[OutsiderFan]

Mills is the best Stanford QB recruit since Luck.  Costello put up big numbers in high school, and may turn out to be a very good QB for Stanford, but the athletic fluidity, suddenness, and play making ability visible watching Mills in high school is at another level, IMO.

I'm pining for Costello right now, but I would be lying if I failed to admit my preference is that Mills be the starting QB in 2018. 

[OutsiderFan]

Mills is the best Stanford QB recruit since Luck.  Costello put up big numbers in high school, and may turn out to be a very good QB for Stanford, but the athletic fluidity, suddenness, and play making ability visible watching Mills in high school is at another level, IMO.

I'm pining for Costello right now, but I would be lying if I failed to admit my preference is that Mills be the starting QB in 2018. 

[csfoster]

The consensus is Costello but I would give Chryst at least the first half against UCLA to be fair.  And for sure give Love the ball 20+ times regardless of who is the QB.

Beat UCLA!!!

[csfoster]

The consensus is Costello but I would give Chryst at least the first half against UCLA to be fair.  And for sure give Love the ball 20+ times regardless of who is the QB.

Beat UCLA!!!

[SF_Cardinal_Fan]

Mills is the best Stanford QB recruit since Luck.  Costello put up big numbers in high school, and may turn out to be a very good QB for Stanford, but the athletic fluidity, suddenness, and play making ability visible watching Mills in high school is at another level, IMO.

I'm pining for Costello right now, but I would be lying if I failed to admit my preference is that Mills be the starting QB in 2018.

If Mills is as skilled as you believe him to be, I believe this strengthens the argument for Costello to get lots of playing time this season, including multiple starting assignments.

[SF_Cardinal_Fan]

Mills is the best Stanford QB recruit since Luck.  Costello put up big numbers in high school, and may turn out to be a very good QB for Stanford, but the athletic fluidity, suddenness, and play making ability visible watching Mills in high school is at another level, IMO.

I'm pining for Costello right now, but I would be lying if I failed to admit my preference is that Mills be the starting QB in 2018.

If Mills is as skilled as you believe him to be, I believe this strengthens the argument for Costello to get lots of playing time this season, including multiple starting assignments.

[JohnR34231]

Is Mills now fully recovered from his knee problems? I read a post earlier this season saying he wasn't.

[JohnR34231]

Is Mills now fully recovered from his knee problems? I read a post earlier this season saying he wasn't.

[CTcard]

From what I've seen, an approach when your offensive line is iffy is to use short to medium timing passes on a short drop (if you want to use play action).  The offensive line then only needs to hold their blocks for short time.  Is this correct?

This is basically correct (though play action does not mesh with a porous OL).

There are a variety of strategies to deal with a less than dominant OL. Very roughly speaking, much of the spread offenses does that.
However, Stanford is based upon having a dominant OL.
That certainly has worked at Stanford. By many measures, Stanford had the best offense in the country in 2011 and 2015, and a very good offense in 2013. But there have also been varying degrees of bad offense, with the worst being 2012.

So, Stanford is built to run right at you - which means having the OL push back the opposing front 7 (or 8 or 9).
Stanford's passing game is built for completing shortish third downs and making big gains on other downs when the defense is looking for power runs, typically on play action passes. But you cannot run play action effectively when an OL cannot protect. Not only does it take time to fake the handoff, but the QB turns his back on the defense. That means he cannot see where the rush is coming from so cannot step away from it.

The dominant question for the offensive staff is whether they realized that the OL was still going to have problems this season.
If the answer is yes - then they should have worked to incorporate what they could of the kind of quick hitting, one decision and go kind of offense that can deal with a weak OL. (To be sure there is a limit to this. It is very hard to change an entire offensive philosophy in one training camp and a bad idea if you think the problems are temporary.)
If the answer is no - then why not? Are they capable of evaluating their own team's strengths and weaknesses?

  Also, I think a short to medium passing game might well help the running game since the linebackers would have to worry more about their drops and not crowd the line of scrimmage.  Does any of this make sense?

