First, I find myself unexpectedly having to agree with a lot of Teejers comments. McKee did exhibit great accuracy last night, which we had not seen before. If he can keep doing it, we have a great weapon. We also find ourselves with big receivers that can win the 50/50 battles. This is JJAW all over again I fear. It is a great weapon, but if it is your only weapon you will have games like Utah where the secondary wins most of those battles. KJ developed the habit of throwing into coverage because it often worked. Not a good thing. Fortunately, we also had some plays where the receivers were actually open. We need a Simi Fehoko which we don't have ATM. Hopefully we can continue to improve at getting separation with what we have.
Shaw taking the field goal off the board and going for it was a psych play that worked. I think McKee was feeling it and Shaw was feeling it and he let his emotions overrule his coaching conservatism. It worked, so he is a hero, but I am sure he is asking himself was it wise.
We have to realize that USC lost this game as much or more than we won it. It appears they had no real game plan, just assuming that whatever they did would work. Their DBs committed penalty after penalty on plays where the receiver was going to have a tough time reaching the ball anyway. On offense, if SC had just run the ball right at us all night, they probably win. We weren't giving up 50 yard plays but we were giving up 6 yard ones. At least they should have run until we adjusted to stop it. They didn't do that, they threw the ball and were not efficient in doing so. Part of that was our defense was doing a surprisingly good job in coverage, but most of that was Slovis was throwing the ball behind receivers. In general, he was not on target. Perhaps he was throwing into a small window, but it wasn't working well.
Stanford got one Bryce Love style long run, but otherwise our run game wasn't what we want it to be. Jones never really got going, and IMHO we need him to be a reliable option. He ran 10 times for a 1.9 yard average. KSU game numbers. Not good. Peat did much better, but it was mostly one carry. This needs to improve if we expect to beat UCLA/Oregon class teams (as far was we actually know how good they are).
So yes, we won the game and that is great. There are lots of positives. AFAIR there was only one holding call. We had a false start on a punt, which was caused by the play clock being almost 0 and the player assuming we must be snapping the ball by now! Otherwise, pretty clean. The defense showed that if you can keep them off the field much of the game they have just enough to make a few stops. When you are as offensively efficient as we were most of last night, that can be enough.
Shaw taking the field goal off the board and going for it was a psych play that worked. I think McKee was feeling it and Shaw was feeling it and he let his emotions overrule his coaching conservatism. It worked, so he is a hero, but I am sure he is asking himself was it wise.
We have to realize that USC lost this game as much or more than we won it. It appears they had no real game plan, just assuming that whatever they did would work. Their DBs committed penalty after penalty on plays where the receiver was going to have a tough time reaching the ball anyway. On offense, if SC had just run the ball right at us all night, they probably win. We weren't giving up 50 yard plays but we were giving up 6 yard ones. At least they should have run until we adjusted to stop it. They didn't do that, they threw the ball and were not efficient in doing so. Part of that was our defense was doing a surprisingly good job in coverage, but most of that was Slovis was throwing the ball behind receivers. In general, he was not on target. Perhaps he was throwing into a small window, but it wasn't working well.
Stanford got one Bryce Love style long run, but otherwise our run game wasn't what we want it to be. Jones never really got going, and IMHO we need him to be a reliable option. He ran 10 times for a 1.9 yard average. KSU game numbers. Not good. Peat did much better, but it was mostly one carry. This needs to improve if we expect to beat UCLA/Oregon class teams (as far was we actually know how good they are).
So yes, we won the game and that is great. There are lots of positives. AFAIR there was only one holding call. We had a false start on a punt, which was caused by the play clock being almost 0 and the player assuming we must be snapping the ball by now! Otherwise, pretty clean. The defense showed that if you can keep them off the field much of the game they have just enough to make a few stops. When you are as offensively efficient as we were most of last night, that can be enough.