[msqueri]

* I don't think it was prudent to lump Cooper and Bailey together in the question on edge rushers as there's not much evidence yet that Cooper is in line for a major role, but that makes it even more notable that Taylor answered the question how he did. He basically skated over Cooper and as soon as he mentioned Bailey's name said "David's an incredibly talented player, one of the most talented guys I've been around." Well that's some praise. To me this makes me hear earlier April comments about Bailey in a somewhat different light, more trying to hold the most talented guy to a high standard to get the most out of him than significant questions about Bailey. (Unless Taylor and April are somewhat misaligned, which is possible) Taylor did say "those guys are explosive and we've had trouble blocking them all camp" and "they're pretty special" and that could refer wholly and genuinely to both Cooper and Bailey, but it's hard to say because of how the question was framed. Taylor may have been referring to them as a package because that's how the question was asked and that's how you answer such questions. It's possible "special" is Cooper and Bailey separately or the two together or a comment on the position group, for which we should keep in mind the likelihood Keneley and/or Tafiti have as big or bigger of a role than Cooper. The other interesting thing here is another person, in this case the main person, saying we've had trouble blocking the OLBs. This is exciting about the OLBs but worrisome about the OTs.

* Interesting discussion about confidence, with Taylor saying he does think confidence took a hit with the failures of recent years (you think? glad he didn't evade that all, it's pretty obvious) but that the good thing about sports is that you can gain confidence back quickly. As he said, that comes from being successful. I like that he thinks about this and how to put players in positions to be successful. I think it can be a very positive force when guys do develop that confidence and, as we've seen, such a weight when they lose it. Similar to a comment in another recent interview, Taylor suggested that despite that desire to put guys in positions to be successful you also need to test them because there will inevitably be adversity during the season. Also interesting was a glimpse into his leadership philosophy in this regard, that he tries to be the same guy every day and treat players the same whether they're succeeding or failing and to go back each day and coach, hoping that each day it gets better and better. This fits into the process-oriented, stacking good days ethos that's clear with Taylor. To me the theory of the case is that stacking those days eventually makes things better so that guys have the success that breeds confidence. But the crucial step, of course, is that success needs to come. If you just toil without reward, you get what ended up happening to Shaw's program. Ultimately we have to hope that Taylor's approach starts leading to small and then bigger successes. Without some success I don't see this working.

* Praise for Yurosek as a playmaker, competitive, and having great composure, with it all adding up to being "pretty special." Taylor reiterated his line about TE being a brobdingnagian position in the offense. No doubt Yurosek will be a brobdingnagian part of the offense.

* As always, when asked with what he looks for in building the roster it's loving football and wanting to compete. Until we get a few classes in this will be hard to judge as more than words, but they're the right words.

* Taylor confirmed that the offense is the same as he ran at Sacramento State. We already knew this but when he talked about the concepts of philosophy of where you make tweaks it seems pretty clear that the similarities are greater than the differences. What I found interesting was that in addition to saying camp can help show where the personnel is good or less good with things in the offense (and help tweak things accordingly), Taylor pointed out the big role the first game can play in that regard. It's such a cliche that the biggest gains come between the first and second game, but it's notable that Taylor is cognizant that the Hawaii game will show him things that don't work and need to be changed. May be significant differences in the USC game as opposed to the Hawaii game, and since we're likely to get demolished by USC the Sacramento State game looms as a very interesting game insofar as being more representative of how the team is settling in than we may see in the first two games.

* Odd way to end the availability with an apparent SID employee ostensibly asking if there were additional questions and then, without waiting too long to see if there were, took the prerogative to ask his own question, asking another reporter to get out of the shot (so clearly they needed the video and not just the audio) and then asking a planted question about what the Eddie Robinson Award (an FCS honor Taylor won in 2019) and Eddie Robinson mean to Taylor. This is obviously a video promo Stanford plans to submit to the Eddie Robinson Award banquet organizers (if it were for the 2021 award banquet that would have been honoring Coach Prime), I would imagine the remarks will be spliced in with other past recipients in a video montage or something. Nothing wrong with content like this, just seemed kind of strange to use a post-practice availability for it. It's like the SID needed to do it this way to economize on Taylor's time. I wonder if Taylor doesn't suffer things like this lightly and it was easier to just fit it in as the last question of the press availability than getting a few minutes on his schedule to record a video. In any case, his answer was gracious but also plausibly the kind of thing that might have been based on some provided talking points/reminder he should do this as a thing on the to do list. I will reserve, for now, snarky comments about the SID answering requests for an FCS award banquet (which I assume isn't until January) rather than generating marketing materials for our imminent 2023 season.