I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a brobdingnagian weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

[CTcard]

From what I've seen, an approach when your offensive line is iffy is to use short to medium timing passes on a short drop (if you want to use play action).  The offensive line then only needs to hold their blocks for short time.  Is this correct?

This is basically correct (though play action does not mesh with a porous OL).

There are a variety of strategies to deal with a less than dominant OL. Very roughly speaking, much of the spread offenses does that.
However, Stanford is based upon having a dominant OL.
That certainly has worked at Stanford. By many measures, Stanford had the best offense in the country in 2011 and 2015, and a very good offense in 2013. But there have also been varying degrees of bad offense, with the worst being 2012.

So, Stanford is built to run right at you - which means having the OL push back the opposing front 7 (or 8 or 9).
Stanford's passing game is built for completing shortish third downs and making big gains on other downs when the defense is looking for power runs, typically on play action passes. But you cannot run play action effectively when an OL cannot protect. Not only does it take time to fake the handoff, but the QB turns his back on the defense. That means he cannot see where the rush is coming from so cannot step away from it.

The dominant question for the offensive staff is whether they realized that the OL was still going to have problems this season.
If the answer is yes - then they should have worked to incorporate what they could of the kind of quick hitting, one decision and go kind of offense that can deal with a weak OL. (To be sure there is a limit to this. It is very hard to change an entire offensive philosophy in one training camp and a bad idea if you think the problems are temporary.)
If the answer is no - then why not? Are they capable of evaluating their own team's strengths and weaknesses?

  Also, I think a short to medium passing game might well help the running game since the linebackers would have to worry more about their drops and not crowd the line of scrimmage.  Does any of this make sense?

I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a brobdingnagian weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

[martyup]

[quote author=Cadwallon link=topic=17413.msg201619#msg201619 date=1505873870]

I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a of exceedingly large proportions weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

[/quote]

It seems that Chryst has a problem with balls getting batted down by defensive linemen.  Perhaps Shaw has seen him in practice try to throw those quick short passes over the middle and didn't like the results.

[martyup]

[quote author=Cadwallon link=topic=17413.msg201619#msg201619 date=1505873870]

I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a of exceedingly large proportions weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

[/quote]

It seems that Chryst has a problem with balls getting batted down by defensive linemen.  Perhaps Shaw has seen him in practice try to throw those quick short passes over the middle and didn't like the results.

[stupac2]

Also keep in mind that those quick, short passes rely on quick decision-making (duh) but also really superb accuracy. If you're throwing a timing route over the middle being off by a foot or two can easily be the difference between moving the chains and 6 points the other way. From what we've seen that sort of accuracy doesn't appear to be a strength of anyone throwing balls for us, unfortunately. That's probably why we haven't really seen this since Luck, it's not that the coach's have forgotten about it, our guys just don't seem to be able to pull it off.

[stupac2]

Also keep in mind that those quick, short passes rely on quick decision-making (duh) but also really superb accuracy. If you're throwing a timing route over the middle being off by a foot or two can easily be the difference between moving the chains and 6 points the other way. From what we've seen that sort of accuracy doesn't appear to be a strength of anyone throwing balls for us, unfortunately. That's probably why we haven't really seen this since Luck, it's not that the coach's have forgotten about it, our guys just don't seem to be able to pull it off.

[SF_Cardinal_Fan]

Is the best move to give experience to Costello now or to hope for a peaking 5th year Chryst next year? Would putting Costello in now give him needed experience, or is it risky and dangerous to put in a less experienced qb now given our current issues? Would we be sending Costello into a Luck-Colts type of situation?

At Indianapolis Luck has been out there scrambling for his life. His situation actually makes me wonder why he and his family did not refuse to play for the Colts.
Coming out of Stanford refused to play for the Colts. And Ely Manning (father an NFL vet  QB just like Luck's father was) refused to play for the Chargers.
Anyway, I think Stanford's current team is capable of protecting a QB much better than the Colts have protected Luck.

