View from section 115 - Printable Version
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View from section 115 - Leftcoast - 09-08-2014
Some thoughts from the stadium - from section 115 to be precise.
1) Crowd: The crowd filled out nicely. There were still empty seats in the far upper deck corners but it's believable as a near shut out.  Temps were 10 degrees cooler than against Davis - hot but not overly so.
One nice thing about sell outs (or near sell-outs), the opposing fans were less obnoxious. USC filled their Northwest Corner section and there were noticeable USC fans in every section (including 115) but no critical mass of drunk college students formed which equated to less of the normal USC gameday antics. Six years ago USC weekend was dreadful.
Stanford cheering was loud on third downs but fans never reached the level seen against Oregon last year. It was as if the crowd believed Stanford was playing with U$C and would surely pull out the win in the 4th quarter .... until we didn't.
2) Turning Green: The random non-football related theme of the day was Green Initiatives at Stanford. Lot's of in your face Greener-Than-Thou content filled every possible moment. The Public address announcements, trivia questions and half time presentations all skewed heavily green. "How many trees do you think are in the greenspace around Stanford? More or less than 118,000?"; "What percentage of waste is diverted from Landfill at Stanford?" and so on. It all seemed over the top and self-congratulatory rather than aimed at building useful awareness.
3) Band Show: That brings us to the halftime band show which also picked up the "Green, recycle, re-purpose, reuse" theme. Somehow the band avoided the very easy shots at balcony jumping - a show should have written itself! The only shot aimed at our opponents centered around how they recycled the same two songs for every performance.
4) "Life isn't fair. I swear to God it isn't!" How often has Stanford outplayed USC on both lines, out gained USC in both the air and ground, controlled time of possession and lost? Very frustrating. The crowd left stunned that we couldn't find a way to win a game we controlled in both halves. The team looked equally stunned.
5) Mistakes Kill: Both teams looked very sloppy but Stanford looked more confused. Too many penalties, too much miscommunication, delay of game penalties and problems getting the right personnel on the field. This was not our coaching staff's finest moment - perhaps our coaching turnover caught up with us on Saturday. I don't remember this many issues in early games last year.
6) "That's MY quarterback! <sob>": Enough with the Hogan bashing - He looked good on Saturday. Yes, he overthrew a couple of receivers but he was the least of our problems. The TD pass negated by the chop block was a thing of beauty.  Hogan can throw the long ball and proved it several times on Saturday.
7) What's my line?: Our O-Line looked better on pass protection than run blocking and our D-Line was noticeably weaker against the run than they were in 2013. They allowed a 100 yard game in our first real test. What do you think? Early season jitters that can be worked out in the weeks ahead or is the loss of Skov, changes at NT and the leadership transition hurting us?
8 ) Randoms: Â
  * Nice to see the Tight Ends contributing! Big positive over last year here.
  * I didn't catch the Pat Haden antics at the time. The crowd in the stadium mostly missed this.
  * Shaw seems happy to go with a Committee of Running backs but I saw a lot of Remound Wright on critical plays.Â
I still believe this could be a special year. USC will falter as the year progresses and
as their lack of depth bites them BUT they were very good on this early season Saturday. We should have beat a very good team by 20 and most of our weekend flaws that led to the loss are fixable.
Re: View from section 115 - stupac2 - 09-08-2014
The band got the jabs in during the pre-game show. It was about water conservation and there was some heavy emphasis on a phrase or two about jumping into a pool (I don't remember the exact words but my brother and I both got it). I didn't see the halftime show though.
Re: View from section 115 - StanFan88 - 09-09-2014
(09-08-2014, 07:17 PM)leftcoast link Wrote:We should have beat a very good team by 20 and most of our weekend flaws that led to the loss are fixable.
Do you consider RZ/end game playcalling a fixable flaw? Because until Shaw gives it up I don't see that getting fixed.
Re: View from section 115 - Papa John - 09-09-2014
(09-08-2014, 07:17 PM)leftcoast link Wrote:4) "Life isn't fair. I swear to God it isn't!"