[msqueri]

* I don't think it was prudent to lump Cooper and Bailey together in the question on edge rushers as there's not much evidence yet that Cooper is in line for a major role, but that makes it even more notable that Taylor answered the question how he did. He basically skated over Cooper and as soon as he mentioned Bailey's name said "David's an incredibly talented player, one of the most talented guys I've been around." Well that's some praise. To me this makes me hear earlier April comments about Bailey in a somewhat different light, more trying to hold the most talented guy to a high standard to get the most out of him than significant questions about Bailey. (Unless Taylor and April are somewhat misaligned, which is possible) Taylor did say "those guys are explosive and we've had trouble blocking them all camp" and "they're pretty special" and that could refer wholly and genuinely to both Cooper and Bailey, but it's hard to say because of how the question was framed. Taylor may have been referring to them as a package because that's how the question was asked and that's how you answer such questions. It's possible "special" is Cooper and Bailey separately or the two together or a comment on the position group, for which we should keep in mind the likelihood Keneley and/or Tafiti have as big or bigger of a role than Cooper. The other interesting thing here is another person, in this case the main person, saying we've had trouble blocking the OLBs. This is exciting about the OLBs but worrisome about the OTs.

* Interesting discussion about confidence, with Taylor saying he does think confidence took a hit with the failures of recent years (you think? glad he didn't evade that all, it's pretty obvious) but that the good thing about sports is that you can gain confidence back quickly. As he said, that comes from being successful. I like that he thinks about this and how to put players in positions to be successful. I think it can be a very positive force when guys do develop that confidence and, as we've seen, such a weight when they lose it. Similar to a comment in another recent interview, Taylor suggested that despite that desire to put guys in positions to be successful you also need to test them because there will inevitably be adversity during the season. Also interesting was a glimpse into his leadership philosophy in this regard, that he tries to be the same guy every day and treat players the same whether they're succeeding or failing and to go back each day and coach, hoping that each day it gets better and better. This fits into the process-oriented, stacking good days ethos that's clear with Taylor. To me the theory of the case is that stacking those days eventually makes things better so that guys have the success that breeds confidence. But the crucial step, of course, is that success needs to come. If you just toil without reward, you get what ended up happening to Shaw's program. Ultimately we have to hope that Taylor's approach starts leading to small and then bigger successes. Without some success I don't see this working.

* Praise for Yurosek as a playmaker, competitive, and having great composure, with it all adding up to being "pretty special." Taylor reiterated his line about TE being a brobdingnagian position in the offense. No doubt Yurosek will be a brobdingnagian part of the offense.

* As always, when asked with what he looks for in building the roster it's loving football and wanting to compete. Until we get a few classes in this will be hard to judge as more than words, but they're the right words.

* Taylor confirmed that the offense is the same as he ran at Sacramento State. We already knew this but when he talked about the concepts of philosophy of where you make tweaks it seems pretty clear that the similarities are greater than the differences. What I found interesting was that in addition to saying camp can help show where the personnel is good or less good with things in the offense (and help tweak things accordingly), Taylor pointed out the big role the first game can play in that regard. It's such a cliche that the biggest gains come between the first and second game, but it's notable that Taylor is cognizant that the Hawaii game will show him things that don't work and need to be changed. May be significant differences in the USC game as opposed to the Hawaii game, and since we're likely to get demolished by USC the Sacramento State game looms as a very interesting game insofar as being more representative of how the team is settling in than we may see in the first two games.

* Odd way to end the availability with an apparent SID employee ostensibly asking if there were additional questions and then, without waiting too long to see if there were, took the prerogative to ask his own question, asking another reporter to get out of the shot (so clearly they needed the video and not just the audio) and then asking a planted question about what the Eddie Robinson Award (an FCS honor Taylor won in 2019) and Eddie Robinson mean to Taylor. This is obviously a video promo Stanford plans to submit to the Eddie Robinson Award banquet organizers (if it were for the 2021 award banquet that would have been honoring Coach Prime), I would imagine the remarks will be spliced in with other past recipients in a video montage or something. Nothing wrong with content like this, just seemed kind of strange to use a post-practice availability for it. It's like the SID needed to do it this way to economize on Taylor's time. I wonder if Taylor doesn't suffer things like this lightly and it was easier to just fit it in as the last question of the press availability than getting a few minutes on his schedule to record a video. In any case, his answer was gracious but also plausibly the kind of thing that might have been based on some provided talking points/reminder he should do this as a thing on the to do list. I will reserve, for now, snarky comments about the SID answering requests for an FCS award banquet (which I assume isn't until January) rather than generating marketing materials for our imminent 2023 season.