[Phogge]

Retreat Hell! 13-0.

[Phogge]

Retreat Hell! 13-0.

[JeffInCorvallis]

Retreat Hell! 13-0.

I like the optimism. The front half of the schedule is really loaded. I think 1-5 is a distinct possibility to start the season before we claw our way back to bowl eligibility.

Hope I'm wrong. In the positive sense.

[JeffInCorvallis]

Retreat Hell! 13-0.

I like the optimism. The front half of the schedule is really loaded. I think 1-5 is a distinct possibility to start the season before we claw our way back to bowl eligibility.

Hope I'm wrong. In the positive sense.

[OutsiderFan]

You guys should know Wilner picked Stanford to finish #2 in North.  Stanford has finished #1 in North the last 4 odd seasons ('17, '15, '13, '11).  I think there is something to playing Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and Cal at home in a given year.

[OutsiderFan]

You guys should know Wilner picked Stanford to finish #2 in North.  Stanford has finished #1 in North the last 4 odd seasons ('17, '15, '13, '11).  I think there is something to playing Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and Cal at home in a given year.

[CTcard]

For me the Pac12 anchors try to play too chummy with the guys, and strive to be liked.  Mike Yam most guilty. 
Forget the dam golf putting gimmick.  Give us INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS.  Stop trying to get cute. 

While I agree on substance, it is a media day. That's not the place to look for any kind of analysis, much less insightful.

Ask Shaw what he thinks of some of the best opposing QBs in the country 

Herbert (OREG) is a first round NFL pick.  
Kahlil Tate (ZONA) is a serious Dual Threat. 
Eason (WASH) started at Georgia as a top SEC prospect. 
JT Daniels (USC) got snuffed early last year by Stanford, but has a dynamic set of targets in 2019.
Gage Gubrud (WAST) is the next Mike Leach transfer project, with boffo numbers from E.Wash.  
Steve Montez (COLO) is more experienced than KJ, and has thrown for close to 7,000 yards in three years.
Ian Book (NDAM) was an elusive nightmare for us in last year's loss. 

KalSucks just doesn't have a QB.

If asked, Shaw would tell us that they are all remarkable. We, however, are allowed to have an actual opinion.  

Here are a few thoughts on most of those guys from me.

Herbert - I find him particularly interesting as he was practically unrecruited and appeared to end up at Oregon as a sop to the local HS program  (he is from Eugene). That was the same class that had Costello (#3 QB recruit by 247) and Eason (#2 by 247).
His high potential is clear, and he is great when on. An example was against us ... at least until OT where he was 1-5 and an INT. However, he went into a mysterious funk last year a few games after playing us. Over the last half of the season the only teams he put up good numbers against were the atrocious defenses of UCLA and Oregon State. My suspicion is that he had a moderately serious unreported injury.
I would expect him to be very good this year, but wonder about that slump.

Tate - A classic hot/cold, hard to figure guy. After taking the conference by storm in 2017, was considerably off in 2018. His running was WAY down (from 1400 yds to 200 yds despite playing more). His passing overall was about the same, with a pretty good overall efficiency, that was split between video game numbers against some teams (Southern Utah, Colorado, to a lesser extent WSU), and some really poor games (BYU, Houston, to a lesser extent cal, $C).
I always assume we are going to see the best version of erratic opponents, and there could be a particular danger that ILBs are often quite important for containing running QBs.

Eason - I don't know what we'll see from him. A highly rated recruit in 2016. He was the starter that first season and played about as one would expect a true frosh to play - which is not that well (notably less effective then that Daniels in 2018). For 2017 he lost the starting job to Fromm and appeared in five games, apparently mostly to hand off as the clock expired. He's coming off a rough true frosh year then effectively two years not playing. 

Gubrud - Most interesting thing I know about him is that he succeeded Vernon Adams (Adams who spent final year at Oregon) as EWU QB*. That seems ages ago, which it was. Gubrud will be playing his sixth year since enrolling. He was originally denied a sixth year as he didn't  qualify by the rules then was quickly granted it upon appeal. [I don't know the basis for the appeal, from basic bio info available at the EWU web site, he appears not to be too close to qualifying - must be something not stated there.]

* at least sort of. Adams' year at Oregon was Gubrud's first season playing for EWU, but he didn't play a whole lot.

Book - He was good last year, and it was death to us that und figured out he was their top QB the week before they played us. In fact, he was good enough it's tough to figure out how the coaches couldn't figure out he was a better option than Wimbush for so long (Book was a Junior). That's a big piece that und hadn't had for a bit.

Montez is one of those guys who it seems to me has been around forever. Other than the fact that he will be a fifth year and has been a starter for 2+ seasons, that isn't overly true. His overall performance has been remarkably constant over his career, with PER inching down slightly each season.

-- how do we counter as the #11 Pass Defense in Pac12 for 2018?:

I don't think that Stanford was really the #11 pass defense in the Pac12 in 2018. That was their ranking in yds/game, but for whatever reason, teams chose to pass a lot against us (which might in itself be a measure of the quality of our pass defense, but could be due to all sorts of other reasons as well). One really needs to look at some measure that normalizes by our opponents' approach.

By PER Stanford was the #5 pass defense in the Pac 12.
By yds/attempt Stanford was the the #8 pass defense in the Pac 12.
By TDs allowed (this is not normalized), Stanford was #3 pass defense in the Pac 12.

