3 hours ago
5. If Pritchard told the team to empty the tank and put it all out there, his decisions backed up the mentality with his aggressive approach to fourth downs and confidence in the team. The first drive one was defensible just because of field position; we got bailed out by the roughing the passer. The second one was analytics-supported, though avoiding a 46 yard field goal seems like another vote of little confidence in Kenney; this one failed with a frustrating (in light of run game struggles) run up the gut. The fourth down Warren converted to Brown on 4th and 5 was a very strong analytical decision in light of a would-be 52 yard kick down 10 with the second half kickoff coming. Fourth and 1 from the 26 is one that old conventional wisdom would have said kick and analytics definitely say go; the good decision was wiped out by Blackburn's penalty. But then we went for it on 4th and 11, on paper straight-up riverboat gambling but perhaps Kenney can't be trusted to try a 53 yarder. To me that one depends on if Kenney is a shell of his peak self. That said, the fact we went to the riverboat gambling well twice on these 4th and long situations and connected deep, this time to Onovughe, suggests there may have been something in scouting that gave us confidence. I was proud of Pritchard for following this up with the conservative decision to kick from the 7 rather than recklessly chase the points on 4th and goal from the 7 (and in general have no complaints about the times he did kick or punt). Finally, the 4th and 10 from the 33 thrillingly ended up with the long touchdown to Brown, but that was batshit crazy. Do we laud Pritchard for big cajones that got the win or lament that at times the coach operated like a 12 year old playing Madden (hat tip @akhockey7)? Ultimately, coaches get judged by wins and Pritchard being more aggressive than analytical worked this time. A case can be made Pritchard won this game with the call on the touchdown to Brown.
6. Connecting on both the touchdown to Brown and the long conversion to Onovughe happened because Warren was feeling himself. The grounding to end the half was maddening and in the first half I felt his receivers made him look better than his throws (though that's only fair considering all their drops the first three games), but that feels like nitpicking on a great day, especially when it came to connecting deep and keeping it clean generally (he had two turnover worthy plays but I am not going to complain about a QB 29th of 151 QBs nationally in turnover worthy play percentage). Warren's career game in conventional stats was #21 of 129 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week. That rating is in the ballpark with his marquee Michigan games (Alabama, Oregon, Michigan State), and we asked him to do more. It's the best Stanford QB performance since McKee. On the season, Warren is #52 in the nation; for context, our best of this era has been 2021 McKee at #47 and our 2026 transfer portal pipedreams included #20 Pribula, #84 Mendoza, #88 Joseph, #94 Lagway, and #121 Eget. Warren is a godsend. I would also say he's a great reflection of Pritchard and Lindgren's bona fide QB mentoring chops. It's possible some of the guys we swung and missed on would have played better at Stanford than at the better football programs they're currently representing.
7. Warren succeeding goes hand in hand with good receivers who didn't drop the ball this week. It was thrilling to finally see our top receivers, High and Brown, in action together. They're going to be tough covers for a lot of teams. The passing game should be fun this year. The running game can only do so much behind a line still struggling to run block but I have to say the distance between Ford and Irvin is less than I thought it would be. Ford has been a bit of a disappointment and Irvin a pleasant surprise. I think it remains appropriate for Ford to get more work, but as we saw in this game a healthy dose of Irvin is good for the team. Also shoutout to Onovughe's contributions, another guy I haven't thought much of as a weapon. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: High (4), Nico Brown (4), Irvin (4), Ford (3), Onovughe (2), Robinson, Hall, Joseph] On the line, PFF assessed House, Prongos, and Brown as having good games, House borderline great in a platoon with Williams. Pale was a disaster. It strikes me as one of our best line performances of the era. This will be an interesting Roster Arrows segment.
8. The overall defensive tackling and cohesion (some would say effort, harder for me to judge) remain very disappointing. My exercise of counting positive box score plays was bleak, with three guys dominating the tally. The linebackers Galvan and Rose had six such plays each, with Galvan all over the place and Rose in the backfield three times. After a bit of a false start on their year due to Galvan's injury and Rose being exposed as a coverage liability and also missing more tackles than we'd like, I feel pretty good that they will settle in as the heart and soul of the defense. That is especially needed now that arguably the best player on the defense this season as well as the one with the worst depth behind him, Nicholson, went out on his shield making the key interception yesterday. The corners are going to be a liability this year, making front seven performances all the more crucial. The third guy who showed up numerous times in the box score was Staples, who had a sack for a turnover on downs, a crunch time hurry, and the pressure that led to Mendoza's calamitous grounding, making him the defensive guy who most contributed to us hanging on at the end. The guy for whom it's harder to show up in the box score given his role but is another top candidate for heart of the defense/most crucial non-Warren player is BMO. I'm a fan of that player. There are several players whose years have been problematic. Yesterday Davis seemed to especially jump off the screen as struggling. The upside I see for the defense is Kaminski hopefully rounding into form coming back, like our receivers have on offense after injury return acclimation games, and giving us a few credible non-interior guys along with Tafiti and Staples.
9. Special teams felt incidental in this offense and penalty determined game. Kenney made his chip shots from 29 and 24, but the main story with him was the coaching embracing aggression and betting on the passing game over the foot of his kicker. Flintoft had net punts of 42 to the 30 (not good enough in that crunch time situation) and 51 to the 36 (much better job of giving us breathing room in crunch time). Chris Davis had a return to the 23, the usual slight headwind we typically get from that team. There were coverage tackles by Kuo, Tate, Eckhardt, Jernegan, Harmon, and Randle, the one produced by the latter two probably the only above and beyond play of the game on special teams.
