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Had you looked at Stanford in the first few  weeks after Luck's graduation you might have come to the conclusion (and some people prematurely did) that Shaw was lucky to have Luck and that Shaw can't run his offense without a once in a generation QB.

I would say that was a completely correct statement at the time.

Remember all the frustration here about why it would take three years for a QB to learn the Stanford playbook while other schools can start true freshmen at QB?  Remember all those posts tearing out their hair over delay of game penalties?  Obviously the latter isn't completely fixed since we got two in a row against USC, but we're not rushing to the line every play like we were a while back.

I feel like after Luck it took Shaw a few years to make the decision to adapt the offense to the strengths of the players rather than expect the players to fit into the system.  I'm thinking both about what he asks the QB to do and about the power running game.

The counter to my argument is that the team won its first Rose Bowl in 40 years the year after Luck left with redshirt freshman Kevin Hogan at QB.  To that I'd say that we had a great OL along with Stepfan Taylor, that we need to remember how we struggled to move the ball under Nunes the first half of the season, and that Hogan turned out to be an amazing talent himself.  And don't forget Michigan State the next year ... talk about pounding your head against a wall.

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Had you looked at Stanford in the first few  weeks after Luck's graduation you might have come to the conclusion (and some people prematurely did) that Shaw was lucky to have Luck and that Shaw can't run his offense without a once in a generation QB.

I would say that was a completely correct statement at the time.

Remember all the frustration here about why it would take three years for a QB to learn the Stanford playbook while other schools can start true freshmen at QB?  Remember all those posts tearing out their hair over delay of game penalties?  Obviously the latter isn't completely fixed since we got two in a row against USC, but we're not rushing to the line every play like we were a while back.

I feel like after Luck it took Shaw a few years to make the decision to adapt the offense to the strengths of the players rather than expect the players to fit into the system.  I'm thinking both about what he asks the QB to do and about the power running game.

The counter to my argument is that the team won its first Rose Bowl in 40 years the year after Luck left with redshirt freshman Kevin Hogan at QB.  To that I'd say that we had a great OL along with Stepfan Taylor, that we need to remember how we struggled to move the ball under Nunes the first half of the season, and that Hogan turned out to be an amazing talent himself.  And don't forget Michigan State the next year ... talk about pounding your head against a wall.