10-12-2023, 08:49 PM
* Taylor's respect for the coaching job Coach Prime and his staff have done is palpable, which is appropriate. Noted the team's resilience and finding a way to win in the close ones, which obviously contrasts with us.
* Also very complimentary of Shedeur Sanders. I am a Shedeur fan and think he's quite good but there are a few things to keep in mind about him. The scary thing is he's looking like one of the best passers in the sport, a top 10 overall draft pick talent. The reassuring thing is he's one of the worst players of all time at avoiding sacks and truly may be the very worst in history at avoiding BIG sack yardage (about ONE HUNDRED yards more than the next most allowed in the nation). Just absolutely running backwards out there. That completely neutralizes any ability he has as a running QB and then some and then some and then some (what it does not neutralize is his ability to push the ball upfield as a passer). He's well in the negative on rushing yards for the season. Like, think about this: Stanford is 10th in the Pac-12 in sacks allowed, hardly keeping QBs clean (something Taylor talks about a lot as an issue for our offense) and yet Daniels and Lamson average 37 yards rushing per game while Sanders averages negative ten yards rushing per game. We need to have this be a get right game for our pass rush.
* I mentioned that Colorado's defense sucks. It's interesting that when asked about Colorado's defense Taylor started by saying we need to keep their offense off the field by maintaining drives and scoring touchdowns when we get to the red zone, as well as getting big plays of our own. On one level this is the usual thing of worrying first about ourselves rather than our opponents, but there may also be a degree of knowing that since offense is Colorado's strong suit the pressure is on our offense to do something against the relative weak link. The subsequent talk about Colorado's defense was pretty classic damning with faint praise, basically just saying they play hard and fly around.
* I highlight the discussion of option plays just to observe that it's fun to hear Taylor's thought process on offensive football and the pros and cons of different looks. Analytical mind.
* I've noted before that our red zone challenges are just a microcosm of our challenges all over the field, and Taylor alluded to that in saying you have to make plays all over the field. Here too though it was interesting to hear the analytical offensive mind (for instance talking about needing to run more because of constrained windows and how at around the 16 yard line the field becomes the same width and length).
* Unsurprised to hear Taylor say he's given up on having opinions on whether byes are well timed or not (in addition to the unpredictability he mentioned, also seems like one of those only worry about things you can control things). But also unsurprising to hear him say in the next breath that it seems like a pretty good time in terms of getting guys healthy and fresh. Que sera sera but with an optimistic inclination.
* The answer on adjusting to altitude struck me as somebody analytical enough to acknowledge there's some science behind effects on athletes and to try to draw on his own experience for relevant data points but somebody who is fundamentally pretty uninterested in the subject. Shaw always seemed like a coach acutely sensitive to environmental factors like altitude, jet lag, crowd noise, and the like and Taylor seems much less interested in that stuff. Even with altitude he kind of has the attitude that all you can do is train hard and keep an eye on players to give them a breather if they need it. I just get the sense Taylor thinks this is miscellaneous and not worth worrying much about. He's given the same vibe in the past about travel distance and jet lag. I think there are pros and cons to this. On the hand, the Taylor approach seems much better suited to keeping the main things the main things and treating each week the same. The process-oriented coach we've seen all along. On the other, there could be risk that lack of preparation for environmental factors could bite us. For instance, if we're playing ACC opponents next year with 9am start times and not doing anything to try to adjust routines, maybe we come out even more sluggish than a Shaw team (relatively good playing back east by our standards) would have been. [Byham interview had an even more interesting reflection on this that corroborates that this is the staff's attitude and even further mused that even making altitude a focus point could have a counterproductive placebo effect. Very interesting point]
* I'm grateful to the few media who participate in these things and sometimes some of the questions are good but I did come out of this one somewhat frustrated at what wasn't asked. Odd for no one to ask about RB playing time decisions and/or EJ Smith specifically. Hearing about integrating RBs into the passing game is interesting but it's not the same as where Taylor and Agnew stand in evaluating and playing the RBs, which is not the same as asking if there's a reason Smith isn't playing more. I understand not wanting to ask awkward questions, especially in the first year of a rebuild, but even if one avoided that topic there's no real excuse to go through a college football press conference without asking about injury status, especially since Taylor himself emphasized that as literally the first thing out of his mouth in terms of the focus of the bye being getting guys healthy. I'd sure like to know if Pale, Wyrick, and Humphreys are "up." Granted, there was a question on Daniels' status and that was appreciated but going weeks without clarity on starters on both sides of the ball is pretty bush league.
* I'm admittedly a bit salty about the unasked questions because of what the last question was. Troy Clardy, a smart and clearly passionate man who also has shown the ability to ask useful questions, does this from time to time, beclowning himself with a question clearly intended to be jocular and funny and au courant rather than a journalist. What possible value does it have to ask a "hypothetical" question ridiculing Mario Cristobal and Miami making an inexplicable and inexcusable end of game play call? What would Taylor possibly say that sheds light? This is a funny joke to ask the coach in the hallway if you want to build rapport, I suppose, but when the cameras are rolling in the coach's 24 minutes of weekly media availability and nobody has asked about EJ Smith's playing time, Simi Pale's health, Travis Hunter's impact on a game plan, what Taylor's bye week recruiting actually looked like, anything about the Oregon game, if any more freshmen are pushing for playing time and might have a bigger role after the bye, and so forth....hard pass on this question for me.
