(08-18-2022, 09:58 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Ok, I’ll bite.
What is the theory for the case for the defensive line? It was, to put it charitably, a nightmare last season, and that was with a senior fifth round NFL draft pick and experience throughout. It is hard to imagine things being worse on the DL this year, but that is probably a failure of my imagination; objectively you would look and predict that it should be worse than last year.
Thoughts?
BC
Great question. Here's my opinion:
This is not an area in which the coaches have offered a theory of the case, which is why I didn't cover it in the previous post. I think the reality is it's not part of their theory of the case or, to put it another way, mitigating the DL disaster is as far as the theory of the case goes. The defense is banking on decisiveness, aggression, and simplicity. This is mostly about unlocking performance in the edge and inside linebacker groups that can mitigate what we're going to see at DL. That's not to say we don't have theories about how DL itself can mitigate the issue. There are two components of the DL theory. First, having more four man fronts (read: edge players playing at the line) will spread the pain around for the DL. Having Phillips, Franklin, Armitage, and Keneley (notionally; I don't think that will be our most common configuration) is more mass (or at least more individuals) up front than just having Booker, Wade-Perry, and Reid. Second, we are rationalizing to ourselves that lighter DL will allow guys like Franklin and Buckey to utilize more "movement" and compensate for physical weaknesses somehow.
This theory does not hold water in my view, which is another reason I didn't mention it above, but it's complicated and a source of at least some mystery heading into the year. We actually transitioned to a 4-3 defense at the end of last season and all here know those last three games did not work well, but the picture was mixed. We tried the more four man front thing against Oregon State, Cal, and Notre Dame. Against Oregon State, the run defense was effective and the pass defense was a disaster, albeit without Kelly, McGill, and Manley. Against Cal, we had possibly the worst defensive game in Stanford history and, notably, possibly the worst run defense game in Stanford history. Against Notre Dame, the run defense was actually a relative triumph to end the season but pass defense was a disaster. Obviously this trio of games was pretty schizophrenic for the defense. An optimistic read, I guess, is that the scheme change was experimental and didn't benefit from an off-season of focus, plus a lot of the failures may have been symptomatic of team-wide morale/buy-in problems as we collapsed at the end of the year. A pessimistic read is that whenever Stanford tries to focus on one problematic aspect of defense it becomes whack-a-mole and even if we become stouter in run defense we may then become less stout in pass defense.
Moreover, we had Booker, Wade-Perry, Fisk, and Johnson last year and now have to redo the experiment with much less physically developed DL. You are absolutely right that objectively one would project the 2022 Stanford DL to be worse. My read of Shaw and Anderson's recent comments is that they're aware of this and not sugar-coating it. Anderson recently referred to the DL as young, inexperienced, and small. Is that all? Yikes. We know this is going to be a problem. Think about the two prongs of the DL theory I mentioned above. For the beefier fronts prong, is it actually going to be beefier than last year? The majority of the individuals comprising any three or four man fronts are going to less than 270 pounds. If one were to do the thought experiment of forecasting out the schematic alignments for the defense and the rough proportion at which we'd be running them and then mapped weights of the "fronts" against what Stanford has put out there in past years, I don't think we're going to be beefier up front in 2022 than previously, to put it mildly. For the trust in small DL movement prong, we'll see what that can compensate for but it's not clear to me agility is more important for DL than old man strength or that Franklin and Buckey even are more agile than Booker.
P.S. All good Phogge, I get you and appreciate you. I kind of shudder at what will happen to my time management when I don't have my day job as the raison d'etre of my life. Over the years people have asked me why I don't try to work in sports or journalism or write a book and the honest answer is that public service/national security/foreign policy animate me even more than sports and I'd much rather have public service/national security/foreign policy as a calling and sports as a hobby than the other way around.
(08-18-2022, 10:50 AM)Spiny_Norman Wrote: (08-18-2022, 08:20 AM)msqueri Wrote: * The defensive "tweaks".....data bear out that the biggest thing holding Stanford football back over the last half decade has been our miserable defense and everything the coaches and players are saying about simplicity, decisiveness, and aggression corresponds to the most obvious failings of the defense
Whatever success or lack of success Stanford has this season will likely be determined substantially by the defense. One of the comments from opposing coaches has stuck with me - Stanford is slow on defense. Once opponents recognized this weakness, they took advantage big time. Changing the scheme does not really affect that. I am really hoping that Cooper, Bailey and Fields show some speed that we have not seen on defense in quite a while. At least opponents cannot rely as much on past scouting given the change in scheme.
Theoretically changing the scheme could somewhat affect that in a few ways. First, if you have bigger fronts maybe you are relying on linebackers less for heft and thump and more for speed and explosiveness. Second, you can play a linebacker/safety hybrid. I will wait and see whether any of this comes to fruition but I don't rule out that our defensive tweaks make us faster.
There are a couple of data points that offer plausible hope we're getting faster on defense. One is that many of the second level players have dropped weight at least according to the official roster (Miezan down ten pounds, Mangum-Farrar down ten pounds, Damuni down five pounds, Herron down a pound, Keneley down a pound, Jorgensen down a pound). That could suggest an intentional effort to get faster at that level of the defense. Another is the oft-cited trope within the program that Santa Clara County COVID-19 protocols and other pandemic effects disrupted off-season strength and conditioning the last few years in a way that we've now been able to move past over the last year.
While I'm not a fan of the player, a healthy Bonner is a significant infusion of speed. Fields very well may add significant speed to the secondary. Cooper has been more noted for size than speed so far but who knows (and in any case I'd expect 2023 to be his coming out party, along with Tafiti). Regardless, I think the main theory for increased speed on defense rests with the pounds Miezan, Mangum-Farrar, and Damuni are no longer carrying.
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