A few thoughts.
The author's primary theme seems to be, "the Cardinal are also a mere few tweaks from success with the talent on their offense".
I don't think so. Primarily because little tweaks will have little effect.
The options presented seem to be solely to get more time for Costello to throw. While pass protection was a problem vs und and at times vs Utah, I am not sure it has been the major issue overall.
There are also a lot of statements I don't understand what he is talking about. He extols (here and in previous articles) Stanford's great use of the pistol - which is about the only common formation Stanford never uses. I think he just means the shotgun.
In the same paragraph talking about the pistol, he talks about how great rollouts would be out of the "power formation". As far as I know, power isn't a formation - it's a play. We usually run Power out of the I, but this paragraph seems to be about plays out of the shotgun (see pistol comments).
He claims that "the consistent success in Stanford’s running game has been outside". I don't think that is correct, though I haven't charted all the run plays. There was a successful sweep versus $C, but mostly I remember sweeps and stretch plays going for significant negative yards.
As to the solutions.
While RPO can mean many things, it appears that his request for rollouts and RPOs are approximately the same thing; as in I think he is looking for a rollout from the shotgun where Costello can either pass or take off with the ball depending upon the situation. By itself that is fine, but is clearly not within what Costello can, or perhaps is allowed, to do this season. Costello has 16 official runs, which include 14 sacks, 1 semi-sack but he got back to the LOS for zero yards, and one scramble where he got 12 yards vs $C. I am quite certain our nominal zone read plays involve no read at all - and it looks like opposing defenses think the same. It seems that isn't in the cards.
As for extra blockers in max-protect, we've done that at times. It can be helpful, but I haven't seen it be a game changer. It does have the disadvantage of being the approach most likely to put our receivers in double coverage, where we have struggled.
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So, you might say to me, "instead of just whining, what do you suggest?"
Fair enough.
First I should note, I am not enough of a football coach that I necessarily have much reliable to contribute. With that caveat ...
Nothing is going to help much if we cannot run for at least 3+ yds/carry. We have to get there, and primarily involves improvement on the OL (perhaps coupled to facing weaker DLs?). My thought is we've been a little better in man blocking than zone, so I might emphasize those plays. But I am not certain. A counter argument is that Love may be better suited for zone plays, but he certainly has lots of big runs from Power.
I think the pass game needs more use of relatively easy, safe throws that give receivers a chance to catch the ball while running up field. It's hard to keep drives alive relying so heavily on go routes, deep seams, and box outs. We don't run lots of slants and drag routes, but I think we could ... maybe. And I like to dream about Weddington coming back and catching passes out of the backfield.
Until we fall too far behind, I'd have a general though of trying to keep close to 50% run plays, well maybe 45%, to keep defenses in their automatic response of looking for us to run and leaving our receivers one on one.
The author's primary theme seems to be, "the Cardinal are also a mere few tweaks from success with the talent on their offense".
I don't think so. Primarily because little tweaks will have little effect.
The options presented seem to be solely to get more time for Costello to throw. While pass protection was a problem vs und and at times vs Utah, I am not sure it has been the major issue overall.
There are also a lot of statements I don't understand what he is talking about. He extols (here and in previous articles) Stanford's great use of the pistol - which is about the only common formation Stanford never uses. I think he just means the shotgun.
In the same paragraph talking about the pistol, he talks about how great rollouts would be out of the "power formation". As far as I know, power isn't a formation - it's a play. We usually run Power out of the I, but this paragraph seems to be about plays out of the shotgun (see pistol comments).
He claims that "the consistent success in Stanford’s running game has been outside". I don't think that is correct, though I haven't charted all the run plays. There was a successful sweep versus $C, but mostly I remember sweeps and stretch plays going for significant negative yards.
As to the solutions.
While RPO can mean many things, it appears that his request for rollouts and RPOs are approximately the same thing; as in I think he is looking for a rollout from the shotgun where Costello can either pass or take off with the ball depending upon the situation. By itself that is fine, but is clearly not within what Costello can, or perhaps is allowed, to do this season. Costello has 16 official runs, which include 14 sacks, 1 semi-sack but he got back to the LOS for zero yards, and one scramble where he got 12 yards vs $C. I am quite certain our nominal zone read plays involve no read at all - and it looks like opposing defenses think the same. It seems that isn't in the cards.
As for extra blockers in max-protect, we've done that at times. It can be helpful, but I haven't seen it be a game changer. It does have the disadvantage of being the approach most likely to put our receivers in double coverage, where we have struggled.
-------------
So, you might say to me, "instead of just whining, what do you suggest?"
Fair enough.
First I should note, I am not enough of a football coach that I necessarily have much reliable to contribute. With that caveat ...
Nothing is going to help much if we cannot run for at least 3+ yds/carry. We have to get there, and primarily involves improvement on the OL (perhaps coupled to facing weaker DLs?). My thought is we've been a little better in man blocking than zone, so I might emphasize those plays. But I am not certain. A counter argument is that Love may be better suited for zone plays, but he certainly has lots of big runs from Power.
I think the pass game needs more use of relatively easy, safe throws that give receivers a chance to catch the ball while running up field. It's hard to keep drives alive relying so heavily on go routes, deep seams, and box outs. We don't run lots of slants and drag routes, but I think we could ... maybe. And I like to dream about Weddington coming back and catching passes out of the backfield.
Until we fall too far behind, I'd have a general though of trying to keep close to 50% run plays, well maybe 45%, to keep defenses in their automatic response of looking for us to run and leaving our receivers one on one.