[msqueri]

* Taylor of course had nice things to say about Andy Thompson, saying he's really smart, really bright, does great preparation, has good feel for the game, gets his guys to play hard, and schematically he creates a lot of challenges (for instance by bringing pressure from a lot of different areas and disguising pre-snap). Taylor said that how hard Thompson got the defense to play was a big part of Sacramento State's success (which I heard wistfully in light of the shocking lack of effort we saw in defensive pursuit on USC's touchdowns) and agreed with the question's premise that Thompson was a deserving hire, as Taylor thinks the way he thinks, deals with people and how smart he is prepare him well. For what it's worth, the rest of this paragraph is my write-up on Thompson from the day we hired Taylor: Occam's Razor to me seems to be Thompson staying in Sacramento as he's got less Taylor tie and is in good standing there, while Taylor may face pressure to keep Lance Anderson on staff and/or bring in a defensive coordinator who answers a perceived relative weakness in Taylor's resume (though as I said above the Taylor/Thompson/et al partnership's defensive performance has been heavily instrumental in Sacramento State's success. For what it's worth, Thompson was previously the defensive coordinator at Northern Arizona for a decade. In that span his median scoring defenses were #60 and #69, though with a disturbing fall-off in his last four years. After he left the Lumberjack scoring defense medians have been #71 and #81. Coupling that experience with his much more impressive Sacramento State resume I think it is reasonable to think he's a competent coordinator. But he doesn't knock your socks off, and has never done it at the FBS level. Considering Taylor has been a Utah coordinator, the defensive coordinator situation is a much bigger question mark. It may make sense for Taylor to try to upgrade this position now that he's moving up.


* Taylor's talk about the Pac-12 was interesting to me mainly because he rightly hit on why the Pac-12 is so good this year: QBs. Further, Taylor opined that the new wave in college football is QBs coming back for another year. This was interesting to me on several levels. Taylor is one of the few Power Five coaches and very few Pac-12 coaches without a proven QB. Stanford is one of the few programs that had a QB leave early for the NFL last year. And maybe Taylor is thinking ahead to hoping he can find a great QB1 and eventually reap the multi-year rewards of that. I don't think it is at all lost on Taylor that Stanford's QB1 bailed without a degree and with multiple years of eligibility remaining while the conference we're competing in is dotted with fifth and sixth year QB1 studs (Rising, Penix, Nix), not even to mention guys like Uiagalelei and Ward who would have been just as plausible early NFL entrants as McKee.

* Taylor went right out and said it in comparing this game to when his Sacramento State team went into Colorado State and got a win (he didn't say how handily they got the win). He knows better than to think Sacramento State is a big underdog, or even much of an underdog at all, and expects a very challenging and tough game. One can view this as a diplomatic answer but I don't think so. I think he knows from experience that the Sacramento State program he bequeathed to Thompson was stronger in many respects than what he inherited from Shaw. This is a very good FCS team with a winner's mentality facing a very bad FBS team with a loser's mentality. Dog fight. Buckle up.

* I can never quite tell how warm or not Taylor's relationship with his former Sacramento State mates is. He speaks about it all very positively but at times it seems more rote than heartfelt. It certainly was eye-opening that all of his top assistants decided to stay at Sacramento State (with the three top ones not even seeming to have to think twice about it, even before knowing which of them would get the head coach job, with Taylor's long-time right hand/Folsom co-head coach Richardson among them). This press conference is more of the vibes I could see going either way. One interesting tidbit is that Taylor claims to talk to Thompson every few weeks, just not recently. I have some lingering (probably always to be unanswered) curiosity whether the coaches who did or didn't come with Taylor to Stanford were fully Taylor's decision, fully the assistants' decisions, or mutual. To me it's more than a totally idle curiosity as I think the crux of Taylor's theory of victory, at least how he portrays himself, is the culture of love, yet I think there have been mixed signals over the years about how much affection and loyalty Taylor inspires (or reciprocates). I only have the most tentative, superficial sense of the man but I kind of think the answer is he's complex, like all of us, and isn't all love and mindfulness. What I want to know is, whatever man he is, what it means for Stanford football culture, fun, recruiting, retention and, ultimately and most importantly, winning. Will have to keep watching over years to get those answers.

