[CTcard]

.. Oregon could key on Love in the first half, knowing that Shaw was going to give him a lot of touches, and only needed to worry about our sizable receiver corps, which only really became lethal in the second half.  If this part of our offense were more regularly used, I am convinced it would soften up the middle for the running game and effectively spread the field for Love and his colleagues in the backfield. 

Oregon wasn't keying on Love particularly strongly, certainly not the way that SDSU was. I think all opponents will key on Love at least as much as Oregon did, regardless of our detailed offensive strategy.

The offense also was not as run heavy in the first half as you seem to  imagine. By my count we called 12 run plays and 15 pass plays in the first half (44% run), 10 runs plays and 13 pass plays in the second (43% run).
There's a lot more than run/pass ratios of course, but it is my sense that few here think that was the break down in the two halves.

Yes, the offense has evolved; but I still see certain old habits that reveal Shaw's obdurate devotion to the run-first identity.

I see one man's [woman's?] "obdurate devotion" is another man's "having a plan and working it".

For reasons that go beyond this season alone, I think it absolutely essential that Stanford has some identity and the only one on the table at the moment is a tough, powerful run-first (if no long Power run) team. That gives us a scheme to recruit to. It gives us a presence in the minds of players who fit that scheme so they might choose us. It gives us a long term base for building an offense rather than trying to create and teach from scratch each season and each game.

Within that identity, a team obviously must adjust to match the current skill set on hand.
That's exactly the challenge right now. I don't think it requires more passing, just as the second half didn't have more passing than the first. It does require more efficiency, and I'd like to see some heavier use of intermediate 5-10 yard completions plus YAC.
We have a bit of an advantage in that teams will be awfully reluctant to quit focusing on Love so that pass game will have room to operate for awhile.
The other hope I hold is that the OL will get more healthy as the season goes on, and by virtue of that get more synced together.
  

You're giving me too much credit. I wasn't predicting anything for Love, just wondering aloud (a-screen?). fullmetal seemed to be predicting that this season will have no negative effect on Love's draft stock.

[quote="Goose"]
Whichever team loses this next game will be labeled a "pretender" ... Paradoxically, a victory doesn't help us as much as one might expect because it would be ND that is the pretender and beating them was no big deal.

Hey, you're jumping the gun here. Typically, before the game starts the zeitgeist is "this week will really show where we are" whereas after the game we revert to "turns out XX wasn't very good and we don't know anything yet".

And by the way, those two things aren't a paradox, they go together naturally when you don't think the opponent is as good as their ranking.

I'm intrigued by the Ducks at Cal and Wilcox in between home games against Stanford and UW...

I am intrigued as well; suspicious that both Oregon and Stanford may be rather flat after the emotionally exhausting game they just played.

Usually, Stanford shows notable signs of being beat up the week after playing Utah, $C and Notre Dame. Not sure the duckies have the same effect physically, but that game sure was an emotional roller coaster.

[CTcard]

.. Oregon could key on Love in the first half, knowing that Shaw was going to give him a lot of touches, and only needed to worry about our sizable receiver corps, which only really became lethal in the second half.  If this part of our offense were more regularly used, I am convinced it would soften up the middle for the running game and effectively spread the field for Love and his colleagues in the backfield. 

Oregon wasn't keying on Love particularly strongly, certainly not the way that SDSU was. I think all opponents will key on Love at least as much as Oregon did, regardless of our detailed offensive strategy.

The offense also was not as run heavy in the first half as you seem to  imagine. By my count we called 12 run plays and 15 pass plays in the first half (44% run), 10 runs plays and 13 pass plays in the second (43% run).
There's a lot more than run/pass ratios of course, but it is my sense that few here think that was the break down in the two halves.

Yes, the offense has evolved; but I still see certain old habits that reveal Shaw's obdurate devotion to the run-first identity.

I see one man's [woman's?] "obdurate devotion" is another man's "having a plan and working it".

For reasons that go beyond this season alone, I think it absolutely essential that Stanford has some identity and the only one on the table at the moment is a tough, powerful run-first (if no long Power run) team. That gives us a scheme to recruit to. It gives us a presence in the minds of players who fit that scheme so they might choose us. It gives us a long term base for building an offense rather than trying to create and teach from scratch each season and each game.

Within that identity, a team obviously must adjust to match the current skill set on hand.
That's exactly the challenge right now. I don't think it requires more passing, just as the second half didn't have more passing than the first. It does require more efficiency, and I'd like to see some heavier use of intermediate 5-10 yard completions plus YAC.
We have a bit of an advantage in that teams will be awfully reluctant to quit focusing on Love so that pass game will have room to operate for awhile.
The other hope I hold is that the OL will get more healthy as the season goes on, and by virtue of that get more synced together.
  

You're giving me too much credit. I wasn't predicting anything for Love, just wondering aloud (a-screen?). fullmetal seemed to be predicting that this season will have no negative effect on Love's draft stock.

[quote="Goose"]
Whichever team loses this next game will be labeled a "pretender" ... Paradoxically, a victory doesn't help us as much as one might expect because it would be ND that is the pretender and beating them was no big deal.

Hey, you're jumping the gun here. Typically, before the game starts the zeitgeist is "this week will really show where we are" whereas after the game we revert to "turns out XX wasn't very good and we don't know anything yet".

And by the way, those two things aren't a paradox, they go together naturally when you don't think the opponent is as good as their ranking.

I'm intrigued by the Ducks at Cal and Wilcox in between home games against Stanford and UW...

I am intrigued as well; suspicious that both Oregon and Stanford may be rather flat after the emotionally exhausting game they just played.

Usually, Stanford shows notable signs of being beat up the week after playing Utah, $C and Notre Dame. Not sure the duckies have the same effect physically, but that game sure was an emotional roller coaster.