09-08-2021, 04:55 PM
As it turns out, most of my personal gripes about Shaw have been mostly hashed out here. The big one is his ability to hire a competent football staff. I wonder if Carberry left in part because he was tired of Pritchard calling the shots as the OC (also the line was walking wounded for several years).
Oh wait, why was the team as a whole afflicted with so many injuries? Was it because some intern trainer was elevated to head trainer in one offseason, coinciding with the departure of most of the rest of the training staff? This one's on Shaw too...(also I heard that a few years ago, the team training table + snack bar wasn't being staffed adequately...you figure Shaw would be on top of that too).
Let's assume Shaw terminated Turley "for cause" other than performance. Shaw has never terminated an assistant for performance, and might we guess that some of his staff take that for granted? A's hire A's, B's hire C's. If you're not willing to hire A's, then...
We can gripe about the failure to establish an offensive identity in camp. We can grip about the failure to identify the more talented QB in camp and dedicate all first-team practice reps to his development. We can even gripe about the scattershot, "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach to offensive playcalling adjustment.
But really, when it comes to fundamental execution of avoiding delays of game and not wasting timeouts, could we at least get that right? If we can't get that right, can we get anything right? (When it comes to communicating with QBs and game management.)
I'd like to never see another WR/RB screen pass behind the LOS until we run some vertical routes and at least threaten to take the top off. Scheme your way to WR separation if you don't have the speed. Any competent OC can draw up a play like that.
Looking at some of the highlights on Youtube...Sinclair shows up too late in a lot of plays. He's also lucky Imatorbhebhe couldn't make the grab in that one play where Imatorbhebhe had found a seam and beaten Sinclair downfield. Noah Williams whiffed a tackle on one of K-State's long TD runs. K-State held pretty effectively to create their holes. We'll see how Mangum-Ferrar does next week.
On third and two, Stanford lines up in I-formation with West under center. The give is to the RB and the play goes strongside except both the tackle and tight end whiff their blocks and get spun around. All three LBs (who have stacked the box) bite on the run and crash the playside for a TFL...meanwhile the one-high safety has nothing to do as both our WRs stuck around to block their guys. I mean...did West not have the option to go play action once he saw the LBs creeping up behind the DL? Also, maybe we're still running Duo, but I haven't seen enough to clearly tell, but even Duo will not work if you can't engage a man 1v1, much less win the block.
David Shaw doesn't call vertical WR routes much, and K-State apparently knows this and does not respect the passing attack. (Hence why most, if not all, of those lateral screen passes fail.) We might not have amazing speed, but we have to threaten. WRs love the chance to win jump balls, which isn't a terrible chance to take if you have decent accuracy/ball placement.
This game looked like Stanford was still in spring ball mode. Team didn't look prepared to win this game. Even special teams missed a chance to down a punt inside the 5 and instead gave up the touchback. (Also gave up a couple big returns too.)
It's only game one, but the team is who they are. They played like who they are. And the coaches coached like who they are.
Oh wait, why was the team as a whole afflicted with so many injuries? Was it because some intern trainer was elevated to head trainer in one offseason, coinciding with the departure of most of the rest of the training staff? This one's on Shaw too...(also I heard that a few years ago, the team training table + snack bar wasn't being staffed adequately...you figure Shaw would be on top of that too).
Let's assume Shaw terminated Turley "for cause" other than performance. Shaw has never terminated an assistant for performance, and might we guess that some of his staff take that for granted? A's hire A's, B's hire C's. If you're not willing to hire A's, then...
We can gripe about the failure to establish an offensive identity in camp. We can grip about the failure to identify the more talented QB in camp and dedicate all first-team practice reps to his development. We can even gripe about the scattershot, "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach to offensive playcalling adjustment.
But really, when it comes to fundamental execution of avoiding delays of game and not wasting timeouts, could we at least get that right? If we can't get that right, can we get anything right? (When it comes to communicating with QBs and game management.)
I'd like to never see another WR/RB screen pass behind the LOS until we run some vertical routes and at least threaten to take the top off. Scheme your way to WR separation if you don't have the speed. Any competent OC can draw up a play like that.
Looking at some of the highlights on Youtube...Sinclair shows up too late in a lot of plays. He's also lucky Imatorbhebhe couldn't make the grab in that one play where Imatorbhebhe had found a seam and beaten Sinclair downfield. Noah Williams whiffed a tackle on one of K-State's long TD runs. K-State held pretty effectively to create their holes. We'll see how Mangum-Ferrar does next week.
On third and two, Stanford lines up in I-formation with West under center. The give is to the RB and the play goes strongside except both the tackle and tight end whiff their blocks and get spun around. All three LBs (who have stacked the box) bite on the run and crash the playside for a TFL...meanwhile the one-high safety has nothing to do as both our WRs stuck around to block their guys. I mean...did West not have the option to go play action once he saw the LBs creeping up behind the DL? Also, maybe we're still running Duo, but I haven't seen enough to clearly tell, but even Duo will not work if you can't engage a man 1v1, much less win the block.
David Shaw doesn't call vertical WR routes much, and K-State apparently knows this and does not respect the passing attack. (Hence why most, if not all, of those lateral screen passes fail.) We might not have amazing speed, but we have to threaten. WRs love the chance to win jump balls, which isn't a terrible chance to take if you have decent accuracy/ball placement.
This game looked like Stanford was still in spring ball mode. Team didn't look prepared to win this game. Even special teams missed a chance to down a punt inside the 5 and instead gave up the touchback. (Also gave up a couple big returns too.)
It's only game one, but the team is who they are. They played like who they are. And the coaches coached like who they are.