11-19-2023, 03:00 PM
8. The theory of the case for either side of the ball improving hinges, of course, on getting better players. This wasn't a good game for our promising receiving corps, though the Daniels to Bachmeier long touchdown was a thing of beauty and I think we have seen enough from Ayomanor and Bachmeier to be more bullish about the receiving corps next year than we were heading into this year. I still don't think Roush has shown enough to be a stud TE in our tradition, but he's definitely showing something and yesterday was the best game of his career. [This week's moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Roush (3), Ayomanor (3), Daniels (2), Bachmeier, Farrell, Smith, Lamson] On the offensive line, it might not be a coincidence that a good yards per carry game for us coincided with Pale's return. We probably haven't talked enough about the impact Pale's injuries had on the run game this year. The coaches appear to be right Pale has a real affinity for run blocking. Considering the critical importance of old man strength in run blocking, I find it pretty astounding for the second best run blocking grade on our roster to be a true freshman. Among the 69 Pac-12 linemen with the most snaps this season, Pale is #24 in run blocking. We have a road grader in training. I don't want to overstate this as he only had two games really standing out in run blocking (USC and Cal) and pass blocking is a massive liability (#67 of 69) but it's a potential silver lining in a season without many. But back to the theory of the case thing, I do wonder about how we are going to realize improved offensive line play anytime. The worst development for me this week was not anything that happened yesterday but rather Taylor and McLaughlin comments at the Tuesday press conference that give me the strong impression our culture remains conflating graduating from Stanford with a college football career. I don't see how this gets better if guys like Rogers and McLaughlin leave, we burn redshirts for promising OL Pale and Baklenko, and we don't upgrade our OL recruiting. Very nervous about the state of OL play at Stanford for the foreseeable future.
9. On defense, the story of the game was Sinclair's inspired if complicated Big Game performance. It was inspired in obvious ways - around the ball and closer to the line of scrimmage than he practically ever has been (and in fact getting tackles behind the line of scrimmage a few times), laying the wood on game-changing (it turned out for the worse but easily could have gone the other way) hits - and complicated in equally obvious ways, with PFF continuing to not like the overall player and the personal foul penalties being killers. On balance I appreciated the performance. We need fire and effort, as well as productivity, and he gave all three. In less than two thirds of a game I counted eight positive box score plays and he was split seconds/referee discretion away from two game-changing forced fumbles. On the other hand, his personal fouls were arguably the biggest things in the entire game that cost us the win. I really feel for him on those, though. All three were questionable calls. I didn't find them egregious calls, but they were questionable and it's a really tough break for him to have his effort and impact marred by all three calls going against him, especially the most pivotal play of the game, the awesome hit and forced fumble that was called for targeting and will cost him at least half of what could be the last game of his career. Really feel for him. Related to Sinclair's performance, I think it's really notable that our ILBs are coming into their own. Sinclair and Bernadel both made a lot of plays against UCLA, Washington State, and Cal, and Jorgensen did against Oregon State and Cal. All of a sudden, after years of ineptitude at this position, we are starting to see plays made by ILBs near the line of scrimmage. Big development. It's not yet consistent quality but it's visible improvement in seeing the personality of the defense come to life and result in actual production. Elsewhere on defense, Wright, Tafiti, and Franklin are somewhat uneven but make plays and I think can be built around. Our safeties seem somewhat interchangeable in terms of aiding the run defense and I mean that as a compliment. Frausto-Ramos battled and made a few plays but he was the big negative for me. That Trond guy really exposed JFR (though the long touchdown was on Porter, who otherwise had a solid day). Trond Grizzell had five first downs against JFR. The last time a Stanford player gave up five first downs was Mangum-Farrar in the second game of the season last year against USC. The last time a single opposing receiver victimized a Stanford corner like this was back when the Pirate roamed the conference and Dezmon Patmon worked Alijah Holder in the 2018 Wazzu game, but Patmon was a top 10 receiver in the Pac-12 whereas Grizzell isn't quite top 20 at the moment. This struck me as a rough game in a rough year for JFR. I must say, though, that PFF actually thought it was his second best game of his career, so some of the volume of getting beat may be a function of the big uptick in snaps to now be one of our most key defenders.
10. We let Karty eat! The All-American made field goals of 44, 53, and 50, and they were low stress things of beauty too. He is now 10th in the nation in made field goals per game and among the top guys only Miami of Ohio's Graham Nicholson, UNLV's Jose Pizano, and North Carolina's Noah Burnette have a higher percentage. But Nicholson and Pizano only have one 50+ yarder and Burnette has zero, while Karty now has three, matching his total from last season. Karty is now tied for seventh in the nation on 50+ yarders. Yesterday puts Karty squarely back in the Groza hunt, right there with guys like Miami's Andres Borregales, Alabama's Will Reichard, Missouri's Harrison Mevis, and Texas A&M's Randy Bond. I say this is what we're playing for against Notre Dame, give Karty more chances to do his thing. It will be a shame if the many decisions to take the ball away from Karty's foot this season deprive him of the Groza. Going to miss this guy. Flintoft didn't dominate like Karty but it was a pretty good game, nets of 47 to the 22, 31 to the 12, 44 to the 25, 53 to the 22 (49 without the muff), 47 to the 29, and 41 to the 33. I think Flintoft's season (middle of the pack in overall average, a bit above average in PFF grade) is really nice for a true freshman punter. In the return guy, my anti-guy Farrell muffed a punt and got lucky it didn't cost us possession. Grrr. But he did have a 16 yard return.