Not a press conference reaction, but I'm actually excited about tomorrow's game! After the last several years I don't take that for granted. Let's smoke these guys!
* Also very complimentary of Shedeur Sanders. I am a Shedeur fan and think he's quite good but there are a few things to keep in mind about him. The scary thing is he's looking like one of the best passers in the sport, a top 10 overall draft pick talent. The reassuring thing is he's one of the worst players of all time at avoiding sacks and truly may be the very worst in history at avoiding BIG sack yardage (about ONE HUNDRED yards more than the next most allowed in the nation). Just absolutely running backwards out there. That completely neutralizes any ability he has as a running QB and then some and then some and then some (what it does not neutralize is his ability to push the ball upfield as a passer). He's well in the negative on rushing yards for the season. Like, think about this: Stanford is 10th in the Pac-12 in sacks allowed, hardly keeping QBs clean (something Taylor talks about a lot as an issue for our offense) and yet Daniels and Lamson average 37 yards rushing per game while Sanders averages negative ten yards rushing per game. We need to have this be a get right game for our pass rush.
* I mentioned that Colorado's defense sucks. It's interesting that when asked about Colorado's defense Taylor started by saying we need to keep their offense off the field by maintaining drives and scoring touchdowns when we get to the red zone, as well as getting big plays of our own. On one level this is the usual thing of worrying first about ourselves rather than our opponents, but there may also be a degree of knowing that since offense is Colorado's strong suit the pressure is on our offense to do something against the relative weak link. The subsequent talk about Colorado's defense was pretty classic damning with faint praise, basically just saying they play hard and fly around.
* I highlight the discussion of option plays just to observe that it's fun to hear Taylor's thought process on offensive football and the pros and cons of different looks. Analytical mind.
* I've noted before that our red zone challenges are just a microcosm of our challenges all over the field, and Taylor alluded to that in saying you have to make plays all over the field. Here too though it was interesting to hear the analytical offensive mind (for instance talking about needing to run more because of constrained windows and how at around the 16 yard line the field becomes the same width and length).
* Unsurprised to hear Taylor say he's given up on having opinions on whether byes are well timed or not (in addition to the unpredictability he mentioned, also seems like one of those only worry about things you can control things). But also unsurprising to hear him say in the next breath that it seems like a pretty good time in terms of getting guys healthy and fresh. Que sera sera but with an optimistic inclination.
* The answer on adjusting to altitude struck me as somebody analytical enough to acknowledge there's some science behind effects on athletes and to try to draw on his own experience for relevant data points but somebody who is fundamentally pretty uninterested in the subject. Shaw always seemed like a coach acutely sensitive to environmental factors like altitude, jet lag, crowd noise, and the like and Taylor seems much less interested in that stuff. Even with altitude he kind of has the attitude that all you can do is train hard and keep an eye on players to give them a breather if they need it. I just get the sense Taylor thinks this is miscellaneous and not worth worrying much about. He's given the same vibe in the past about travel distance and jet lag. I think there are pros and cons to this. On the hand, the Taylor approach seems much better suited to keeping the main things the main things and treating each week the same. The process-oriented coach we've seen all along. On the other, there could be risk that lack of preparation for environmental factors could bite us. For instance, if we're playing ACC opponents next year with 9am start times and not doing anything to try to adjust routines, maybe we come out even more sluggish than a Shaw team (relatively good playing back east by our standards) would have been. [Byham interview had an even more interesting reflection on this that corroborates that this is the staff's attitude and even further mused that even making altitude a focus point could have a counterproductive placebo effect. Very interesting point]
* I'm grateful to the few media who participate in these things and sometimes some of the questions are good but I did come out of this one somewhat frustrated at what wasn't asked. Odd for no one to ask about RB playing time decisions and/or EJ Smith specifically. Hearing about integrating RBs into the passing game is interesting but it's not the same as where Taylor and Agnew stand in evaluating and playing the RBs, which is not the same as asking if there's a reason Smith isn't playing more. I understand not wanting to ask awkward questions, especially in the first year of a rebuild, but even if one avoided that topic there's no real excuse to go through a college football press conference without asking about injury status, especially since Taylor himself emphasized that as literally the first thing out of his mouth in terms of the focus of the bye being getting guys healthy. I'd sure like to know if Pale, Wyrick, and Humphreys are "up." Granted, there was a question on Daniels' status and that was appreciated but going weeks without clarity on starters on both sides of the ball is pretty bush league.
* I'm admittedly a bit salty about the unasked questions because of what the last question was. Troy Clardy, a smart and clearly passionate man who also has shown the ability to ask useful questions, does this from time to time, beclowning himself with a question clearly intended to be jocular and funny and au courant rather than a journalist. What possible value does it have to ask a "hypothetical" question ridiculing Mario Cristobal and Miami making an inexplicable and inexcusable end of game play call? What would Taylor possibly say that sheds light? This is a funny joke to ask the coach in the hallway if you want to build rapport, I suppose, but when the cameras are rolling in the coach's 24 minutes of weekly media availability and nobody has asked about EJ Smith's playing time, Simi Pale's health, Travis Hunter's impact on a game plan, what Taylor's bye week recruiting actually looked like, anything about the Oregon game, if any more freshmen are pushing for playing time and might have a bigger role after the bye, and so forth....hard pass on this question for me.
Not a press conference reaction, but I'm actually excited about tomorrow's game! After the last several years I don't take that for granted. Let's smoke these guys!