[SF_Cardinal_Fan]

Is the best move to give experience to Costello now or to hope for a peaking 5th year Chryst next year? Would putting Costello in now give him needed experience, or is it risky and dangerous to put in a less experienced qb now given our current issues? Would we be sending Costello into a Luck-Colts type of situation?

At Indianapolis Luck has been out there scrambling for his life. His situation actually makes me wonder why he and his family did not refuse to play for the Colts.
Coming out of Stanford refused to play for the Colts. And Ely Manning (father an NFL vet  QB just like Luck's father was) refused to play for the Chargers.
Anyway, I think Stanford's current team is capable of protecting a QB much better than the Colts have protected Luck.

[fullmetal]

"It's almost like the QBs (Burns, Chryst) are overthinking things...as if they were afraid to make the wrong call.  Paging coaching staff--hope y'all aren't beating up the kids over small stuff without proportionally praising their great plays."

This is in line with what I was talking about above.  If you have a dominant offensive line you can afford to have slow developing and possibly long passing plays that give the quarterback time to think about what he's going to do.  But, we don't have this right now.  What we need is a quarterback with the mentality of a tennis player who "knows" he can hit the ball down the line into a very tight window and just does it instantaneously.  I think this mentality can to an extent be developed with encouragement from the coaches, but it comes much more easily to some people than others.

Yep.  And what I'm worried about is the coaches getting into the perfectionist Stanford student-athletes' heads and causing them to second-guess themselves for fear of failure.  But maybe that's not the case...and maybe these guys just don't have the right stuff.

[fullmetal]

"It's almost like the QBs (Burns, Chryst) are overthinking things...as if they were afraid to make the wrong call.  Paging coaching staff--hope y'all aren't beating up the kids over small stuff without proportionally praising their great plays."

This is in line with what I was talking about above.  If you have a dominant offensive line you can afford to have slow developing and possibly long passing plays that give the quarterback time to think about what he's going to do.  But, we don't have this right now.  What we need is a quarterback with the mentality of a tennis player who "knows" he can hit the ball down the line into a very tight window and just does it instantaneously.  I think this mentality can to an extent be developed with encouragement from the coaches, but it comes much more easily to some people than others.

Yep.  And what I'm worried about is the coaches getting into the perfectionist Stanford student-athletes' heads and causing them to second-guess themselves for fear of failure.  But maybe that's not the case...and maybe these guys just don't have the right stuff.

[CardinalSagehen]

I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a of exceedingly large proportions weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

This is mostly unrelated to your original point here, which was about forcing the LBs to back off when they're cheating against the run.  But I was actually expecting to see this kind of a pass into the slot on our final "drive" against SDSU.

Remember this, from happier times, in a similar final drive situation against ND in 2015?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6595URY4Jws&t=74m45s  .  You can see that ND had gone into a "prevent" mode, with extra DBs and a massive soft-spot over the middle for Cajuste's catch in the slot.

By contrast, if you can stand the brain damage, here's our last, fateful offensive play vs. SDSU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIN4qpVqpM&t=10m25s.  The Aztecs were gutsier and stayed in their base 3-4 defense, leaving JJ in single-coverage on the outside, without much of a soft-spot for us to attack over the middle. 

On the general topic of seeing Costello, I think Shaw loses too much credibility with his players by switching this quickly.  He has a history of making the switch at mid-season, and that's what we may see here, assuming Chryst doesn't turn it around... which I hope he does.

[CardinalSagehen]

I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a of exceedingly large proportions weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

This is mostly unrelated to your original point here, which was about forcing the LBs to back off when they're cheating against the run.  But I was actually expecting to see this kind of a pass into the slot on our final "drive" against SDSU.

Remember this, from happier times, in a similar final drive situation against ND in 2015?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6595URY4Jws&t=74m45s  .  You can see that ND had gone into a "prevent" mode, with extra DBs and a massive soft-spot over the middle for Cajuste's catch in the slot.

