09-09-2014, 03:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2014, 03:38 PM by Viking_Guy.)
The play-calling debate is tough, because it's almost purely anecdotal. Very few of the debaters on either side can point to anything other than "yeah, but he went for it on fourth and one" or "he punted from inside the opponent's thirty," single plays in a game where on average over 60 will happen.
I know there must be some stats geek out there who does this, but Spiny's comment does crystallize something I've been thinking about. It's not necessarily that the play-calling is conservative or innovative or whatever adverb you would choose consistently. But my purely and faultily human-memory based system wonders if something happens when Stanford has a "scoring chance" - not necessarily in the red zone, but say from the opponents' 40 or 35 on in. It FEELS like Stanford's play list becomes much more constrained, especially on first and second downs. It would be interesting to compare the first-down calls on plays beginning outside the opponents' 40 and those inside - run v. pass balance, inside vs outside runs, etc. Anecdotally, it feels like we end up in a lot more "3rd and 6+" inside the 40.
About the only first-down passing plays with the team in "scoring position" I can recall are the inevitable heave on a sideline fade route that hasn't seemed to work in years.
Does anyone know of any resource like that?
And on Yvonne's point, at some point last season (I think), I posted that what disappointed me was not that Stanford was still running power over and over again - it was that there was no variance at all in how it was being run, and there never seemed to be any misdirection or tendency-breaking change, like the old bringing players from a wide split to start inside. I know on the fourth and 1 play last week, and whenever we've run the full house backfield set, I've wanted to see 1 of the tight ends or eligible tackles hit the line and run out into the flat or simply get over the line and turn to face Hogan. A post in another thread called it an arrogant attitude to think that other teams with equally motivated, similarly talented players couldn't find an adjustment to a dive play to the left or the right, even with all the extra linemen. Stanford may be a "power-running" team, but until the line comes together a bit more, we might want to vary our short-yardage play at least a bit.
And did anyone else, especially the observers of o-line play, see the Colts' miserable failed quarterback sneak on Sunday night? That was what I felt like on Sunday - SC got their pads lower, and cut down the blockers to open space over the top for the linebackers to hit. But I've never been a lineman.
VG
I know there must be some stats geek out there who does this, but Spiny's comment does crystallize something I've been thinking about. It's not necessarily that the play-calling is conservative or innovative or whatever adverb you would choose consistently. But my purely and faultily human-memory based system wonders if something happens when Stanford has a "scoring chance" - not necessarily in the red zone, but say from the opponents' 40 or 35 on in. It FEELS like Stanford's play list becomes much more constrained, especially on first and second downs. It would be interesting to compare the first-down calls on plays beginning outside the opponents' 40 and those inside - run v. pass balance, inside vs outside runs, etc. Anecdotally, it feels like we end up in a lot more "3rd and 6+" inside the 40.
About the only first-down passing plays with the team in "scoring position" I can recall are the inevitable heave on a sideline fade route that hasn't seemed to work in years.
Does anyone know of any resource like that?
And on Yvonne's point, at some point last season (I think), I posted that what disappointed me was not that Stanford was still running power over and over again - it was that there was no variance at all in how it was being run, and there never seemed to be any misdirection or tendency-breaking change, like the old bringing players from a wide split to start inside. I know on the fourth and 1 play last week, and whenever we've run the full house backfield set, I've wanted to see 1 of the tight ends or eligible tackles hit the line and run out into the flat or simply get over the line and turn to face Hogan. A post in another thread called it an arrogant attitude to think that other teams with equally motivated, similarly talented players couldn't find an adjustment to a dive play to the left or the right, even with all the extra linemen. Stanford may be a "power-running" team, but until the line comes together a bit more, we might want to vary our short-yardage play at least a bit.
And did anyone else, especially the observers of o-line play, see the Colts' miserable failed quarterback sneak on Sunday night? That was what I felt like on Sunday - SC got their pads lower, and cut down the blockers to open space over the top for the linebackers to hit. But I've never been a lineman.
VG