09-21-2025, 01:57 PM
6. Gulbranson had a solid game, certainly compared to a lot of what surrounded him on both sides of the ball. He was 64th of 112 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week. That accounts for him having been terrible at avoiding pressure, as he was 101st of 112 in the sacks dimension. He also was poor in the running dimension (82nd). But he connected in the passing game, including multiple big shots. When the offensive line is caving in both phases and the defense is getting torched, a middle of the pack game by QB1 is a blessing, not the thing holding us back. His detractors need to realize that people who want to win and know a lot about QB play do not see our backups as giving us a better shot. We are trying to eke out as much win column and culture progress as we can this year and it's legitimate to think that grinding it out with our flawed but best we have QB is the optimal path in both respects. Going forward, I expect more riding with Gulbranson and more performances like this as well as some better games and definitely possibility for stinkers as we have seen. He now has 19 QB1 games and last week against Boston College was his median career game and yesterday against Virginia was his next most comparable to that. If this starts looking like a ceiling I would be open to calls to see what Brown and/or Rizk can do but, fundamentally, I think Luck and Reich are trying to win and Gulbranson gives the best shot. If that's the case this seems less a controversy and more some people placing too much magical hope on the QB position.
7. The shoutouts of the week have to go out to Bryce Farrell and CJ Williams, both of whom had 100 yard receiving games. That's the first time this year anybody has broken that mark, though you only have to go back one more game to the San Jose State game for the last time two broke it in the same game. Were it not for an 80 yard game against UCLA way back in 2021, Farrell would have the amazing feat of three consecutive career games - 68 yards against BYU, 72 yards against Boston College, 135 yards against Virginia. This has been an amazing breakout and the individual player story of our season, especially considering the circumstances of getting cut and then being asked to come back for a sixth year after the coach who cut him was fired off-cycle mid-offseason. It is probably a really short list of players in history who have been such zeroes for five years and then all of a sudden are among the most productive players in the conference. Certainly at wide receiver it is a shocking trajectory. Crazy stat for you: Farrell is within a yard per game of what Ayomanor contributed last year and ahead of Tremayne's outlandish 2020 yards per catch. I don't think either will last but just wanted to contextualize how great Farrell is playing. PFF has Patterson and Ford as the only better Cardinal players so far this year. All the hat tips and bows to Farrell. Williams is another guy I and others have been doubtful about who exploded yesterday. Williams had by far a career day, nine catches whereas he'd never had more than five in his two previous schools over four years and 103 yards whereas he'd never had more than 60. Very happy for Farrell and Williams to have career days together. Gulbranson deserves a lot more credit than some give for the balls that made those stunning breakouts happen. Elsewhere on the offense, there were bigger plays in the game than the Blackburn touchdown but that one has a special place in my heart as a red zone passing touchdown and Gulbranson finding the end zone without needing a brobdingnagian chunk/busted coverage, two things that have been rare this year. Roush continues to frustrate outside of the kind of fluky enormous touchdown. Ford runs hard and impressively considering how little blocking he gets. Trial by fire for our freshman Ugorji and Yamauchi. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Williams (5), Ford (5), Farrell (2), Tabb (2), Blackburn, High, Libman]
8. The box score and play-by-play reinforce the story of the eyeball and the overall stats that this one was really rough for the defense. We had nine players who showed up multiple times in driving positive results (Rose, Rowell, Nicholson, Aybar, Wright, Patterson, Buckey, Mattingly, Kaminski) but incredibly the latter five all needed garbage time to fill up the box score in such a way. Rose continues to be our johnny on the spot, this time with five solid run stops. Rowell making a few plays was nice as he hasn't been as active this year as I'd like. Wright got beat multiple times and showed up positively multiple times, a truly Kyu Blu Kelly-like game (or indeed a Wright like game from last year). Mattingly didn't have a good game but a third down tackle to force a field goal in the red zone is a high leverage play deserving of mention. That Kaminski got positive plays, even if one was in garbage time (but goal line stops are great whenever they are), is extremely noteworthy for a true freshman. I am about ready to predict he blows past/over-recruits Stephenson. Nicholson had ups and downs yesterday but having two consecutive plays, one a tackle and one a pass breakup, during an end of half two minute drill type situation, was a nice moment for him. At least Aybar did some good things in this one (in fact our best 20+ snap defender yesterday according to PFF's current grade), though I continue to wish we got so much more from him and Cooper. This game is as good a time as any to say that it would make a big difference for Stanford to get a dude or two on the defensive line rather than our cavalcade of guys.
9. I didn't feel like the special teams had a major place in the story of the game yesterday. Flintoft had net punts of 44 to the 35 (solid), 43 to the 28 (solid), 38 to the 12 (solid), 36 to the 34 pre-penalty but with penalty net of 56 (quite good result), 21 to the 39 (horrible), and 44 to the 39), which seems about as average as average gets but not sure we had anything else more deserving of a game ball. Certainly not Kenney missing a 42 yard field goal attempt and whatever else happened in the operation to make that happen, a sad capper on the game. Probably the single best special teams play of the game was Libman and Richardson combining for an excellent punt coverage tackle. Johnson and Mattingly combined on a kick coverage tackle after the unit had already given up a fairly significant return. In the return game, another week, another set of kick returns that got less yardage than we would have gotten on fair catches, nine yards in Tabb's case on the opening kickoff and one yard on High's more effective 19 yard return. Virginia missed a short field goal but it seemed like that and the subsequent ugly make were just crappy kicking.
