[Red80]

I'd kill for that kind of offensive "balance" and effectiveness.  The problem with those teams was D, plain and simple.


I swear, I think the mind-numbingly dull Stanford offenses under Shaw have wiped away the fans' collective remembrances of what a good offensive football team looks like.  Hint:  it's not power running in a phone booth.  PPG and YPG were all so much better in most prior regimes.  The number of sub-350 yard total offense; sub-300 yard total offense; sub 250 yard total offense under this regime is shocking, given the recruited talent on O.  Shockingly bad.  Snap out of it, people!

Sorry Teejers1 but I watched it, and no, it wasn't a good offense. It was John Elway. He would go out there and do things nobody else could do. Yes, it was a blast to watch. You also knew that as long as he was out there, we could win, no matter how bad the defense was playing. Again, great to watch.

However, the results were poor. Yes, the of immense proportions problem was the defense. However, I can't call an offense a "good" offense when it relies on one player doing unbelievable things . Face it, the opposition knew that if they gave Elway any time at all he would destroy them. They had seen it happen to other quite good teams. You had to rush the hell out of Elway and at the same time play great pass defense. Running against a defense totally committed to stopping Elway wasn't too hard. However, our opponents counted Stanford running as a plus, because that meant Elway wasn't on a roll and eating them up.

The fact is we wasted three years of John Elway because we had no defense. The coaching staff recognized that we needed to keep our defense off the field so they tried (particularly in 1981) to run the ball a lot more. They did that and we lost more games. Would it have made sense to play phone booth football if your QB is John Elway and your running back is Darrin Nelson? No, it wouldn't. However, at the end of the day an offense that requires John Elway to function is not a "good" offense IMHO.

I disagree with your entire take and recollection on those offenses.  The running game - with Darrin freaking Nelson, V-Dub, Dot, and others - was at least respectable.  The passing game explosive.  We don't have anything approaching either right now.  Again, the fans in these parts have been beaten down by the dreck we've seen, thinking this kind of plodding O is "the way it has to be at Stanford."  That's just so not true.

I was listening to Nick Aliotti talk about Stanford's offense recently. Aliotti was Oregon's DC from '99-'13. He knows a lot about Stanford, and talked about what had made them difficult to deal with under Shaw. He said Stanford was "different", "unique", with their style of offense. He explained that while all the other Pac 12 teams were going to Spread offenses with 4 and 5 WR sets, Stanford did just the opposite, employing 3 TEs, a Fullback, and featured violent, downhill running. He said preparing for Stanford was almost like preparing for one of the service academies who ran wishbone and option offenses. Because no one else in the conference ran this type of system, opposing defenses were ill-equipped to deal with Stanford both physically and schematically. Opposing Ds used smaller, faster defenders to defend the more horizontal offenses that were now the norm. Aliotti said Stanford became a force in the P12 by going in this direction and called out David Shaw to bring back this offense and its signature play: Power. I felt like I was listening to myself. 

Speaking of Oregon and Aliotti, two of the greatest wins in Stanford football history were against Oregon in '12 and '13. UO was ranked #1 when SU beat them in Eugene, 17-14. One year later, #3 Oregon, averaging 55 points and 600 yards per game, was bludgeoned to death on national TV by a Stanford offense that held the ball for an astonishing 43 minutes. One of my all-time favorite Stanford football memories was watching virtually all of the many Oregon fans exiting the stadium by the end of the 3rd quarter.

[Red80]

I'd kill for that kind of offensive "balance" and effectiveness.  The problem with those teams was D, plain and simple.


I swear, I think the mind-numbingly dull Stanford offenses under Shaw have wiped away the fans' collective remembrances of what a good offensive football team looks like.  Hint:  it's not power running in a phone booth.  PPG and YPG were all so much better in most prior regimes.  The number of sub-350 yard total offense; sub-300 yard total offense; sub 250 yard total offense under this regime is shocking, given the recruited talent on O.  Shockingly bad.  Snap out of it, people!

Sorry Teejers1 but I watched it, and no, it wasn't a good offense. It was John Elway. He would go out there and do things nobody else could do. Yes, it was a blast to watch. You also knew that as long as he was out there, we could win, no matter how bad the defense was playing. Again, great to watch.

However, the results were poor. Yes, the of immense proportions problem was the defense. However, I can't call an offense a "good" offense when it relies on one player doing unbelievable things . Face it, the opposition knew that if they gave Elway any time at all he would destroy them. They had seen it happen to other quite good teams. You had to rush the hell out of Elway and at the same time play great pass defense. Running against a defense totally committed to stopping Elway wasn't too hard. However, our opponents counted Stanford running as a plus, because that meant Elway wasn't on a roll and eating them up.

The fact is we wasted three years of John Elway because we had no defense. The coaching staff recognized that we needed to keep our defense off the field so they tried (particularly in 1981) to run the ball a lot more. They did that and we lost more games. Would it have made sense to play phone booth football if your QB is John Elway and your running back is Darrin Nelson? No, it wouldn't. However, at the end of the day an offense that requires John Elway to function is not a "good" offense IMHO.

I disagree with your entire take and recollection on those offenses.  The running game - with Darrin freaking Nelson, V-Dub, Dot, and others - was at least respectable.  The passing game explosive.  We don't have anything approaching either right now.  Again, the fans in these parts have been beaten down by the dreck we've seen, thinking this kind of plodding O is "the way it has to be at Stanford."  That's just so not true.

I was listening to Nick Aliotti talk about Stanford's offense recently. Aliotti was Oregon's DC from '99-'13. He knows a lot about Stanford, and talked about what had made them difficult to deal with under Shaw. He said Stanford was "different", "unique", with their style of offense. He explained that while all the other Pac 12 teams were going to Spread offenses with 4 and 5 WR sets, Stanford did just the opposite, employing 3 TEs, a Fullback, and featured violent, downhill running. He said preparing for Stanford was almost like preparing for one of the service academies who ran wishbone and option offenses. Because no one else in the conference ran this type of system, opposing defenses were ill-equipped to deal with Stanford both physically and schematically. Opposing Ds used smaller, faster defenders to defend the more horizontal offenses that were now the norm. Aliotti said Stanford became a force in the P12 by going in this direction and called out David Shaw to bring back this offense and its signature play: Power. I felt like I was listening to myself. 

Speaking of Oregon and Aliotti, two of the greatest wins in Stanford football history were against Oregon in '12 and '13. UO was ranked #1 when SU beat them in Eugene, 17-14. One year later, #3 Oregon, averaging 55 points and 600 yards per game, was bludgeoned to death on national TV by a Stanford offense that held the ball for an astonishing 43 minutes. One of my all-time favorite Stanford football memories was watching virtually all of the many Oregon fans exiting the stadium by the end of the 3rd quarter.