1. It was nice to be back on campus and spend time with friends (many thanks to @AmericasMostVaunted and @rawbbbbbb for the tailgate hospitality!) though it's hard to be too happy about losing handily to USC. Through two weeks the team is looking like what most expected - an interesting and entertaining offense, a very bad defense, and a challenging task ahead to try to get back to a bowl. Shaw's post-game press conference went about as expected but had a bit of an edge to it. I think he knows the rest of this season could still go in various directions and some of his defensive guards are starting to come up in anticipation of circling sharks. He knows the team that's played the last two weeks will have challenges and probably feels some measure of optimism that turnovers will revert to the mean in a good direction, but is clear-eyed the defense will be bad enough that there's not much margin for error for the offense and special teams.
2. The level of error when it comes to ball security is appalling. These turnovers don't strike me as bad luck but rather a running back who can't protect the ball (coughing it up about once every ten touches right?) and a quarterback who's made a couple errant throws a game (usually an overthrow, though that wasn't the problem on the interception in the end zone) that make it anybody's ball. It amounts to two of our best players having a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to their play. Smith ran and caught the ball very effectively, but turning the ball over as often as he has the last two games really neutralizes the good he's done. Can't be a good player unless this gets cleaned up. For McKee, the skills he brings have been evident in both games but his Total QBR is only 43rd in the country. That so many of our turnovers have been in the red zone and given the opponent very short fields (or even a special teams touchdown) is a back breaker. Have to take care of the ball. Turnovers were the biggest reason we lost but we shouldn't flatter ourselves in thinking we were on USC's level otherwise. A 2.5 yard differential per play is big. USC was the better team, decidedly.
3. Aside from turnovers and being outgunned by USC's firepower, the story of this game was the unveiling of a new Stanford identity. As McKee said, we threw everything at USC. More to the point, it was completely different than the Shawfense of the last decade. This new slow mesh RPO offensive identity is very intriguing. McKee, the offensive line, and Smith (aside from ball security) seemed comfortable with it. To the extent Shaw talked all off-season about suiting schemes to personnel, cutting down concepts in the offense, and focusing on what we're good at, I think we should expect this to be an identity that's here to stay. We didn't secretly develop a whole new offense just to make it a one week game plan against USC. This is our offense. That means the Colgate game was subterfuge and we ran an offense different than our real offense, making that game more akin to a spring game than any real data point about the offense. With USC being the first game for our new offense, it will be interesting to see if we can grow into even more effectiveness with it.
4. The biggest thing that jumps out statistically about the new offense is the number of rushing yards - 221 yards is our most since October 2018. While a good chunk came on the inspired play call to Yurosek, we saw real evidence of the Smith-Filkins one-two punch, and I especially liked seeing how many first downs the two of them racked up. This week's moving the chains (first down) list: Smith (10), Filkins (8), Higgins (4, plus drew a pass interference), Yurosek (4), Wilson (2), McKee (2), Tremayne (plus three pass interferences he drew!), Humphreys (plus drew a pass interference). Nonetheless, I wouldn't crown the run game or be particularly confident in it going forward just yet. I have doubts about USC's quality as a run defense. Also, these yards were largely a product of the eye-popping number of plays we ran (80).
5. 80 plays! Tempo! That's the second most regulation plays ever under Shaw (two plays fewer than against Oregon in 2015). This was a totally different offense than Stanford usually runs. As somebody who has called for tempo, creativity, less stubbornness, and matching scheme to personnel, this was very welcome. While fans can continue to point to the lack of coaching turnover as a lack of accountability, it now appears that the talk of reassessing and reimagining what we do was not empty talk. On both sides of the ball, we seem to have fundamentally overhauled the way we operate. But as of now it appears that we can no longer say Shaw is stuck in his ways and impervious to evidence his ways fail. An 80 play slow mesh RPO offense is a big change. It remains to be seen how committed we will be to the changes and, of course, how effective they will be.