This is off-topic, but whenever I read or hear that line, I think of the bogus Daily C.alifornian that Stanford Daily staffers put out after the farcical Big Game in 1982 (I still have my copy). In the bogus DC, the line is attributed to C.al coach Joe Kapp, who is weeping after he's been told that The Play was nullified by the NCAA. A moment of sheer genius amid a lost weekend.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/axecomm/history/daily_cal_82.html
Re: View from section 115 - AtlantaBadger - 09-09-2014
In response to your #7, I am admittedly quite biased, but I posted this elsewhere -- count me as not worried at all about the D line (or the D in general):
I don't think the relative success by SC in their run game is either surprising or a sign of any defensive weakness. In much of the game, certainly second half, we played nickel a lot of the time, certainly respecting and trying to prevent big plays by Aghalor and their other receivers. Taking Parry out and leaving two DL with two OLB. Kessler, no dummy, noticed that and almost every time checked in to a run play. So seems like Lance Anderson picked the run poison over the pass poison.
And it worked. After the first drive our D held them to two field goals.
Unfortunately, I guess the D will have to hold future opponents to 7 points or less from here on out.
Eric
Re: View from section 115 - Leftcoast - 09-09-2014
I was wondering who would catch that.Â
I put Kapp's immortal lines in quotation marks as a clue expecting anybody who read the post BG fake Daily Californian (or die hard Cardboarders) would catch the ironic comment. I was a sophomore in 1982 and had one of the originals that were distributed later that day at Stanford. To my everlasting shame I lost it during an apartment move some years later.
The quote in #6 is another reference that should be familiar to folks.
(09-09-2014, 10:27 AM)Papa John link Wrote:[quote author=leftcoast link=topic=10594.msg97518#msg97518 date=1410229062]
4) "Life isn't fair. I swear to God it isn't!"
This is off-topic, but whenever I read or hear that line, I think of the bogus Daily C.alifornian that Stanford Daily staffers put out after the farcical Big Game in 1982 (I still have my copy). In the bogus DC, the line is attributed to C.al coach Joe Kapp, who is weeping after he's been told that The Play was nullified by the NCAA. A moment of sheer genius amid a lost weekend.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/axecomm/history/daily_cal_82.html
[/quote]
Re: View from section 115 - fullmetal - 09-09-2014
(09-09-2014, 11:25 AM)AtlantaBadger link Wrote:In response to your #7, I am admittedly quite biased, but I posted this elsewhere -- count me as not worried at all about the D line (or the D in general):
I don't think the relative success by SC in their run game is either surprising or a sign of any defensive weakness. In much of the game, certainly second half, we played nickel a lot of the time, certainly respecting and trying to prevent big plays by Aghalor and their other receivers. Taking Parry out and leaving two DL with two OLB. Kessler, no dummy, noticed that and almost every time checked in to a run play. So seems like Lance Anderson picked the run poison over the pass poison.
And it worked. After the first drive our D held them to two field goals.
Unfortunately, I guess the D will have to hold future opponents to 7 points or less from here on out.
Eric
I think that was the correct decision by our DC. U$C's athletes should be respected, and at least runners getting to the second level have to get past a competent Stanford secondary.Â
It would be epic to see the defense hold Oregon to 7 pts or fewer. Absolutely epic.
Re: View from section 115 - Papa John - 09-09-2014
(09-09-2014, 12:33 PM)leftcoast link Wrote:The quote in #6 is another reference that should be familiar to folks.
I know it's from Terrell Owens defending Tony Romo, but I don't get the Stanford connection.
Re: View from section 115 - Leftcoast - 09-09-2014
Yup .... It was TO. Â
The connection was defending a QB who really has no need for my defense. There's also the Bay Area connection. All Bay Area fans got a chance to laugh when TO's course got progressively weirder after leaving SF (Philadelphia, Dallas, Buffalo, Cincinatti and finally Seattle).