[CTcard]

 I absolutely love North Dakota State's brand of football. They're everything that I'd like Stanford to be, and they do remind me of what Stanford used to be just a few years ago. They also have a great eye for and developing the right QB for their offense...including some kid named Ashton Daniels whom I would have taken over McKee in a second based on what I saw from each of them in HS.

I am guessing that Ashton Daniels = Trey Lance; and that you are hoping that is what Daniels could become. 

McKee and Daniels were both 2018 hs graduates, but McKee was college entrance 2020 so not really in competition for a spot in a given class. 
The college football world appears to have been somewhere between unaware and unimpressed with Daniels out of HS. He had offers from 3 FBS teams (Boise, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois) and a few FCS teams. Obviously a great catch and case of development for NDSU. Interesting note is that Klieman left NDSU ahead of Lance's one starting year at NDSU (2019), but obviously was involved in Lance's recruitment and intial development. 

I like a contrarian philosophy.  However, I did begin to feel as if ground-and-pound wore out its contrarian nature as more and more teams figured out they could put 8 or 9 in the box to defend us.  I am remembering Michigan State in the Rose Bowl, for example, but this board was filled with people complaining that opposing defensive coordinators had "solved" our offense and that Shaw stubbornly clung to ground and pound and needed to punish the 8-in-a-box defenses.  This was long before the worst of our decline began.  Our defense carried us at times, and Shaw eventually became much more balanced on offense.

While there were (and always are) plenty of issues with the offense in the 2014 Rose Bowl, the fundamental problem was the Michigan State's defense was really good and Stanford's offense was only pretty good. Stanford was destined to lose that matchup. The hope was to win on the other side, which didn't happen though overall it was close (and I still claim that the call on the "fake" field goal was botched - and is listed on the play by play as illegal formation though pretty sure at the time it was called as illegal man downfield). 

The Stanford offense never really became particularly balanced if by that you mean near the national median in terms of run/pass mix. Under Tavita as OC, the team went rather quickly from run-heavy to run-rarely. 
Tavita never seemed to really like a downhill run-game. Another impression I had of Tavita was that he was too taken by the idea that you can win football games by simply being clever and tricking the other side. While that helps from time to time, overall I think one wins more football games by simply out-performing the other guys - being faster, stronger, more skilled, more trained.

[CTcard]

 I absolutely love North Dakota State's brand of football. They're everything that I'd like Stanford to be, and they do remind me of what Stanford used to be just a few years ago. They also have a great eye for and developing the right QB for their offense...including some kid named Ashton Daniels whom I would have taken over McKee in a second based on what I saw from each of them in HS.

I am guessing that Ashton Daniels = Trey Lance; and that you are hoping that is what Daniels could become. 

McKee and Daniels were both 2018 hs graduates, but McKee was college entrance 2020 so not really in competition for a spot in a given class. 
The college football world appears to have been somewhere between unaware and unimpressed with Daniels out of HS. He had offers from 3 FBS teams (Boise, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois) and a few FCS teams. Obviously a great catch and case of development for NDSU. Interesting note is that Klieman left NDSU ahead of Lance's one starting year at NDSU (2019), but obviously was involved in Lance's recruitment and intial development. 

I like a contrarian philosophy.  However, I did begin to feel as if ground-and-pound wore out its contrarian nature as more and more teams figured out they could put 8 or 9 in the box to defend us.  I am remembering Michigan State in the Rose Bowl, for example, but this board was filled with people complaining that opposing defensive coordinators had "solved" our offense and that Shaw stubbornly clung to ground and pound and needed to punish the 8-in-a-box defenses.  This was long before the worst of our decline began.  Our defense carried us at times, and Shaw eventually became much more balanced on offense.

While there were (and always are) plenty of issues with the offense in the 2014 Rose Bowl, the fundamental problem was the Michigan State's defense was really good and Stanford's offense was only pretty good. Stanford was destined to lose that matchup. The hope was to win on the other side, which didn't happen though overall it was close (and I still claim that the call on the "fake" field goal was botched - and is listed on the play by play as illegal formation though pretty sure at the time it was called as illegal man downfield). 

The Stanford offense never really became particularly balanced if by that you mean near the national median in terms of run/pass mix. Under Tavita as OC, the team went rather quickly from run-heavy to run-rarely. 
Tavita never seemed to really like a downhill run-game. Another impression I had of Tavita was that he was too taken by the idea that you can win football games by simply being clever and tricking the other side. While that helps from time to time, overall I think one wins more football games by simply out-performing the other guys - being faster, stronger, more skilled, more trained.