1. How fun was that? We needed something to give players confidence that their hard work will pay off, fans legitimate reason to think we are on the right track beyond just blind faith, and the wider football world a reminder that we are capable of relevance. Last night gave us that in spades, a deeply fun and cathartic reward for players, coaches, and fans. I was grinning ear to ear deep into the night and early in the morning and I'm sure you all were to. I can only imagine what it felt like for the players, though the scenes of post-game euphoria gave a brief glimpse. In the big picture, I think comparisons to the Greatest Upset Ever are overwrought as this wasn't remotely as surprising, exciting, or indicative of ability to compete against top teams. I go back and forth on whether we should call it the Greatest Comeback Ever as it certainly was for us but isn't top ten in FBS history, whereas the Greatest Upset Ever was in a class of its own in term of upsets. And we haven't seen anything from this team to have much confidence we're capable of being good (in contrast, by this point in 2007 we had two performances befitting a top 25 team and were on the verge of a third in the seventh game). But equally big picture is thinking about how after a disappointing nearly first half of the season we went into a bye and came out of it with clearly the best performance of this new era. Undeniable progress. So far we've had games, in chronological order, befitting the #74, #196, #160, #67, #161, and #38 teams in the country. I'm very happy we came out of the bye with our best performance, that two of the last three games have been competitive Power Five level performances (and three of the last four competitive on the scoreboard), and especially that last night was so dang fun for everybody.
2. Sometimes you can say a great win was truly a full team effort. This is not one of those games, except in one important sense: all three phases showed resilience. Aside from that, offense, defense, and special teams all had significant struggles exemplifying a bad team. We won this game first and foremost because of one of the most epic individual performances in our history, Epic Elic if you will, and secondarily because Colorado shot itself in the foot repeatedly in key moments with personal fouls, substitution infractions, and unnecessarily dangerous throws. None of that is to diminish the second biggest takeaway from the game after Epic Elic, which was the awesome resilience. At multiple points Colorado continued to make things stressful for us (for instance pinning us so deep to start drives, not giving up big cushions in the two minute drill at the end of regulation, scoring the overtime touchdown, etc.) and we responded across the roster. I'm bursting with pride. It is also worth emphasizing that when opposing players and coaches lose composure like Colorado did (17 penalties for 127 yards!) with Travis Hunter's penalties and the 12 men on the field gifts to us we should get a lot of credit for inciting that. We dragged them into deep water and did a better job swimming than they did. Nonetheless, the story of this one was Ayomanor.
3. Truly one of the greatest individual games we've ever seen. When Troy Walters exploded for the previous record almost a quarter century ago, at least he had a QB, OL, and dynamic offense. This was one player taking the team on his back, all in the second half and all after a big missed opportunity he could have sulked about, unlike much I can ever remember. This was the most receiving yards in a game in Stanford history, fifth most catches in a game, and third most touchdown catches, all in the context of an extremely poor offense. And by the eye test, a gargantuan amount was yards after the catch and overcoming his QB's mediocrity. [This week's moving the chains (first down) leader board: Ayomanor (9), Lamson (5), Farrell (4), Bachmeier (3, plus drew a pass interference), Daniels (3), Reuben, Yurosek, Filkins, Roush] We knew from Ayomanor's mutant size/speed combo and buzzy recruitment (Notre Dame flirting with him despite having one of the best WR classes in the nation) that he had potential, but it's another to see a game like this. It's thrilling to think that all he needed was to shed the knee brace and develop some confidence. But don't call it a breakout. Ayomanor has been showing signs all year. He's been arguably our best player this season (PFF says so and he's now the only player on our roster who has a 70+ grade in three games this year). By the way, Ayomanor is a great example of why I am always so upset with the way Stanford reports eligibility for our players. Anywhere else in America, Ayomanor would be referred to as what he is - a redshirt freshman. I don't know if Stanford calling him a "sophomore who retains the ability to redshirt" will have impact on whether Ayomanor gets consideration for major honors or gets talked up as much in national circles, but it might. I will continue to talk about him as a freshman. And in that context, at the moment Ayomanor is having the most dominant freshman receiving season in the two plus decades I've tracked yards as a share of passing offense, with Ayomanor's 36 percent of our passing offense crushing Richard Sherman and Mark Bradford's 29 percent. There is no doubt that Ayomanor is the player of our season to this point.
