[Jamesy]

* Interesting question on contrasting Daniels and Lamson as runners, especially in light of Lamson's surprisingly effective running against USC. The answer made sense, that Daniels has more speed in the open field but they're both physical runners, big, strong guys who are more similar than different as runners. The USC game announcers really wanted to play up Lamson as the better passer, but unless they heard something pointed to that effect from Taylor or Osborne in meetings, which I very much doubt, I think that was typical Brando bloviating. I think the reality is these guys both have things to bring to the table as both passers and runners and Taylor will keep looking at actual in-game performance to differentiate.

* Taylor said Wyrick is progressing but we'll see once practices get going this week. It sounds to me like trending toward playing. Wyrick at nickel, Edwards at safety, and Slocum off the field might be our best personnel right now, so hopefully we have a full complement Saturday. I've tended to view all "game time decision" comments as a player being doubtful, but this seems more optimistic than that. Maybe a pure "questionable" at worst.

* Easiest question of the press conference was if any WR has emerged as the leader of the room. Of course he was going to say Humphreys. Seems like a throw away question, and if the question was intended to probe at lackluster WR play generally there was probably another way to ask. Now that we're seeing live games, Taylor's favorite phrase of "it's so important to them" is starting to sound to me like damning with faint praise. The subtext: these guys try and are good guys but.....kind of that whole why criticize people for things they're not capable of thing. (By the way, I'm talking here about the 2023 roster, which is how Taylor pivoted part of the question, rather than a comment on Humphreys, who I think genuinely stands out in the room even if some of the limitations/faint praise stuff applies to him too.)

* I do not understand at all a follow-up question about Jayson Raines. What? This is just a random player on our roster, in fact one of the least important scholarship players on the entire team, a third year player who has one career catch in college. This is like asking about Ese Dubre or Lukas Ungar. Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration. The closest snap count comparison to Raines is Farrell, but Farrell has clearly been more focal to the game plan and would have made more sense to ask about. I suppose asking about Raines is like asking about Alec Bank or Spencer Lytle. Please, no more questions about 10 snap a game players. There are only so many questions and so many press conferences. If you're going to ask a random question about a player make it a traveling true freshman or a player who's graded well but hasn't been discussed or something. I'm glad Taylor was able to give an insightful, substantive answer about Raines, but if he can do it about Raines I'm sure he can do it about Farrell or Ayomanor or Roush.

* End of the press conference gave very good insight into Taylor and his consciously non-marketer self-conception: "The thing that we can do as a program to rejuvenate the fan base is to put together a really good product and play good football. We're working towards that every single day. In terms of marketing, that's not my expertise. At Sac State, we just won games and I think were fun to watch, and we'll do the same thing here. I've found that if you're successful people will come." I think he's basically right about that. We've talked ad nauseam on these boards for decades about how Stanford needs to market itself better to the community but I think ultimately a) our limitations in terms of fan interest are structural/size-based/geographic/sociological and to a large degree unsolvable and b) to the extent we can actually do something about it by far the thing to do is to have a fun, winning product. That's Taylor's job and it's what really matters/he has some control over. I kvetch about the bush league incompetence and missed opportunities of some of our media/marketing operations and I do want us to get better in all phases of the program just like we need to get better on all phases on the field, but that's not the main thing or Taylor's main job. I think he knows what that is and I hope he can do it.

Thanks for the insights. Sadly two of the key players you mentioned here, wyrick and Humphreys, won't be playing on Saturday.

[Jamesy]

* Interesting question on contrasting Daniels and Lamson as runners, especially in light of Lamson's surprisingly effective running against USC. The answer made sense, that Daniels has more speed in the open field but they're both physical runners, big, strong guys who are more similar than different as runners. The USC game announcers really wanted to play up Lamson as the better passer, but unless they heard something pointed to that effect from Taylor or Osborne in meetings, which I very much doubt, I think that was typical Brando bloviating. I think the reality is these guys both have things to bring to the table as both passers and runners and Taylor will keep looking at actual in-game performance to differentiate.

* Taylor said Wyrick is progressing but we'll see once practices get going this week. It sounds to me like trending toward playing. Wyrick at nickel, Edwards at safety, and Slocum off the field might be our best personnel right now, so hopefully we have a full complement Saturday. I've tended to view all "game time decision" comments as a player being doubtful, but this seems more optimistic than that. Maybe a pure "questionable" at worst.

* Easiest question of the press conference was if any WR has emerged as the leader of the room. Of course he was going to say Humphreys. Seems like a throw away question, and if the question was intended to probe at lackluster WR play generally there was probably another way to ask. Now that we're seeing live games, Taylor's favorite phrase of "it's so important to them" is starting to sound to me like damning with faint praise. The subtext: these guys try and are good guys but.....kind of that whole why criticize people for things they're not capable of thing. (By the way, I'm talking here about the 2023 roster, which is how Taylor pivoted part of the question, rather than a comment on Humphreys, who I think genuinely stands out in the room even if some of the limitations/faint praise stuff applies to him too.)

* I do not understand at all a follow-up question about Jayson Raines. What? This is just a random player on our roster, in fact one of the least important scholarship players on the entire team, a third year player who has one career catch in college. This is like asking about Ese Dubre or Lukas Ungar. Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration. The closest snap count comparison to Raines is Farrell, but Farrell has clearly been more focal to the game plan and would have made more sense to ask about. I suppose asking about Raines is like asking about Alec Bank or Spencer Lytle. Please, no more questions about 10 snap a game players. There are only so many questions and so many press conferences. If you're going to ask a random question about a player make it a traveling true freshman or a player who's graded well but hasn't been discussed or something. I'm glad Taylor was able to give an insightful, substantive answer about Raines, but if he can do it about Raines I'm sure he can do it about Farrell or Ayomanor or Roush.

* End of the press conference gave very good insight into Taylor and his consciously non-marketer self-conception: "The thing that we can do as a program to rejuvenate the fan base is to put together a really good product and play good football. We're working towards that every single day. In terms of marketing, that's not my expertise. At Sac State, we just won games and I think were fun to watch, and we'll do the same thing here. I've found that if you're successful people will come." I think he's basically right about that. We've talked ad nauseam on these boards for decades about how Stanford needs to market itself better to the community but I think ultimately a) our limitations in terms of fan interest are structural/size-based/geographic/sociological and to a large degree unsolvable and b) to the extent we can actually do something about it by far the thing to do is to have a fun, winning product. That's Taylor's job and it's what really matters/he has some control over. I kvetch about the bush league incompetence and missed opportunities of some of our media/marketing operations and I do want us to get better in all phases of the program just like we need to get better on all phases on the field, but that's not the main thing or Taylor's main job. I think he knows what that is and I hope he can do it.

Thanks for the insights. Sadly two of the key players you mentioned here, wyrick and Humphreys, won't be playing on Saturday.