[stupac2]

Not to wade further into the meta-debates about Shaw, but one thing has always puzzled me: the centrality of Shaw's (alleged) tendency to stick to his pre-established game plan. More critical people might call it stubbornness, more supportive, a certain kind of fortitude, but basically everyone agrees that that character quality is Shaw's. (Shaw, too, agrees; he often talks about sticking to identity etc. etc.)

I also kind of agree which makes it weird that I'm writing this post. Nevertheless I think focusing on Shaw's cussedness obscures a lot about how his coaching works. For example, to generalize: most of the Shaw critics also think he plays true or redshirt freshmen too rarely. But I saw, and have seen, relatively little acknowledgement that starting Walker Little -- in a dramatic third-game shift -- is an example both of: a) a non-stubborn adjustment that worked and b) playing a true freshman. In other words, Shaw failed to live up to stereotype and no one really adjusted their mental models of him.

So I basically think Shaw, like all coaches, is constantly changing things and adjusting them. (I haven't counted, but would bet lunch that Stanford plays much more in shotgun than it did in 2011.)  I don't think he's changed quite as much as the average coach, but then again he also wins more than the average coach. Fewer losses are the result of fewer problems, and fewer problems means fewer changes.

I think the "stubborn" thing is one of those epithets that generally means "consistently does things I don't like". There's not much evidence that Shaw is stubborn about everything, he changes stuff all the time. It's been noted a number of times that we switched from man to zone run blocking to great effect in 2015, and against ORST the announcers had a segment queued up about how the quick pitch with the QB blocking the backside has become one of our primary running plays this year, and I don't believe we ever ran it before. Also of note: have we seen the wildcat at all this year?

Perhaps there are areas where Shaw has consistently refused to change despite evidence that his approach is suboptimal (I earlier mentioned 4th down decision-making as a potential candidate there, but honestly I think we might go for it more frequently now than we used to), but I don't think that they're particularly important in the grand scheme of things.

[stupac2]

Not to wade further into the meta-debates about Shaw, but one thing has always puzzled me: the centrality of Shaw's (alleged) tendency to stick to his pre-established game plan. More critical people might call it stubbornness, more supportive, a certain kind of fortitude, but basically everyone agrees that that character quality is Shaw's. (Shaw, too, agrees; he often talks about sticking to identity etc. etc.)

I also kind of agree which makes it weird that I'm writing this post. Nevertheless I think focusing on Shaw's cussedness obscures a lot about how his coaching works. For example, to generalize: most of the Shaw critics also think he plays true or redshirt freshmen too rarely. But I saw, and have seen, relatively little acknowledgement that starting Walker Little -- in a dramatic third-game shift -- is an example both of: a) a non-stubborn adjustment that worked and b) playing a true freshman. In other words, Shaw failed to live up to stereotype and no one really adjusted their mental models of him.

So I basically think Shaw, like all coaches, is constantly changing things and adjusting them. (I haven't counted, but would bet lunch that Stanford plays much more in shotgun than it did in 2011.)  I don't think he's changed quite as much as the average coach, but then again he also wins more than the average coach. Fewer losses are the result of fewer problems, and fewer problems means fewer changes.

I think the "stubborn" thing is one of those epithets that generally means "consistently does things I don't like". There's not much evidence that Shaw is stubborn about everything, he changes stuff all the time. It's been noted a number of times that we switched from man to zone run blocking to great effect in 2015, and against ORST the announcers had a segment queued up about how the quick pitch with the QB blocking the backside has become one of our primary running plays this year, and I don't believe we ever ran it before. Also of note: have we seen the wildcat at all this year?

Perhaps there are areas where Shaw has consistently refused to change despite evidence that his approach is suboptimal (I earlier mentioned 4th down decision-making as a potential candidate there, but honestly I think we might go for it more frequently now than we used to), but I don't think that they're particularly important in the grand scheme of things.