10. Game balls: Bryce Farrell, Matt Rose, Aidan Flintoft, Tyler Osborne
11. The team has to flush this and try to show against San Jose State who they think they are and want the world to believe they are. The world won't be watching but we will. For the big picture of the season the Virginia road trip doesn't really change anything. We are still a team expected to win three-ish games that thinks it has more in it than that. The on-paper easiest game on our schedule looming on Saturday is one we can't mess up if we want to meet expectations and certainly not if we have any pretensions of exceeding them. My thing this whole season has been trying to show enough progress that this doesn't feel like a totally wasted year and in my mind that means playing well enough to be better than a solid handful of power teams, something like a top 80 team. Based on what San Jose State is showing I would like to see a win by more than a score. But wins and wins at home have been so rare for us that a win in any form would feel good next week. We haven't had multiple home wins in September since 2018, so let's just make that the goal and try to build from there.
7. The shoutouts of the week have to go out to Bryce Farrell and CJ Williams, both of whom had 100 yard receiving games. That's the first time this year anybody has broken that mark, though you only have to go back one more game to the San Jose State game for the last time two broke it in the same game. Were it not for an 80 yard game against UCLA way back in 2021, Farrell would have the amazing feat of three consecutive career games - 68 yards against BYU, 72 yards against Boston College, 135 yards against Virginia. This has been an amazing breakout and the individual player story of our season, especially considering the circumstances of getting cut and then being asked to come back for a sixth year after the coach who cut him was fired off-cycle mid-offseason. It is probably a really short list of players in history who have been such zeroes for five years and then all of a sudden are among the most productive players in the conference. Certainly at wide receiver it is a shocking trajectory. Crazy stat for you: Farrell is within a yard per game of what Ayomanor contributed last year and ahead of Tremayne's outlandish 2020 yards per catch. I don't think either will last but just wanted to contextualize how great Farrell is playing. PFF has Patterson and Ford as the only better Cardinal players so far this year. All the hat tips and bows to Farrell. Williams is another guy I and others have been doubtful about who exploded yesterday. Williams had by far a career day, nine catches whereas he'd never had more than five in his two previous schools over four years and 103 yards whereas he'd never had more than 60. Very happy for Farrell and Williams to have career days together. Gulbranson deserves a lot more credit than some give for the balls that made those stunning breakouts happen. Elsewhere on the offense, there were bigger plays in the game than the Blackburn touchdown but that one has a special place in my heart as a red zone passing touchdown and Gulbranson finding the end zone without needing a brobdingnagian chunk/busted coverage, two things that have been rare this year. Roush continues to frustrate outside of the kind of fluky enormous touchdown. Ford runs hard and impressively considering how little blocking he gets. Trial by fire for our freshman Ugorji and Yamauchi. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Williams (5), Ford (5), Farrell (2), Tabb (2), Blackburn, High, Libman]
8. The box score and play-by-play reinforce the story of the eyeball and the overall stats that this one was really rough for the defense. We had nine players who showed up multiple times in driving positive results (Rose, Rowell, Nicholson, Aybar, Wright, Patterson, Buckey, Mattingly, Kaminski) but incredibly the latter five all needed garbage time to fill up the box score in such a way. Rose continues to be our johnny on the spot, this time with five solid run stops. Rowell making a few plays was nice as he hasn't been as active this year as I'd like. Wright got beat multiple times and showed up positively multiple times, a truly Kyu Blu Kelly-like game (or indeed a Wright like game from last year). Mattingly didn't have a good game but a third down tackle to force a field goal in the red zone is a high leverage play deserving of mention. That Kaminski got positive plays, even if one was in garbage time (but goal line stops are great whenever they are), is extremely noteworthy for a true freshman. I am about ready to predict he blows past/over-recruits Stephenson. Nicholson had ups and downs yesterday but having two consecutive plays, one a tackle and one a pass breakup, during an end of half two minute drill type situation, was a nice moment for him. At least Aybar did some good things in this one (in fact our best 20+ snap defender yesterday according to PFF's current grade), though I continue to wish we got so much more from him and Cooper. This game is as good a time as any to say that it would make a big difference for Stanford to get a dude or two on the defensive line rather than our cavalcade of guys.
9. I didn't feel like the special teams had a major place in the story of the game yesterday. Flintoft had net punts of 44 to the 35 (solid), 43 to the 28 (solid), 38 to the 12 (solid), 36 to the 34 pre-penalty but with penalty net of 56 (quite good result), 21 to the 39 (horrible), and 44 to the 39), which seems about as average as average gets but not sure we had anything else more deserving of a game ball. Certainly not Kenney missing a 42 yard field goal attempt and whatever else happened in the operation to make that happen, a sad capper on the game. Probably the single best special teams play of the game was Libman and Richardson combining for an excellent punt coverage tackle. Johnson and Mattingly combined on a kick coverage tackle after the unit had already given up a fairly significant return. In the return game, another week, another set of kick returns that got less yardage than we would have gotten on fair catches, nine yards in Tabb's case on the opening kickoff and one yard on High's more effective 19 yard return. Virginia missed a short field goal but it seemed like that and the subsequent ugly make were just crappy kicking.
10. Game balls: Bryce Farrell, Matt Rose, Aidan Flintoft, Tyler Osborne
11. The team has to flush this and try to show against San Jose State who they think they are and want the world to believe they are. The world won't be watching but we will. For the big picture of the season the Virginia road trip doesn't really change anything. We are still a team expected to win three-ish games that thinks it has more in it than that. The on-paper easiest game on our schedule looming on Saturday is one we can't mess up if we want to meet expectations and certainly not if we have any pretensions of exceeding them. My thing this whole season has been trying to show enough progress that this doesn't feel like a totally wasted year and in my mind that means playing well enough to be better than a solid handful of power teams, something like a top 80 team. Based on what San Jose State is showing I would like to see a win by more than a score. But wins and wins at home have been so rare for us that a win in any form would feel good next week. We haven't had multiple home wins in September since 2018, so let's just make that the goal and try to build from there.