11. Sam Roush, Tristan Sinclair, Joshua Karty, Mark D'Onofrio
12. We are almost there in getting to turn the page on this season and start getting back to work in earnest on the recruiting, roster construction, culture building, and strength and conditioning that will determine whether this rebuild works out. You have to play the games but if we're being honest this fall is one Taylor just needs to get through and never offered much hope of winning or excitement. That we've gotten a modicum of both and that we've had young receivers show out and signs of life in run defense has made this bearable, but the real season starts in a week. Not much upside in playing the #5 schedule in the nation (and maybe that goes up as we're about to play arguably the second best team on our schedule) with a hollowed out roster. I don't expect next week will be competitive but I'm excited for Taylor to get back in the lab and his assistants back on the trail.
9. On defense, the story of the game was Sinclair's inspired if complicated Big Game performance. It was inspired in obvious ways - around the ball and closer to the line of scrimmage than he practically ever has been (and in fact getting tackles behind the line of scrimmage a few times), laying the wood on game-changing (it turned out for the worse but easily could have gone the other way) hits - and complicated in equally obvious ways, with PFF continuing to not like the overall player and the personal foul penalties being killers. On balance I appreciated the performance. We need fire and effort, as well as productivity, and he gave all three. In less than two thirds of a game I counted eight positive box score plays and he was split seconds/referee discretion away from two game-changing forced fumbles. On the other hand, his personal fouls were arguably the biggest things in the entire game that cost us the win. I really feel for him on those, though. All three were questionable calls. I didn't find them egregious calls, but they were questionable and it's a really tough break for him to have his effort and impact marred by all three calls going against him, especially the most pivotal play of the game, the awesome hit and forced fumble that was called for targeting and will cost him at least half of what could be the last game of his career. Really feel for him. Related to Sinclair's performance, I think it's really notable that our ILBs are coming into their own. Sinclair and Bernadel both made a lot of plays against UCLA, Washington State, and Cal, and Jorgensen did against Oregon State and Cal. All of a sudden, after years of ineptitude at this position, we are starting to see plays made by ILBs near the line of scrimmage. Big development. It's not yet consistent quality but it's visible improvement in seeing the personality of the defense come to life and result in actual production. Elsewhere on defense, Wright, Tafiti, and Franklin are somewhat uneven but make plays and I think can be built around. Our safeties seem somewhat interchangeable in terms of aiding the run defense and I mean that as a compliment. Frausto-Ramos battled and made a few plays but he was the big negative for me. That Trond guy really exposed JFR (though the long touchdown was on Porter, who otherwise had a solid day). Trond Grizzell had five first downs against JFR. The last time a Stanford player gave up five first downs was Mangum-Farrar in the second game of the season last year against USC. The last time a single opposing receiver victimized a Stanford corner like this was back when the Pirate roamed the conference and Dezmon Patmon worked Alijah Holder in the 2018 Wazzu game, but Patmon was a top 10 receiver in the Pac-12 whereas Grizzell isn't quite top 20 at the moment. This struck me as a rough game in a rough year for JFR. I must say, though, that PFF actually thought it was his second best game of his career, so some of the volume of getting beat may be a function of the big uptick in snaps to now be one of our most key defenders.
10. We let Karty eat! The All-American made field goals of 44, 53, and 50, and they were low stress things of beauty too. He is now 10th in the nation in made field goals per game and among the top guys only Miami of Ohio's Graham Nicholson, UNLV's Jose Pizano, and North Carolina's Noah Burnette have a higher percentage. But Nicholson and Pizano only have one 50+ yarder and Burnette has zero, while Karty now has three, matching his total from last season. Karty is now tied for seventh in the nation on 50+ yarders. Yesterday puts Karty squarely back in the Groza hunt, right there with guys like Miami's Andres Borregales, Alabama's Will Reichard, Missouri's Harrison Mevis, and Texas A&M's Randy Bond. I say this is what we're playing for against Notre Dame, give Karty more chances to do his thing. It will be a shame if the many decisions to take the ball away from Karty's foot this season deprive him of the Groza. Going to miss this guy. Flintoft didn't dominate like Karty but it was a pretty good game, nets of 47 to the 22, 31 to the 12, 44 to the 25, 53 to the 22 (49 without the muff), 47 to the 29, and 41 to the 33. I think Flintoft's season (middle of the pack in overall average, a bit above average in PFF grade) is really nice for a true freshman punter. In the return guy, my anti-guy Farrell muffed a punt and got lucky it didn't cost us possession. Grrr. But he did have a 16 yard return.
11. Sam Roush, Tristan Sinclair, Joshua Karty, Mark D'Onofrio
12. We are almost there in getting to turn the page on this season and start getting back to work in earnest on the recruiting, roster construction, culture building, and strength and conditioning that will determine whether this rebuild works out. You have to play the games but if we're being honest this fall is one Taylor just needs to get through and never offered much hope of winning or excitement. That we've gotten a modicum of both and that we've had young receivers show out and signs of life in run defense has made this bearable, but the real season starts in a week. Not much upside in playing the #5 schedule in the nation (and maybe that goes up as we're about to play arguably the second best team on our schedule) with a hollowed out roster. I don't expect next week will be competitive but I'm excited for Taylor to get back in the lab and his assistants back on the trail.