By contrast, if you can stand the brain damage, here's our last, fateful offensive play vs. SDSU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIN4qpVqpM&t=10m25s.  The Aztecs were gutsier and stayed in their base 3-4 defense, leaving JJ in single-coverage on the outside, without much of a soft-spot for us to attack over the middle. 

On the general topic of seeing Costello, I think Shaw loses too much credibility with his players by switching this quickly.  He has a history of making the switch at mid-season, and that's what we may see here, assuming Chryst doesn't turn it around... which I hope he does.

[StanfordIndians1]

Shaw lose respect of his players if he switches QB's?

This isn't a 35 game season.  Every week is critical, especially being 0-1 in conference.

I like Chryst, but is he really going to win the North for us? I am Hopi g so but I think his decision skills are too slow.  And Burns are twice as slow.

If the O looks stagnant- I make a switch.

#Beatucla

[StanfordIndians1]

Shaw lose respect of his players if he switches QB's?

This isn't a 35 game season.  Every week is critical, especially being 0-1 in conference.

I like Chryst, but is he really going to win the North for us? I am Hopi g so but I think his decision skills are too slow.  And Burns are twice as slow.

If the O looks stagnant- I make a switch.

#Beatucla

[dabigv13]

Going to Costello wouldn't be that out of character for Shaw. Hogan became the starter after starting the season 3rd string, redshift frosh just like Costello. I remember I was a big proponent of seeing what Nottingham could do that year, and then Hogan came out of nowhere and crushed it against Colorado.

If we start seeing a Costello package, then we'll know something is in the cards. Though, I'm not sure Costello has a different skillset in the same way Hogan did.

[dabigv13]

Going to Costello wouldn't be that out of character for Shaw. Hogan became the starter after starting the season 3rd string, redshift frosh just like Costello. I remember I was a big proponent of seeing what Nottingham could do that year, and then Hogan came out of nowhere and crushed it against Colorado.

If we start seeing a Costello package, then we'll know something is in the cards. Though, I'm not sure Costello has a different skillset in the same way Hogan did.

[BostonCard]

By contrast, if you can stand the brain damage, here's our last, fateful offensive play vs. SDSU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIN4qpVqpM&t=10m25s.  The Aztecs were gutsier and stayed in their base 3-4 defense, leaving JJ in single-coverage on the outside, without much of a soft-spot for us to attack over the middle. 

JJAW was in one on one coverage against a shorter defensive back.  That should have been a nice gain to move the chains.  It was a crappy throw.  The play call was right.  The read by the QB was right.  The route run by the receiver was right (I assume, though I suppose if the receiver was supposed to turn in that might have explained the pass).  Chryst just underthrew the pass.... to a spot where only the defensive back could get it.

BC

[BostonCard]

By contrast, if you can stand the brain damage, here's our last, fateful offensive play vs. SDSU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIN4qpVqpM&t=10m25s.  The Aztecs were gutsier and stayed in their base 3-4 defense, leaving JJ in single-coverage on the outside, without much of a soft-spot for us to attack over the middle. 

JJAW was in one on one coverage against a shorter defensive back.  That should have been a nice gain to move the chains.  It was a crappy throw.  The play call was right.  The read by the QB was right.  The route run by the receiver was right (I assume, though I suppose if the receiver was supposed to turn in that might have explained the pass).  Chryst just underthrew the pass.... to a spot where only the defensive back could get it.

BC

[Goose]

JJAW was in one on one coverage against a shorter defensive back.  That should have been a nice gain to move the chains.  It was a crappy throw.  The play call was right.  The read by the QB was right.  The route run by the receiver was right (I assume, though I suppose if the receiver was supposed to turn in that might have explained the pass).  Chryst just underthrew the pass.... to a spot where only the defensive back could get it.

BC

It could have been an option route where JJAW read the coverage (correctly) as inside coverage and therefore looked for an outside throw, but Chryst read it wrong and threw to the inside. Most probably, I think, it was just a bad throw.

