(02-04-2021, 07:33 AM)CTcard Wrote:(02-03-2021, 10:34 PM)lex24 Wrote:(02-03-2021, 09:40 PM)Goose Wrote:(02-03-2021, 06:53 PM)lex24 Wrote: True Frosh QBs generally don’t play anywhere. And when they do, generally not very well. The exceptions being the Trevor Lawrence’s of the world. Andrew, of course, was in that category. But St Jim of Harbaugh decided he should sit in favor of the great Tavita Pritchard. No decision Shaw has made comes close to being that bad.Well, one most important person didn't think it was a bad decision. Andrew Luck. Reportedly he talked Harbaugh out of burning his shirt. Was Andrew
as a freshman more capable than Tavita? For sure. But that was a truly BAD team with an OL that couldn't pass block. Tavita spent lots of time running for his life, or worse still didn't even have time to run for his life. Would we have won more games with luck at QB? Arguably not. I think Andrew was no
fool and knew this wasn't the year.
I have never believed that story. For two reasons: the first being, as a competitor I can’t believe AL would not want to play. Second, and this is the bigger reason, In the SJS game (second quarter, I think), Luck started warming up. Not easily playing catch. Getting ready to play. Pritchard took Stanford on a scoring drive and that was that.
There's lots of stories. Hard to know the level of truth behind them.
I thought I had heard it was the UW game that was the critical decision point (week after SJSU) where going into the game the plan was to have Pritchard on a very short leash then bring in Luck; but Pritchard proceeded to have the best game of his career. After that it was deemed too late to burn the redshirt.
However, it is quite possible the SJSU story was basically correct. At that game Stanford started out: 3 and out, 3 and out, interception, fumble; before putting a TD drive together.
Maybe both occurred.
After the fact, Luck seemed perfectly happy with having redshirted in 2008. What he thought at the time is harder to discern.
Anyway, the 2008 team was not terrible, certainly compared to what came before. The run game was nicely rounding into shape (200 yds/gm). The defense was far better than in had been (and better than it would be in the otherwise breakout 2009 season). The record was 5-7, with 3 one score losses. Given Tavita's struggles (e.g. his PER in 2008 was 114, Luck in 2009 was 143), it's hard to avoid thinking that with Luck as QB Stanford would have at least made a bowl game in 2008 (the bowl drought hit 7 years in 2008).
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More broadly, I agree that the Luck frosh year and McCaffrey frosh year were the two most glaring personnel-decision mistakes of the past 14 years. For some reason I find 2014 more irritating. The staff built an offensive plan that year that woefully misunderstood the strengths of the personnel on offense, with McCaffrey as exhibit A. The offense came around late season as McCaffrey started getting the ball more and broadly Stanford returned to things they were better at at the time - a power run game (which then was still mostly Power, zone-schemes started to dominate the next year) complemented by a high-percentage, first-down achieving pass game.
CT - I know he was dressed and throwing second Q of SJS. He was right behind me. And I was hoping he’d get in. That was game 4, I think. Also, there was a comment that Prichard was running for his life all the time. Which I simply don’t recall quite honestly. I did look up his numbers however and he ran the ball something like 66 times for 120 yards. Now they include sacks in rushing statistics so I couldn’t tell what the positive and negative yardage was.
I have a very very hard time believing that Andrew luck told Harbaugh he wanted to redshirt. That would run counter to the type of talent and competitor he was.
Agree on 2014. The other adjustment that they made late was having both Wright and McCaffrey in the backfield in a two back shotgun formation which was quite effective. Something I’d actually like to see them do more. I think it would work well with Jones and Peat.
Given receiver and QBs losses, the running game is going to be even more important in ‘21. With Jones, Peat , what should be a strong offensive line and a QB, be it Mckee or Sanders , that can run, the elements are there. Figuring out how to use them is the bigger question.
Then there is EJ. Smith.