[msqueri]

* Taylor of course had nice things to say about Andy Thompson, saying he's really smart, really bright, does great preparation, has good feel for the game, gets his guys to play hard, and schematically he creates a lot of challenges (for instance by bringing pressure from a lot of different areas and disguising pre-snap). Taylor said that how hard Thompson got the defense to play was a big part of Sacramento State's success (which I heard wistfully in light of the shocking lack of effort we saw in defensive pursuit on USC's touchdowns) and agreed with the question's premise that Thompson was a deserving hire, as Taylor thinks the way he thinks, deals with people and how smart he is prepare him well. For what it's worth, the rest of this paragraph is my write-up on Thompson from the day we hired Taylor: Occam's Razor to me seems to be Thompson staying in Sacramento as he's got less Taylor tie and is in good standing there, while Taylor may face pressure to keep Lance Anderson on staff and/or bring in a defensive coordinator who answers a perceived relative weakness in Taylor's resume (though as I said above the Taylor/Thompson/et al partnership's defensive performance has been heavily instrumental in Sacramento State's success. For what it's worth, Thompson was previously the defensive coordinator at Northern Arizona for a decade. In that span his median scoring defenses were #60 and #69, though with a disturbing fall-off in his last four years. After he left the Lumberjack scoring defense medians have been #71 and #81. Coupling that experience with his much more impressive Sacramento State resume I think it is reasonable to think he's a competent coordinator. But he doesn't knock your socks off, and has never done it at the FBS level. Considering Taylor has been a Utah coordinator, the defensive coordinator situation is a much bigger question mark. It may make sense for Taylor to try to upgrade this position now that he's moving up.


* Taylor's talk about the Pac-12 was interesting to me mainly because he rightly hit on why the Pac-12 is so good this year: QBs. Further, Taylor opined that the new wave in college football is QBs coming back for another year. This was interesting to me on several levels. Taylor is one of the few Power Five coaches and very few Pac-12 coaches without a proven QB. Stanford is one of the few programs that had a QB leave early for the NFL last year. And maybe Taylor is thinking ahead to hoping he can find a great QB1 and eventually reap the multi-year rewards of that. I don't think it is at all lost on Taylor that Stanford's QB1 bailed without a degree and with multiple years of eligibility remaining while the conference we're competing in is dotted with fifth and sixth year QB1 studs (Rising, Penix, Nix), not even to mention guys like Uiagalelei and Ward who would have been just as plausible early NFL entrants as McKee.

* Taylor went right out and said it in comparing this game to when his Sacramento State team went into Colorado State and got a win (he didn't say how handily they got the win). He knows better than to think Sacramento State is a big underdog, or even much of an underdog at all, and expects a very challenging and tough game. One can view this as a diplomatic answer but I don't think so. I think he knows from experience that the Sacramento State program he bequeathed to Thompson was stronger in many respects than what he inherited from Shaw. This is a very good FCS team with a winner's mentality facing a very bad FBS team with a loser's mentality. Dog fight. Buckle up.

* I can never quite tell how warm or not Taylor's relationship with his former Sacramento State mates is. He speaks about it all very positively but at times it seems more rote than heartfelt. It certainly was eye-opening that all of his top assistants decided to stay at Sacramento State (with the three top ones not even seeming to have to think twice about it, even before knowing which of them would get the head coach job, with Taylor's long-time right hand/Folsom co-head coach Richardson among them). This press conference is more of the vibes I could see going either way. One interesting tidbit is that Taylor claims to talk to Thompson every few weeks, just not recently. I have some lingering (probably always to be unanswered) curiosity whether the coaches who did or didn't come with Taylor to Stanford were fully Taylor's decision, fully the assistants' decisions, or mutual. To me it's more than a totally idle curiosity as I think the crux of Taylor's theory of victory, at least how he portrays himself, is the culture of love, yet I think there have been mixed signals over the years about how much affection and loyalty Taylor inspires (or reciprocates). I only have the most tentative, superficial sense of the man but I kind of think the answer is he's complex, like all of us, and isn't all love and mindfulness. What I want to know is, whatever man he is, what it means for Stanford football culture, fun, recruiting, retention and, ultimately and most importantly, winning. Will have to keep watching over years to get those answers.