[Goose]

JJAW was in one on one coverage against a shorter defensive back.  That should have been a nice gain to move the chains.  It was a crappy throw.  The play call was right.  The read by the QB was right.  The route run by the receiver was right (I assume, though I suppose if the receiver was supposed to turn in that might have explained the pass).  Chryst just underthrew the pass.... to a spot where only the defensive back could get it.

BC

It could have been an option route where JJAW read the coverage (correctly) as inside coverage and therefore looked for an outside throw, but Chryst read it wrong and threw to the inside. Most probably, I think, it was just a bad throw.

[CardinalSagehen]

JJAW was in one on one coverage against a shorter defensive back.  That should have been a nice gain to move the chains.  It was a crappy throw.  The play call was right.  The read by the QB was right.  The route run by the receiver was right (I assume, though I suppose if the receiver was supposed to turn in that might have explained the pass).  Chryst just underthrew the pass.... to a spot where only the defensive back could get it.

BC

Completely agree. Against that defense, that was a reasonable call.

On top of Chryst's horrible throw, it sure seemed to me like JJ could have done more to prevent the INT.  Isn't that his responsibility on a ball like that?  I guess it was just hard for him to tell in real-time. 

Back to 2015 - living in the past here - the play before Cajuste's catch was a very similar pass attempt from Hogan to Rector down the sidelines. In that case, the safety came over the top (because ND was in "prevent" D) and Hogan luckily (or skillfully) threw it over Rector's head to the sideline. Ironically, that was a poor play call / decision with good execution, while SDSU was a good play call / decision with horrible execution. 

[CardinalSagehen]

JJAW was in one on one coverage against a shorter defensive back.  That should have been a nice gain to move the chains.  It was a crappy throw.  The play call was right.  The read by the QB was right.  The route run by the receiver was right (I assume, though I suppose if the receiver was supposed to turn in that might have explained the pass).  Chryst just underthrew the pass.... to a spot where only the defensive back could get it.

BC

Completely agree. Against that defense, that was a reasonable call.

On top of Chryst's horrible throw, it sure seemed to me like JJ could have done more to prevent the INT.  Isn't that his responsibility on a ball like that?  I guess it was just hard for him to tell in real-time. 

Back to 2015 - living in the past here - the play before Cajuste's catch was a very similar pass attempt from Hogan to Rector down the sidelines. In that case, the safety came over the top (because ND was in "prevent" D) and Hogan luckily (or skillfully) threw it over Rector's head to the sideline. Ironically, that was a poor play call / decision with good execution, while SDSU was a good play call / decision with horrible execution. 

[CowboyIndian]

Hogan became the starter after starting the season 3rd string, redshift frosh just like Costello.

Costello....expanding our universe.

[CowboyIndian]

Hogan became the starter after starting the season 3rd string, redshift frosh just like Costello.

Costello....expanding our universe.

[AncientCityIndian]

1:  We may be in a down year and Chryst may not be 100% and the OL is a work in progress

2:  Costello just might be the right choice to get some hands on experience at this point in time

3:  Next year may be a once in a decade chance to go into the playoffs and an experienced Costello may have the highest ceiling and our best chance to succeed.

[AncientCityIndian]

1:  We may be in a down year and Chryst may not be 100% and the OL is a work in progress

2:  Costello just might be the right choice to get some hands on experience at this point in time

3:  Next year may be a once in a decade chance to go into the playoffs and an experienced Costello may have the highest ceiling and our best chance to succeed.

[csfoster]

1:  We may be in a down year and Chryst may not be 100% and the OL is a work in progress

2:  Costello just might be the right choice to get some hands on experience at this point in time

3:  Next year may be a once in a decade chance to go into the playoffs and an experienced Costello may have the highest ceiling and our best chance to succeed.

I have faith in Chryst!

[csfoster]

1:  We may be in a down year and Chryst may not be 100% and the OL is a work in progress

2:  Costello just might be the right choice to get some hands on experience at this point in time

3:  Next year may be a once in a decade chance to go into the playoffs and an experienced Costello may have the highest ceiling and our best chance to succeed.