4. I can't be as effusive about the rest of the team's performance. On defense, only TCU has given up more yards per play to Colorado, which despite the hype (deserved, by the way, because the improvement over last season is stunning) is still a sub-par team. On offense, we were a bit below average compared to what offenses typically do against Colorado. It was the highest yards per play we've had yet under the new staff, which is nice to see, but we got a 294 yard receiving half from a receiver and still didn't break six yards a play against one of the teams we're competing with for worst defense in Power Five football. This Stanford offense is horrible. For some context, halfway through the season without a single 6+ yard per play game compares unfavorably to Shaw teams always having at least three such performances. We have a really long way to go and I hope the remainder of the season we can build on this performance.
2. Sometimes you can say a great win was truly a full team effort. This is not one of those games, except in one important sense: all three phases showed resilience. Aside from that, offense, defense, and special teams all had significant struggles exemplifying a bad team. We won this game first and foremost because of one of the most epic individual performances in our history, Epic Elic if you will, and secondarily because Colorado shot itself in the foot repeatedly in key moments with personal fouls, substitution infractions, and unnecessarily dangerous throws. None of that is to diminish the second biggest takeaway from the game after Epic Elic, which was the awesome resilience. At multiple points Colorado continued to make things stressful for us (for instance pinning us so deep to start drives, not giving up big cushions in the two minute drill at the end of regulation, scoring the overtime touchdown, etc.) and we responded across the roster. I'm bursting with pride. It is also worth emphasizing that when opposing players and coaches lose composure like Colorado did (17 penalties for 127 yards!) with Travis Hunter's penalties and the 12 men on the field gifts to us we should get a lot of credit for inciting that. We dragged them into deep water and did a better job swimming than they did. Nonetheless, the story of this one was Ayomanor.
3. Truly one of the greatest individual games we've ever seen. When Troy Walters exploded for the previous record almost a quarter century ago, at least he had a QB, OL, and dynamic offense. This was one player taking the team on his back, all in the second half and all after a big missed opportunity he could have sulked about, unlike much I can ever remember. This was the most receiving yards in a game in Stanford history, fifth most catches in a game, and third most touchdown catches, all in the context of an extremely poor offense. And by the eye test, a gargantuan amount was yards after the catch and overcoming his QB's mediocrity. [This week's moving the chains (first down) leader board: Ayomanor (9), Lamson (5), Farrell (4), Bachmeier (3, plus drew a pass interference), Daniels (3), Reuben, Yurosek, Filkins, Roush] We knew from Ayomanor's mutant size/speed combo and buzzy recruitment (Notre Dame flirting with him despite having one of the best WR classes in the nation) that he had potential, but it's another to see a game like this. It's thrilling to think that all he needed was to shed the knee brace and develop some confidence. But don't call it a breakout. Ayomanor has been showing signs all year. He's been arguably our best player this season (PFF says so and he's now the only player on our roster who has a 70+ grade in three games this year). By the way, Ayomanor is a great example of why I am always so upset with the way Stanford reports eligibility for our players. Anywhere else in America, Ayomanor would be referred to as what he is - a redshirt freshman. I don't know if Stanford calling him a "sophomore who retains the ability to redshirt" will have impact on whether Ayomanor gets consideration for major honors or gets talked up as much in national circles, but it might. I will continue to talk about him as a freshman. And in that context, at the moment Ayomanor is having the most dominant freshman receiving season in the two plus decades I've tracked yards as a share of passing offense, with Ayomanor's 36 percent of our passing offense crushing Richard Sherman and Mark Bradford's 29 percent. There is no doubt that Ayomanor is the player of our season to this point.
4. I can't be as effusive about the rest of the team's performance. On defense, only TCU has given up more yards per play to Colorado, which despite the hype (deserved, by the way, because the improvement over last season is stunning) is still a sub-par team. On offense, we were a bit below average compared to what offenses typically do against Colorado. It was the highest yards per play we've had yet under the new staff, which is nice to see, but we got a 294 yard receiving half from a receiver and still didn't break six yards a play against one of the teams we're competing with for worst defense in Power Five football. This Stanford offense is horrible. For some context, halfway through the season without a single 6+ yard per play game compares unfavorably to Shaw teams always having at least three such performances. We have a really long way to go and I hope the remainder of the season we can build on this performance.
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