11-29-2015, 08:11 AM
David Shaw has to lose games by making dumb decisions until he will change his approach. As long as the dumb decisions work more often than not, why would he stop making them?
The short side toss to McCaffrey out of heavy personnel on 1st down with 7 mins to go was maddening. Not one time in the game did Stanford's heavy personnel dominate UDFG's front. They were bringing the Safeties up and blitzing on 1st down in "obvious" passing situations, totally keying on CMac. Everyone in the stadium knew he was getting the ball because there were 8 OL in the game. All the D had to do is make one guy responsible for the TE, and turn 10 guys loose on CMac.
The only time Stanford's offense had success was when it was spread out. So why on Earth would you do the thing that was working the least effectively in the game when you had a lead against a team your defense couldn't stop? It was OBVIOUS that Stanford's offense was going to have to win that game, not the defense. So instead of be the aggressor Shaw went full turtle. This reminded me of the Washington game in 2013. Stanford couldn't run the ball to save its life because UW was completely selling out to stop the run. But Shaw continued what wasn't working. In both cases last second heroics were needed to save the win, when just a couple first downs and some aggressive play calls would have done the trick much more easily, and more than likely caught the defense off guard.
I don't have a problem with heavy sets, but you have to have some pass threat when the defense shows it can stop the run. And in Stanford's case, use the damn TEs! Schultz and Taboada have been so chronically underused this season.
The short side toss to McCaffrey out of heavy personnel on 1st down with 7 mins to go was maddening. Not one time in the game did Stanford's heavy personnel dominate UDFG's front. They were bringing the Safeties up and blitzing on 1st down in "obvious" passing situations, totally keying on CMac. Everyone in the stadium knew he was getting the ball because there were 8 OL in the game. All the D had to do is make one guy responsible for the TE, and turn 10 guys loose on CMac.
The only time Stanford's offense had success was when it was spread out. So why on Earth would you do the thing that was working the least effectively in the game when you had a lead against a team your defense couldn't stop? It was OBVIOUS that Stanford's offense was going to have to win that game, not the defense. So instead of be the aggressor Shaw went full turtle. This reminded me of the Washington game in 2013. Stanford couldn't run the ball to save its life because UW was completely selling out to stop the run. But Shaw continued what wasn't working. In both cases last second heroics were needed to save the win, when just a couple first downs and some aggressive play calls would have done the trick much more easily, and more than likely caught the defense off guard.
I don't have a problem with heavy sets, but you have to have some pass threat when the defense shows it can stop the run. And in Stanford's case, use the damn TEs! Schultz and Taboada have been so chronically underused this season.