6. Shaw's post-game comments about the defense not being terrible in the first half do not hold up to scrutiny and Harold Gutmann was quite right to point out that there was no evidence to support Shaw's assertion. Yes, we handed USC short fields but if the defense weren't terrible there would have been more positive plays. Two tackles for loss and a pass defended in a half is not putting up much resistance, no matter where you are on the field. The brightest spot for the defense was third down, only giving up two conversions....but USC didn't even have to try a third down until the last plays of the first half! We didn't actually stop them until the third quarter, and because the second half started with another bomb to Addison USC scored on that drive anyway. No, the defense was terrible. The culprit, contrary to our norm, was the pass defense, which was absolutely roasted to the tune of 12.6 yards per attempt, the most we've given up since the conference championship against USC in 2017 and the third most ever given up by a Shaw team. The enemy gets a vote and USC's passing attack is spectacular, but not that spectacular. 12.6 yards per attempt is worse than Rice allowed and worse than all but two Oklahoma opponents in 2021. Several DBs were victimized (and lack of pass rush plays a role too) but Kelly really stands out. I know Addison is the Biletnikoff winner and incredible, but a DB even close to the totally undeserved hype Kelly gets wouldn't give up a bomb every other game, which is his norm going back a long while now. In contrast, I will eat some crow, at least for a week, on Bonner, who had a very nice (totally quiet, as one likes to see for a corner) game. Granted, that may have been because Williams didn't need to target Bonner since Kelly and Wyrick were proving vulnerable, but still a very nice game for Bonner.
7. PFF thought Rogers bounced back quite credibly in his second start filling in for Bragg, Roush overtook Archer in snaps but had a brutal game, Williamson had another good game, Bailey was mediocre but did some nice things, and Herron (despite a stat-padding performance based on conventional stats), Mangum-Farrar, and Miezan had very rough games. Moi got 34 snaps, which is quite a lot but partly has to do with the tempo of this game compared to Colgate. Armitage played a significant amount more than against Colgate (16th in defensive snaps as opposed to 21st), which appears to have been a function of an unannounced absence entirely for Buckey. As Armitage is ostensibly an edge player and Buckey a DL, this is an example of the fluidity of personnel usage.
8. Sanborn's two punts were more effective than he tended to be last week: a 48 yard net punt inside the 20 and a 49 yard net punt inside the 20 (though three yards of that and being inside the 20 owed to a muff), though he let meat on the bone on both.
9. Game balls: Rogers (PFF thought McKee better but I could give McKee the ball every week and that's no fun), Bonner, Sanborn, Shaw
10. Now for the weirdly timed bye. I get the sense Shaw and the players are resolved to make lemonade out of a lemon and use this bye and our relative health to sneak in an extra week of practice (as opposed to the bye norm of largely taking a week off) and work on what film has revealed from the first two games. With a new offensive identity that we're no longer trying to keep under wraps, this is a chance to work on solidifying that identity. To the extent Bragg, Rouse, Smith, and Buckey are working through things, some rest may do them good. When we're back in action, we'll have a pair of road games that will go a long way to deciding what kind of season it is. Washington and Oregon are beatable. Given location, timing on the schedule, and other factors, the USC game was arguably one of our seven or eight most winnable games. If this is going to be a winning season, a game like the upcoming one at Washington is one of the ones that is likely needed to get us there. Will this be a Stanford team that responds to adversity or one where failures snowball?
2. The level of error when it comes to ball security is appalling. These turnovers don't strike me as bad luck but rather a running back who can't protect the ball (coughing it up about once every ten touches right?) and a quarterback who's made a couple errant throws a game (usually an overthrow, though that wasn't the problem on the interception in the end zone) that make it anybody's ball. It amounts to two of our best players having a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to their play. Smith ran and caught the ball very effectively, but turning the ball over as often as he has the last two games really neutralizes the good he's done. Can't be a good player unless this gets cleaned up. For McKee, the skills he brings have been evident in both games but his Total QBR is only 43rd in the country. That so many of our turnovers have been in the red zone and given the opponent very short fields (or even a special teams touchdown) is a back breaker. Have to take care of the ball. Turnovers were the biggest reason we lost but we shouldn't flatter ourselves in thinking we were on USC's level otherwise. A 2.5 yard differential per play is big. USC was the better team, decidedly.