One interesting point, last year the Pac 12 was not a particularly pass happy league despite these QBs - outside of WSU anyway. WSU led the country in pass attempts per game, after that there was OSU at #31, Colorado #36, UCLA #50, USC #51. Oregon was #61. [Stanford threw a high percentage of the time, but since we still ran a slow paced offense, the total number of attempts per game was only #57.]
I don't have a by conference breakdown, but surprisingly to me, it looks like the Big Ten might have been the #1 Power 5 conference in pass attempts per game ( with tOSU, Indiana tied for #6, Purdue #10, MSU #14, Northwestern #19 all in the top 20).

[CTcard]

For me the Pac12 anchors try to play too chummy with the guys, and strive to be liked.  Mike Yam most guilty. 
Forget the dam golf putting gimmick.  Give us INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS.  Stop trying to get cute. 

While I agree on substance, it is a media day. That's not the place to look for any kind of analysis, much less insightful.

Ask Shaw what he thinks of some of the best opposing QBs in the country 

Herbert (OREG) is a first round NFL pick.  
Kahlil Tate (ZONA) is a serious Dual Threat. 
Eason (WASH) started at Georgia as a top SEC prospect. 
JT Daniels (USC) got snuffed early last year by Stanford, but has a dynamic set of targets in 2019.
Gage Gubrud (WAST) is the next Mike Leach transfer project, with boffo numbers from E.Wash.  
Steve Montez (COLO) is more experienced than KJ, and has thrown for close to 7,000 yards in three years.
Ian Book (NDAM) was an elusive nightmare for us in last year's loss. 

KalSucks just doesn't have a QB.

If asked, Shaw would tell us that they are all remarkable. We, however, are allowed to have an actual opinion.  

Here are a few thoughts on most of those guys from me.

Herbert - I find him particularly interesting as he was practically unrecruited and appeared to end up at Oregon as a sop to the local HS program  (he is from Eugene). That was the same class that had Costello (#3 QB recruit by 247) and Eason (#2 by 247).
His high potential is clear, and he is great when on. An example was against us ... at least until OT where he was 1-5 and an INT. However, he went into a mysterious funk last year a few games after playing us. Over the last half of the season the only teams he put up good numbers against were the atrocious defenses of UCLA and Oregon State. My suspicion is that he had a moderately serious unreported injury.
I would expect him to be very good this year, but wonder about that slump.

Tate - A classic hot/cold, hard to figure guy. After taking the conference by storm in 2017, was considerably off in 2018. His running was WAY down (from 1400 yds to 200 yds despite playing more). His passing overall was about the same, with a pretty good overall efficiency, that was split between video game numbers against some teams (Southern Utah, Colorado, to a lesser extent WSU), and some really poor games (BYU, Houston, to a lesser extent cal, $C).
I always assume we are going to see the best version of erratic opponents, and there could be a particular danger that ILBs are often quite important for containing running QBs.

Eason - I don't know what we'll see from him. A highly rated recruit in 2016. He was the starter that first season and played about as one would expect a true frosh to play - which is not that well (notably less effective then that Daniels in 2018). For 2017 he lost the starting job to Fromm and appeared in five games, apparently mostly to hand off as the clock expired. He's coming off a rough true frosh year then effectively two years not playing. 

Gubrud - Most interesting thing I know about him is that he succeeded Vernon Adams (Adams who spent final year at Oregon) as EWU QB*. That seems ages ago, which it was. Gubrud will be playing his sixth year since enrolling. He was originally denied a sixth year as he didn't  qualify by the rules then was quickly granted it upon appeal. [I don't know the basis for the appeal, from basic bio info available at the EWU web site, he appears not to be too close to qualifying - must be something not stated there.]

* at least sort of. Adams' year at Oregon was Gubrud's first season playing for EWU, but he didn't play a whole lot.

Book - He was good last year, and it was death to us that und figured out he was their top QB the week before they played us. In fact, he was good enough it's tough to figure out how the coaches couldn't figure out he was a better option than Wimbush for so long (Book was a Junior). That's a big piece that und hadn't had for a bit.

Montez is one of those guys who it seems to me has been around forever. Other than the fact that he will be a fifth year and has been a starter for 2+ seasons, that isn't overly true. His overall performance has been remarkably constant over his career, with PER inching down slightly each season.

-- how do we counter as the #11 Pass Defense in Pac12 for 2018?:

I don't think that Stanford was really the #11 pass defense in the Pac12 in 2018. That was their ranking in yds/game, but for whatever reason, teams chose to pass a lot against us (which might in itself be a measure of the quality of our pass defense, but could be due to all sorts of other reasons as well). One really needs to look at some measure that normalizes by our opponents' approach.

By PER Stanford was the #5 pass defense in the Pac 12.
By yds/attempt Stanford was the the #8 pass defense in the Pac 12.
By TDs allowed (this is not normalized), Stanford was #3 pass defense in the Pac 12.

One interesting point, last year the Pac 12 was not a particularly pass happy league despite these QBs - outside of WSU anyway. WSU led the country in pass attempts per game, after that there was OSU at #31, Colorado #36, UCLA #50, USC #51. Oregon was #61. [Stanford threw a high percentage of the time, but since we still ran a slow paced offense, the total number of attempts per game was only #57.]
I don't have a by conference breakdown, but surprisingly to me, it looks like the Big Ten might have been the #1 Power 5 conference in pass attempts per game ( with tOSU, Indiana tied for #6, Purdue #10, MSU #14, Northwestern #19 all in the top 20).