explanation for why Nunes can win the QB job over months of practice,  and then turn in sub-par performances in games.  His mechanics can be just fine.  But, as evident to everyone,  on some plays his mechanics are awful.  On some plays he throws divot passes.    The yips.  Pressure makes him tighten up, or forget his basics, or...well, you all saw it.  Baseball is one of our more superstition-ridden sports and part of baseball lore is the yips,  which is held to be incurable.  You either have them or you don't and if you do, well, that's the story of you.