[msqueri]

Notably, it appears the plan might be for April to bring his fellow defensive front seven assistants, inside linebackers coach Mark D'Onofrio and defensive line coach Ross Kolodziej, with him to Stanford. D'Onofrio has only coached with Leonhard and April for one year after a three year absence from coaching and many years as a defensive coordinator at Temple, Miami, and Houston. Looking at the arcs of D'Onofrio's defenses at each of those three schools, he was very modestly successful at Temple, unsuccessful at Miami, and unsuccessful at Houston. The way I'd think about D'Onofrio is a failed coordinator who can nonetheless provide April with some perspective from years of major college football play calling, and the two have a year of successful experience navigating the seams and gaps between outside and inside linebackers. Kolodziej led Badger strength and conditioning for six years between 2015-2020 before serving as the DL coach the last two years. The performance of the defense, especially in run defense, the last two years suggests that Chryst and Leonhard didn't err in making Kolodziej DL coach. Certainly he's been integral to the program spanning Aranda, Wilcox, and Leonhard successes. In my view, the theory of the case for the Stanford defense under April would be much stronger with Kolodziej and D'Onofrio than it would be if he is forced to retain Stanford assistants or search elsewhere for new partners. Big arrow up for me if these three come together. They have proven synergy as defensive coaches and, as a bonus, synergy with one another in integrating strength and conditioning with defensive coaching: in addition to Kolodziej's obvious strength and conditioning expertise, D'Onofrio's time at Houston overlapped with new Stanford honcho Ryan Deatrick.

The biggest unknown for me with regard to April as DC is the defensive secondary coaching. I remain convinced we need two defensive secondary coaches, as Leonhard operated at Wisconsin and as Taylor operated at Sacramento State. I do not know anything about the coaching Taylor and April plan to bring on for the secondary. Big unknown for me. Hopefully we can nail down the rest of the staff soon and the synergies are as good as my optimistic read so far.

Wisconsin played a slow tempo run oriented offense. Ball control.  Which obviously helps the defense. Also, I think a defense plays the run better when it practices against a run oriented offense (and usually with a very good o-line ).  Complimentary football. Running well and stopping the run were the constants during their great run.  And the inability to run or stop the run was at the forefront of the collapse.

I don’t  know how up tempo Taylor will play.  Defensive depth will be very important.  Kind of a “duh”, I know.    But I think it’s even more imperative with an up tempo style team.

The offensive tempo is not going to be slow under Taylor. The slowest tempo offense Taylor has coached would be the fastest Shaw ever coached. Just based on past practice we should expect about ten more plays of offense per game (15+ percent more plays....a ton). Theoretically one could posit that Taylor played fast tempo at Sacramento State because personnel/opponents/situation called for it and at Stanford he may opt for a different strategy. I know you and some others would like that. But based on his public comments over the last two weeks you should not expect that. He routinely uses "tempo" (along with fun, attack, and balance) as one of the main words to describe his offense. When he mentions slowing tempo it is explicitly in the context of mixing tempos to keep defenses off balance; that is, very much not the deliberative, clock squeezing lethargy of Shawfense. And he has even said in recent interviews that we will sometimes huddle. Expect tempo. This is going to be much faster than Shaw.

It's a fair question to wonder what that means for the defense. For what it's worth, here are Wisconsin offense plays per game:

2013: 70.2
2014: 69.3
2015: 71.6
2016: 70.1
2017: 68.1
2018: 67.3
2019: 68.8
2020: 70.7
2021: 66.7
2022: 62.8

So the median plays per game for Wisconsin in its defensively dominant years is about 69. That's about three plays more per game than Shaw's median and almost exactly (a tad higher) than Stanford's 2022 offense. It's fair to wonder how Taylor tempo will mesh with a defense that's relied on slower tempo, which is a description of both Stanford and to a lesser extent Wisconsin in recent years.

I also like your point about defenses playing better against the run if they practice against a good run offense. In my simplistic view I consider the improvements in offensive efficiency we should anticipate with Taylor as a reason for optimism regarding the defense too.

The connection between defensive depth and tempo is one where I understand your logic but would want to empirically test it. I don't get the impression good defenses, regardless of tempo, rotate out personnel as much as many fans assume. It's not that taxing for a good major college football linebacker to play 60+ plays. But this is something I'd want to test with data.

