[CornFed]

One other comment in praise of Shaw.

The narrative going into the game was that with McCaffrey sitting himself out and coming off of a Rose Bowl game last year that we would be prone to coming out flat as the "less motivated" team.  And certainly, after the first series for each team, it looked like it.  But give Shaw credit for keeping the team motivated and into the game, even after Chryst went down, even after some frustrating offensive series.  While I tend to think "playcalling" is overrated as an important attribute for a coach, knowing how to keep the team motivated tends to be underappreciated, and generally, Shaw is quite good at it (last year's Northwestern game excepted).

BC

Good point and I would add that, even in the case you cite of the letdown at Northwestern, he successfully motivated the team to recover from that disappointment in fairly stunning fashion.

[CornFed]

One other comment in praise of Shaw.

The narrative going into the game was that with McCaffrey sitting himself out and coming off of a Rose Bowl game last year that we would be prone to coming out flat as the "less motivated" team.  And certainly, after the first series for each team, it looked like it.  But give Shaw credit for keeping the team motivated and into the game, even after Chryst went down, even after some frustrating offensive series.  While I tend to think "playcalling" is overrated as an important attribute for a coach, knowing how to keep the team motivated tends to be underappreciated, and generally, Shaw is quite good at it (last year's Northwestern game excepted).

BC

Good point and I would add that, even in the case you cite of the letdown at Northwestern, he successfully motivated the team to recover from that disappointment in fairly stunning fashion.