[Goose]

A receiver covered by a single DB is a match-up you will take every time, especially when you have receivers with a height advantage over their DB's.

For sure, that is true of Stanford right now.

 An uncovered receiver means there was a breakdown in the defense, and is not something you can count on in your scheme.  What you want is to throw to a receiver in single coverage.

I can't totally agree here. It partly depends on what you mean by covered. In fact, most teams do try to get a receiver "open". They don't always succeed, and have to settle for loosely single covered. For instance, that really great play we ran against Oregon where we forced the defender to choose which of the two receivers he was going to cover on the "in" route. That produced an open receiver. "Pick" plays produce open receivers, at least for an instant. Slants with the defender playing behind and outside contain produces a receiver that is functionally open because the DB can't get to the ball without going through the receiver. WSU produces open, in fact uncovered, receivers as a matter of course. Sometimes these patterns are real short, but they are going for YAC. Against a zone, you can get guys open by overloading an area of the field. So, teams really do try to get an "open" receiver.

For Stanford, having a tall, strong receiver with the DB playing behind is functionally "open", especially because of our receivers size. However, it is more of a judgement call if the DB is even with  or fronting the receiver. If the receiver is being fronted, the QB has to make a good throw or it may be an INT. KJ is good at this, but it isn't real safe.

On Saturday, our typical pass formation featured three wide receivers (sometimes a tight end line up wide), in a 12 formation (one on one side, two on the other), a tight end, and a single running back, defended by a Utah team that spent most of their time in their base D with one safety covering the slot defender and one safety deep who usually rotated on the snap to cover the deep route on the two wide receiver side.  Our TE and running back usually stayed in to pass protect.

The result is we usually had the slot receiver running a shallow/intermediate route and covered by the safety and a linebacker, the deep route on that side covered by the DB and the rotating safety, and the opposite receiver in one-on-one coverage.  The result was 381 yards of passing offense (the most since 2013 if I saw that correctly) and 14.6 yards per catch.  We also drew three pass interference penalties and one defensive holding, plus several uncalled penalties (including on the play before the pick-6).

BC

All true, but we also have to own the picks, one for six. One may say that was just a mistake by KJ that had unfortunate consequences, which is true. However, it is a mistake caused at least partially by our willingness to throw to guys with defenders nearby, at times in pretty good position. Same thing happened at ND, although not a pick six. So it isn't a free lunch.

IMHO, this kind of passing offense is designed to work best with the pass being a bit of a surprise. I don't think you can base your entire offense on this approach. If the other team expects it, they can defend it. They may end up holding and grabbing, but the can also turn mistakes into turnovers. You either need to be able to run the ball pretty well or have some plays that really get people "open". OTOH, we may have no other option. Not a good place to be.

[Goose]

A receiver covered by a single DB is a match-up you will take every time, especially when you have receivers with a height advantage over their DB's.

For sure, that is true of Stanford right now.

 An uncovered receiver means there was a breakdown in the defense, and is not something you can count on in your scheme.  What you want is to throw to a receiver in single coverage.

I can't totally agree here. It partly depends on what you mean by covered. In fact, most teams do try to get a receiver "open". They don't always succeed, and have to settle for loosely single covered. For instance, that really great play we ran against Oregon where we forced the defender to choose which of the two receivers he was going to cover on the "in" route. That produced an open receiver. "Pick" plays produce open receivers, at least for an instant. Slants with the defender playing behind and outside contain produces a receiver that is functionally open because the DB can't get to the ball without going through the receiver. WSU produces open, in fact uncovered, receivers as a matter of course. Sometimes these patterns are real short, but they are going for YAC. Against a zone, you can get guys open by overloading an area of the field. So, teams really do try to get an "open" receiver.

For Stanford, having a tall, strong receiver with the DB playing behind is functionally "open", especially because of our receivers size. However, it is more of a judgement call if the DB is even with  or fronting the receiver. If the receiver is being fronted, the QB has to make a good throw or it may be an INT. KJ is good at this, but it isn't real safe.

On Saturday, our typical pass formation featured three wide receivers (sometimes a tight end line up wide), in a 12 formation (one on one side, two on the other), a tight end, and a single running back, defended by a Utah team that spent most of their time in their base D with one safety covering the slot defender and one safety deep who usually rotated on the snap to cover the deep route on the two wide receiver side.  Our TE and running back usually stayed in to pass protect.

The result is we usually had the slot receiver running a shallow/intermediate route and covered by the safety and a linebacker, the deep route on that side covered by the DB and the rotating safety, and the opposite receiver in one-on-one coverage.  The result was 381 yards of passing offense (the most since 2013 if I saw that correctly) and 14.6 yards per catch.  We also drew three pass interference penalties and one defensive holding, plus several uncalled penalties (including on the play before the pick-6).

BC

All true, but we also have to own the picks, one for six. One may say that was just a mistake by KJ that had unfortunate consequences, which is true. However, it is a mistake caused at least partially by our willingness to throw to guys with defenders nearby, at times in pretty good position. Same thing happened at ND, although not a pick six. So it isn't a free lunch.

IMHO, this kind of passing offense is designed to work best with the pass being a bit of a surprise. I don't think you can base your entire offense on this approach. If the other team expects it, they can defend it. They may end up holding and grabbing, but the can also turn mistakes into turnovers. You either need to be able to run the ball pretty well or have some plays that really get people "open". OTOH, we may have no other option. Not a good place to be.