08-09-2018, 12:56 PM
Roundabout on this thread.
Love and RBs in the pass game.
Love wasn't used nearly as much in the pass game as McCaffrey partly because he's not nearly as good at it, partly because he was so banged up his snaps were somewhat limited (and running was his most important role), and partly because Stanford didn't employ any backs in the pass game much.
Stanford hasn't been a big swing/screen-team for awhile now. Last year was more extreme. RBs caught a total of 16 passes last year - a little over one per game. [A possible caveat is that Wedington had 31 receptions, while I don't remember any of those out of the backfield I am not certain that was so.] I am not exactly sure why we saw that development. It could be that the QBs weren't as proficient at that sort of play, could be the RB skill set, could be a random function of game situation.
I thought the overlooked potential here was Scarlett. He caught only six passes (the same number as Love), but he had two good plays in the Alamo Bowl and two good early season catch and run plays. Thus Scarlett ended up with a ridiculous 29 yds/catch. Obviously that isn't sustainable over a larger workload, but I thought he looked pretty good catching the ball and could be more productive there.
And of course even if Love isn't a great receiver, it's still worth throwing to him more often. Obviously getting Love the ball in a place where he has some space to move is a great thing. And it would be good for Love's career as it would seem that the NFL would call on him to be a pass catcher.
On opponents stacking the box
I find this both an interesting topic and one difficult to discuss with clarity.
The discussion gets confused because there is no specific definition of stacking the box; generally everybody does it sometimes and never all the time; and sometimes the box is "stacked" for purposes of blitzing in a passing situation, which is a different deal.
I just spent some time going back over last seasons games to check our opponents defensive alignments. On standard downs Stanford saw a lot of defenses with either one safety back or two back but one looking to crash the LOS at the snap in run support. Actually having no safeties deep seemed to only happen in third and short type situations or for blitzing the passer on passing downs.
Some teams tended to play us with two safeties deep, ASU notably and we burned them, with Love running for 301 yards. That isn't the sort of performance that makes other teams want to copy.
I think it deserves more analysis, but my guess is that we won't see a lot of defenses hanging further back on standard downs until we repeatedly are more devastating passing than running. And my further guess is that won't be 2018.
Love and RBs in the pass game.
Love wasn't used nearly as much in the pass game as McCaffrey partly because he's not nearly as good at it, partly because he was so banged up his snaps were somewhat limited (and running was his most important role), and partly because Stanford didn't employ any backs in the pass game much.
Stanford hasn't been a big swing/screen-team for awhile now. Last year was more extreme. RBs caught a total of 16 passes last year - a little over one per game. [A possible caveat is that Wedington had 31 receptions, while I don't remember any of those out of the backfield I am not certain that was so.] I am not exactly sure why we saw that development. It could be that the QBs weren't as proficient at that sort of play, could be the RB skill set, could be a random function of game situation.
I thought the overlooked potential here was Scarlett. He caught only six passes (the same number as Love), but he had two good plays in the Alamo Bowl and two good early season catch and run plays. Thus Scarlett ended up with a ridiculous 29 yds/catch. Obviously that isn't sustainable over a larger workload, but I thought he looked pretty good catching the ball and could be more productive there.
And of course even if Love isn't a great receiver, it's still worth throwing to him more often. Obviously getting Love the ball in a place where he has some space to move is a great thing. And it would be good for Love's career as it would seem that the NFL would call on him to be a pass catcher.
On opponents stacking the box
I find this both an interesting topic and one difficult to discuss with clarity.
The discussion gets confused because there is no specific definition of stacking the box; generally everybody does it sometimes and never all the time; and sometimes the box is "stacked" for purposes of blitzing in a passing situation, which is a different deal.
I just spent some time going back over last seasons games to check our opponents defensive alignments. On standard downs Stanford saw a lot of defenses with either one safety back or two back but one looking to crash the LOS at the snap in run support. Actually having no safeties deep seemed to only happen in third and short type situations or for blitzing the passer on passing downs.
Some teams tended to play us with two safeties deep, ASU notably and we burned them, with Love running for 301 yards. That isn't the sort of performance that makes other teams want to copy.
I think it deserves more analysis, but my guess is that we won't see a lot of defenses hanging further back on standard downs until we repeatedly are more devastating passing than running. And my further guess is that won't be 2018.