10. Game balls: Davis Warren, Jahsiah Galvan, Emmet Kenney, Brian Bratton
11. We go into Wake Forest with a chance to change the narrative of the season. On paper it looks like a steep uphill climb given the respectable opponent, travel, and brutal 9am kickoff. We could steal this though, and Wake coming off the big high of the upset at Louisville paints this one with trap game potential. In all likelihood, this is a loss and not an especially close one. Deviating from that script is the kind of thing this team can do to show it's actually making progress. Right now we look squarely like a four win team. With eight games left there's a lot of time to show we're better than that and are making progress more quickly than has been apparent. Here's to hoping.
6. Connecting on both the touchdown to Brown and the long conversion to Onovughe happened because Warren was feeling himself. The grounding to end the half was maddening and in the first half I felt his receivers made him look better than his throws (though that's only fair considering all their drops the first three games), but that feels like nitpicking on a great day, especially when it came to connecting deep and keeping it clean generally (he had two turnover worthy plays but I am not going to complain about a QB 29th of 151 QBs nationally in turnover worthy play percentage). Warren's career game in conventional stats was #21 of 129 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week. That rating is in the ballpark with his marquee Michigan games (Alabama, Oregon, Michigan State), and we asked him to do more. It's the best Stanford QB performance since McKee. On the season, Warren is #52 in the nation; for context, our best of this era has been 2021 McKee at #47 and our 2026 transfer portal pipedreams included #20 Pribula, #84 Mendoza, #88 Joseph, #94 Lagway, and #121 Eget. Warren is a godsend. I would also say he's a great reflection of Pritchard and Lindgren's bona fide QB mentoring chops. It's possible some of the guys we swung and missed on would have played better at Stanford than at the better football programs they're currently representing.
7. Warren succeeding goes hand in hand with good receivers who didn't drop the ball this week. It was thrilling to finally see our top receivers, High and Brown, in action together. They're going to be tough covers for a lot of teams. The passing game should be fun this year. The running game can only do so much behind a line still struggling to run block but I have to say the distance between Ford and Irvin is less than I thought it would be. Ford has been a bit of a disappointment and Irvin a pleasant surprise. I think it remains appropriate for Ford to get more work, but as we saw in this game a healthy dose of Irvin is good for the team. Also shoutout to Onovughe's contributions, another guy I haven't thought much of as a weapon. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: High (4), Nico Brown (4), Irvin (4), Ford (3), Onovughe (2), Robinson, Hall, Joseph] On the line, PFF assessed House, Prongos, and Brown as having good games, House borderline great in a platoon with Williams. Pale was a disaster. It strikes me as one of our best line performances of the era. This will be an interesting Roster Arrows segment.
8. The overall defensive tackling and cohesion (some would say effort, harder for me to judge) remain very disappointing. My exercise of counting positive box score plays was bleak, with three guys dominating the tally. The linebackers Galvan and Rose had six such plays each, with Galvan all over the place and Rose in the backfield three times. After a bit of a false start on their year due to Galvan's injury and Rose being exposed as a coverage liability and also missing more tackles than we'd like, I feel pretty good that they will settle in as the heart and soul of the defense. That is especially needed now that arguably the best player on the defense this season as well as the one with the worst depth behind him, Nicholson, went out on his shield making the key interception yesterday. The corners are going to be a liability this year, making front seven performances all the more crucial. The third guy who showed up numerous times in the box score was Staples, who had a sack for a turnover on downs, a crunch time hurry, and the pressure that led to Mendoza's calamitous grounding, making him the defensive guy who most contributed to us hanging on at the end. The guy for whom it's harder to show up in the box score given his role but is another top candidate for heart of the defense/most crucial non-Warren player is BMO. I'm a fan of that player. There are several players whose years have been problematic. Yesterday Davis seemed to especially jump off the screen as struggling. The upside I see for the defense is Kaminski hopefully rounding into form coming back, like our receivers have on offense after injury return acclimation games, and giving us a few credible non-interior guys along with Tafiti and Staples.
9. Special teams felt incidental in this offense and penalty determined game. Kenney made his chip shots from 29 and 24, but the main story with him was the coaching embracing aggression and betting on the passing game over the foot of his kicker. Flintoft had net punts of 42 to the 30 (not good enough in that crunch time situation) and 51 to the 36 (much better job of giving us breathing room in crunch time). Chris Davis had a return to the 23, the usual slight headwind we typically get from that team. There were coverage tackles by Kuo, Tate, Eckhardt, Jernegan, Harmon, and Randle, the one produced by the latter two probably the only above and beyond play of the game on special teams.
10. Game balls: Davis Warren, Jahsiah Galvan, Emmet Kenney, Brian Bratton
11. We go into Wake Forest with a chance to change the narrative of the season. On paper it looks like a steep uphill climb given the respectable opponent, travel, and brutal 9am kickoff. We could steal this though, and Wake coming off the big high of the upset at Louisville paints this one with trap game potential. In all likelihood, this is a loss and not an especially close one. Deviating from that script is the kind of thing this team can do to show it's actually making progress. Right now we look squarely like a four win team. With eight games left there's a lot of time to show we're better than that and are making progress more quickly than has been apparent. Here's to hoping.