10-28-2023, 09:46 AM
Thank you to those who asked for my thoughts. The issue was the one where copying and pasting on mobile shows up microscopically and I couldn't figure out how to change that on my cell phone, nor could I use a laptop because I was flying Sunday. And then I didn't check the site this week. So sorry for leaving folks hanging. In case folks are still interested, here are my Sunday thoughts:
1. Another game showing this very well may be the worst team in Stanford history. The silver lining is that there was enough fight in the first half to give Taylor something he can internally spin as a sign of progress. He can say that compared to the other top ten contender we faced this game at least saw us battle for a handful of drives. He can say that we played Oregon tougher than Portland State, Hawaii, and Colorado and had the exact same final score as Colorado. For a team and fan base that will be squinting to discern any evidence of forward momentum, it wasn't a total failure. But it was pretty close and the game only reinforced how bad we are. From Oregon's first touchdown drive onward the game was in pick-the-score mode for the Ducks. The final margin was one befitting the #162 team, indicating that at least through five weeks the level of team we saw against Sacramento State and Oregon is about representative of where we are. Without significant improvement the rest of the way, this will probably be the worst team in school history.
2. The best thing we can say is that the team showed some grit to hang in there as long as they did while so comprehensively and massively outmatched. They made it further than they did against USC and than some teams have against Oregon. Still, the game showed how incredibly far we still have to go. Oregon has faced one of the most Charmin soft schedules in the nation (Portland State, Texas Tech, Hawaii, Colorado, and us) and even still we did worse than average in pass defense, run defense, and yards per play and on offense we had the lowest yards per play of any team to play Oregon this season, less even than Hawaii (#109 in yards per play in FBS) and Portland State (#61 in FCS). Yikes.
3. If one is inclined to dissect the game (and that's what I do with these posts, but fundamentally the story is a pretty simple one of one team totally outmatching the other), the story was that Oregon could do what it wanted on the ground. That shouldn't have surprised me as Oregon is #1 in the nation in yards per carry and we are #111 in yards per carry allowed, but seeing how little the defense looks like a Wisconsin defense continues to be disappointing. I know all the excuses in terms of talent and experience, but I think it's fair to say the defense has under-performed and that the defensive staff has not hit the ground running like good coaches sometimes do with defensive rebuilds (e.g., Gregory at Cal in 2002, Stoops at Arizona in 2004, Shafer at Stanford in 2007, Holt at Washington in 2009, Wilcox at Cal in 2017, Leavitt at Oregon in 2017). Perhaps I should have expected that with a first-time coordinator. I hope the defense gets better. An optimist might say that we've faced the top two scoring offenses in the country and it gets easier from here but a realist would point out that both Washington and Washington State are both top five as well and every game we have left is against an above-average scoring offense, though Colorado and Cal are average in advanced metrics.
4. On offense, the passing game hovered around Oregon's average in pass defense, which is depressing considering Colorado is the only decent passing attack the Ducks have faced, and the run game (which had been a bright spot of our season) abandoned us yesterday, doing a shade better than Colorado had but still under two yards per carry and the first game under this staff with less than 100 yards rushing. Pale's absence and not playing Smith more may be adversely impacting the run game and giving up a lot of sacks definitely continues to harm the run stats. There may also be an element of a wake-up call as we start to play Pac-12 teams, as we didn't have great run stats against Arizona either. In the post-game press conference, Taylor emphasized struggles in the red zone but those failures mirror our failures everywhere else on the field. It's not like we're getting the job done in the other 80 yards. I suppose Taylor's point may be that since we are so bad that elevates the importance of clawing out more points in the red zone in the rare events we're there.
1. Another game showing this very well may be the worst team in Stanford history. The silver lining is that there was enough fight in the first half to give Taylor something he can internally spin as a sign of progress. He can say that compared to the other top ten contender we faced this game at least saw us battle for a handful of drives. He can say that we played Oregon tougher than Portland State, Hawaii, and Colorado and had the exact same final score as Colorado. For a team and fan base that will be squinting to discern any evidence of forward momentum, it wasn't a total failure. But it was pretty close and the game only reinforced how bad we are. From Oregon's first touchdown drive onward the game was in pick-the-score mode for the Ducks. The final margin was one befitting the #162 team, indicating that at least through five weeks the level of team we saw against Sacramento State and Oregon is about representative of where we are. Without significant improvement the rest of the way, this will probably be the worst team in school history.
2. The best thing we can say is that the team showed some grit to hang in there as long as they did while so comprehensively and massively outmatched. They made it further than they did against USC and than some teams have against Oregon. Still, the game showed how incredibly far we still have to go. Oregon has faced one of the most Charmin soft schedules in the nation (Portland State, Texas Tech, Hawaii, Colorado, and us) and even still we did worse than average in pass defense, run defense, and yards per play and on offense we had the lowest yards per play of any team to play Oregon this season, less even than Hawaii (#109 in yards per play in FBS) and Portland State (#61 in FCS). Yikes.
3. If one is inclined to dissect the game (and that's what I do with these posts, but fundamentally the story is a pretty simple one of one team totally outmatching the other), the story was that Oregon could do what it wanted on the ground. That shouldn't have surprised me as Oregon is #1 in the nation in yards per carry and we are #111 in yards per carry allowed, but seeing how little the defense looks like a Wisconsin defense continues to be disappointing. I know all the excuses in terms of talent and experience, but I think it's fair to say the defense has under-performed and that the defensive staff has not hit the ground running like good coaches sometimes do with defensive rebuilds (e.g., Gregory at Cal in 2002, Stoops at Arizona in 2004, Shafer at Stanford in 2007, Holt at Washington in 2009, Wilcox at Cal in 2017, Leavitt at Oregon in 2017). Perhaps I should have expected that with a first-time coordinator. I hope the defense gets better. An optimist might say that we've faced the top two scoring offenses in the country and it gets easier from here but a realist would point out that both Washington and Washington State are both top five as well and every game we have left is against an above-average scoring offense, though Colorado and Cal are average in advanced metrics.
4. On offense, the passing game hovered around Oregon's average in pass defense, which is depressing considering Colorado is the only decent passing attack the Ducks have faced, and the run game (which had been a bright spot of our season) abandoned us yesterday, doing a shade better than Colorado had but still under two yards per carry and the first game under this staff with less than 100 yards rushing. Pale's absence and not playing Smith more may be adversely impacting the run game and giving up a lot of sacks definitely continues to harm the run stats. There may also be an element of a wake-up call as we start to play Pac-12 teams, as we didn't have great run stats against Arizona either. In the post-game press conference, Taylor emphasized struggles in the red zone but those failures mirror our failures everywhere else on the field. It's not like we're getting the job done in the other 80 yards. I suppose Taylor's point may be that since we are so bad that elevates the importance of clawing out more points in the red zone in the rare events we're there.