I have faith in Chryst!

[JohnR34231]

[quote author=CTcard link=topic=17413.msg201678#msg201678 date=1505932750]
I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a of exceedingly large proportions weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

This is mostly unrelated to your original point here, which was about forcing the LBs to back off when they're cheating against the run.  But I was actually expecting to see this kind of a pass into the slot on our final "drive" against SDSU.

Remember this, from happier times, in a similar final drive situation against ND in 2015?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6595URY4Jws&t=74m45s  .  You can see that ND had gone into a "prevent" mode, with extra DBs and a massive soft-spot over the middle for Cajuste's catch in the slot.

By contrast, if you can stand the brain damage, here's our last, fateful offensive play vs. SDSU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIN4qpVqpM&t=10m25s.  The Aztecs were gutsier and stayed in their base 3-4 defense, leaving JJ in single-coverage on the outside, without much of a soft-spot for us to attack over the middle. 

On the general topic of seeing Costello, I think Shaw loses too much credibility with his players by switching this quickly.  He has a history of making the switch at mid-season, and that's what we may see here, assuming Chryst doesn't turn it around... which I hope he does.
[/quote]

On that final play against SDSU it seemed to me that JJ was well covered and Chryst just put the ball up there, hoping something good would happen. Obviously, it didn't.

[JohnR34231]

[quote author=CTcard link=topic=17413.msg201678#msg201678 date=1505932750]
I didn't see how SDSU was deploying their LBers, but $C was clearly using them to crowd the LOS looking for the inside run, then adjusting if they determined a pass. It would seem that quick hitters from the slot behind the LBers would have been effective. (Such a play was a of exceedingly large proportions weapon for us with McCaffrey.) Why we didn't see it isn't clear to me, but it's football 101 so it's not as if it simply didn't occur to the coaches.

This is mostly unrelated to your original point here, which was about forcing the LBs to back off when they're cheating against the run.  But I was actually expecting to see this kind of a pass into the slot on our final "drive" against SDSU.

Remember this, from happier times, in a similar final drive situation against ND in 2015?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6595URY4Jws&t=74m45s  .  You can see that ND had gone into a "prevent" mode, with extra DBs and a massive soft-spot over the middle for Cajuste's catch in the slot.

By contrast, if you can stand the brain damage, here's our last, fateful offensive play vs. SDSU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIN4qpVqpM&t=10m25s.  The Aztecs were gutsier and stayed in their base 3-4 defense, leaving JJ in single-coverage on the outside, without much of a soft-spot for us to attack over the middle. 

On the general topic of seeing Costello, I think Shaw loses too much credibility with his players by switching this quickly.  He has a history of making the switch at mid-season, and that's what we may see here, assuming Chryst doesn't turn it around... which I hope he does.
[/quote]

On that final play against SDSU it seemed to me that JJ was well covered and Chryst just put the ball up there, hoping something good would happen. Obviously, it didn't.

[Goose]

On that final play against SDSU it seemed to me that JJ was well covered and Chryst just put the ball up there, hoping something good would happen. Obviously, it didn't.

Probably some truth to this. However, even in that situation, Chryst needs to make the throw to the outside. I think this is Shaw's point about people needing to "make some plays". Right now, it seems that we are often just a bit short of doing all that is possible. Sometimes, you can get by that way. Against good teams, you can't. Chryst had to give JJAW the best possible chance, and he didn't.

[Goose]

On that final play against SDSU it seemed to me that JJ was well covered and Chryst just put the ball up there, hoping something good would happen. Obviously, it didn't.

Probably some truth to this. However, even in that situation, Chryst needs to make the throw to the outside. I think this is Shaw's point about people needing to "make some plays". Right now, it seems that we are often just a bit short of doing all that is possible. Sometimes, you can get by that way. Against good teams, you can't. Chryst had to give JJAW the best possible chance, and he didn't.