[msqueri]

Notably, it appears the plan might be for April to bring his fellow defensive front seven assistants, inside linebackers coach Mark D'Onofrio and defensive line coach Ross Kolodziej, with him to Stanford. D'Onofrio has only coached with Leonhard and April for one year after a three year absence from coaching and many years as a defensive coordinator at Temple, Miami, and Houston. Looking at the arcs of D'Onofrio's defenses at each of those three schools, he was very modestly successful at Temple, unsuccessful at Miami, and unsuccessful at Houston. The way I'd think about D'Onofrio is a failed coordinator who can nonetheless provide April with some perspective from years of major college football play calling, and the two have a year of successful experience navigating the seams and gaps between outside and inside linebackers. Kolodziej led Badger strength and conditioning for six years between 2015-2020 before serving as the DL coach the last two years. The performance of the defense, especially in run defense, the last two years suggests that Chryst and Leonhard didn't err in making Kolodziej DL coach. Certainly he's been integral to the program spanning Aranda, Wilcox, and Leonhard successes. In my view, the theory of the case for the Stanford defense under April would be much stronger with Kolodziej and D'Onofrio than it would be if he is forced to retain Stanford assistants or search elsewhere for new partners. Big arrow up for me if these three come together. They have proven synergy as defensive coaches and, as a bonus, synergy with one another in integrating strength and conditioning with defensive coaching: in addition to Kolodziej's obvious strength and conditioning expertise, D'Onofrio's time at Houston overlapped with new Stanford honcho Ryan Deatrick.

The biggest unknown for me with regard to April as DC is the defensive secondary coaching. I remain convinced we need two defensive secondary coaches, as Leonhard operated at Wisconsin and as Taylor operated at Sacramento State. I do not know anything about the coaching Taylor and April plan to bring on for the secondary. Big unknown for me. Hopefully we can nail down the rest of the staff soon and the synergies are as good as my optimistic read so far.

Wisconsin played a slow tempo run oriented offense. Ball control.  Which obviously helps the defense. Also, I think a defense plays the run better when it practices against a run oriented offense (and usually with a very good o-line ).  Complimentary football. Running well and stopping the run were the constants during their great run.  And the inability to run or stop the run was at the forefront of the collapse.

I don’t  know how up tempo Taylor will play.  Defensive depth will be very important.  Kind of a “duh”, I know.    But I think it’s even more imperative with an up tempo style team.

The offensive tempo is not going to be slow under Taylor. The slowest tempo offense Taylor has coached would be the fastest Shaw ever coached. Just based on past practice we should expect about ten more plays of offense per game (15+ percent more plays....a ton). Theoretically one could posit that Taylor played fast tempo at Sacramento State because personnel/opponents/situation called for it and at Stanford he may opt for a different strategy. I know you and some others would like that. But based on his public comments over the last two weeks you should not expect that. He routinely uses "tempo" (along with fun, attack, and balance) as one of the main words to describe his offense. When he mentions slowing tempo it is explicitly in the context of mixing tempos to keep defenses off balance; that is, very much not the deliberative, clock squeezing lethargy of Shawfense. And he has even said in recent interviews that we will sometimes huddle. Expect tempo. This is going to be much faster than Shaw.

It's a fair question to wonder what that means for the defense. For what it's worth, here are Wisconsin offense plays per game:

2013: 70.2
2014: 69.3
2015: 71.6
2016: 70.1
2017: 68.1
2018: 67.3
2019: 68.8
2020: 70.7
2021: 66.7
2022: 62.8

So the median plays per game for Wisconsin in its defensively dominant years is about 69. That's about three plays more per game than Shaw's median and almost exactly (a tad higher) than Stanford's 2022 offense. It's fair to wonder how Taylor tempo will mesh with a defense that's relied on slower tempo, which is a description of both Stanford and to a lesser extent Wisconsin in recent years.

I also like your point about defenses playing better against the run if they practice against a good run offense. In my simplistic view I consider the improvements in offensive efficiency we should anticipate with Taylor as a reason for optimism regarding the defense too.

The connection between defensive depth and tempo is one where I understand your logic but would want to empirically test it. I don't get the impression good defenses, regardless of tempo, rotate out personnel as much as many fans assume. It's not that taxing for a good major college football linebacker to play 60+ plays. But this is something I'd want to test with data.