[81alum]

Yeah, I'm usually a defender of Shaw on his play calling (which some people never tire of criticizing), but you do have to wonder a bit what is going on in his mind when he continues to try to run those tosses up the middle when we are getting absolutely bupkus on them. Is he trying to set something else up, keep the defense honest, or what?

On the 50+ yard sweep, the prior play was yet another toss on 1st down into the middle for nothing.  I groaned at the time, but immediately after the wildly successful sweep I wondered whether the unimaginative 1st down call was there to set up the sweep.  So perhaps there was some method to this madness?

I have learned that I tend to be considerably too pessimistic about our team.  I think it comes from all those years of getting my hopes up and having them dashed.  But I am actually not as encouraged as many of you seem to be.

First, last year Love was a wonder to behold, but against certain schemes and defenses he was not consistent enough to keep moving the sticks and keep our ball-control ground game going.  At times it seemed that he either got stuffed or else he scored a touchdown--and either outcome is bad for time of possession.  This was a major factor in our losses--an inconsistent ground game and a surprising problem (for Stanford) with ball possession, leaving our defense on the field for much too long and the opponents' defenses being rested through the fourth quarter.

This year I see no improvement in the consistency of the ground game, and perhaps a regression.  We are not gaining the consistent 3-4 yards on 1st and 2nd downs we need to gain to make 3rd downs manageable.  Love is getting stopped in the backfield or at the line of scrimmage way too often.  Good defenses will exploit this against us more and more.  

Meanwhile, on defense, I remain skeptical about our ability to stop the inside run.  It is true that in the 2nd halves against SDSU and USC we were able to defend the run fairly well.  But in both cases this was after we got a lead and the opponent was passing more often.  Both of our opponents had times early in their games when they gashed us up the middle even when we should have been expecting it.  Certain better teams that can afford to stick with the run may be able to "out-Stanford Stanford" as a USC coach said they were reputedly trying to do.

Now, inconsistent ball control on our side combined with a weakness against ball control running on the other--not every team will be able to exploit this, but I worry that some will.

Then again, I usually see the lead lining in every silver cloud.

[81alum]

Yeah, I'm usually a defender of Shaw on his play calling (which some people never tire of criticizing), but you do have to wonder a bit what is going on in his mind when he continues to try to run those tosses up the middle when we are getting absolutely bupkus on them. Is he trying to set something else up, keep the defense honest, or what?

On the 50+ yard sweep, the prior play was yet another toss on 1st down into the middle for nothing.  I groaned at the time, but immediately after the wildly successful sweep I wondered whether the unimaginative 1st down call was there to set up the sweep.  So perhaps there was some method to this madness?

I have learned that I tend to be considerably too pessimistic about our team.  I think it comes from all those years of getting my hopes up and having them dashed.  But I am actually not as encouraged as many of you seem to be.

First, last year Love was a wonder to behold, but against certain schemes and defenses he was not consistent enough to keep moving the sticks and keep our ball-control ground game going.  At times it seemed that he either got stuffed or else he scored a touchdown--and either outcome is bad for time of possession.  This was a major factor in our losses--an inconsistent ground game and a surprising problem (for Stanford) with ball possession, leaving our defense on the field for much too long and the opponents' defenses being rested through the fourth quarter.

This year I see no improvement in the consistency of the ground game, and perhaps a regression.  We are not gaining the consistent 3-4 yards on 1st and 2nd downs we need to gain to make 3rd downs manageable.  Love is getting stopped in the backfield or at the line of scrimmage way too often.  Good defenses will exploit this against us more and more.  

Meanwhile, on defense, I remain skeptical about our ability to stop the inside run.  It is true that in the 2nd halves against SDSU and USC we were able to defend the run fairly well.  But in both cases this was after we got a lead and the opponent was passing more often.  Both of our opponents had times early in their games when they gashed us up the middle even when we should have been expecting it.  Certain better teams that can afford to stick with the run may be able to "out-Stanford Stanford" as a USC coach said they were reputedly trying to do.

Now, inconsistent ball control on our side combined with a weakness against ball control running on the other--not every team will be able to exploit this, but I worry that some will.

Then again, I usually see the lead lining in every silver cloud.