3. Aside from turnovers and being outgunned by USC's firepower, the story of this game was the unveiling of a new Stanford identity. As McKee said, we threw everything at USC. More to the point, it was completely different than the Shawfense of the last decade. This new slow mesh RPO offensive identity is very intriguing. McKee, the offensive line, and Smith (aside from ball security) seemed comfortable with it. To the extent Shaw talked all off-season about suiting schemes to personnel, cutting down concepts in the offense, and focusing on what we're good at, I think we should expect this to be an identity that's here to stay. We didn't secretly develop a whole new offense just to make it a one week game plan against USC. This is our offense. That means the Colgate game was subterfuge and we ran an offense different than our real offense, making that game more akin to a spring game than any real data point about the offense. With USC being the first game for our new offense, it will be interesting to see if we can grow into even more effectiveness with it.
4. The biggest thing that jumps out statistically about the new offense is the number of rushing yards - 221 yards is our most since October 2018. While a good chunk came on the inspired play call to Yurosek, we saw real evidence of the Smith-Filkins one-two punch, and I especially liked seeing how many first downs the two of them racked up. This week's moving the chains (first down) list: Smith (10), Filkins (8), Higgins (4, plus drew a pass interference), Yurosek (4), Wilson (2), McKee (2), Tremayne (plus three pass interferences he drew!), Humphreys (plus drew a pass interference). Nonetheless, I wouldn't crown the run game or be particularly confident in it going forward just yet. I have doubts about USC's quality as a run defense. Also, these yards were largely a product of the eye-popping number of plays we ran (80).
5. 80 plays! Tempo! That's the second most regulation plays ever under Shaw (two plays fewer than against Oregon in 2015). This was a totally different offense than Stanford usually runs. As somebody who has called for tempo, creativity, less stubbornness, and matching scheme to personnel, this was very welcome. While fans can continue to point to the lack of coaching turnover as a lack of accountability, it now appears that the talk of reassessing and reimagining what we do was not empty talk. On both sides of the ball, we seem to have fundamentally overhauled the way we operate. But as of now it appears that we can no longer say Shaw is stuck in his ways and impervious to evidence his ways fail. An 80 play slow mesh RPO offense is a big change. It remains to be seen how committed we will be to the changes and, of course, how effective they will be.
6. Shaw's post-game comments about the defense not being terrible in the first half do not hold up to scrutiny and Harold Gutmann was quite right to point out that there was no evidence to support Shaw's assertion. Yes, we handed USC short fields but if the defense weren't terrible there would have been more positive plays. Two tackles for loss and a pass defended in a half is not putting up much resistance, no matter where you are on the field. The brightest spot for the defense was third down, only giving up two conversions....but USC didn't even have to try a third down until the last plays of the first half! We didn't actually stop them until the third quarter, and because the second half started with another bomb to Addison USC scored on that drive anyway. No, the defense was terrible. The culprit, contrary to our norm, was the pass defense, which was absolutely roasted to the tune of 12.6 yards per attempt, the most we've given up since the conference championship against USC in 2017 and the third most ever given up by a Shaw team. The enemy gets a vote and USC's passing attack is spectacular, but not that spectacular. 12.6 yards per attempt is worse than Rice allowed and worse than all but two Oklahoma opponents in 2021. Several DBs were victimized (and lack of pass rush plays a role too) but Kelly really stands out. I know Addison is the Biletnikoff winner and incredible, but a DB even close to the totally undeserved hype Kelly gets wouldn't give up a bomb every other game, which is his norm going back a long while now. In contrast, I will eat some crow, at least for a week, on Bonner, who had a very nice (totally quiet, as one likes to see for a corner) game. Granted, that may have been because Williams didn't need to target Bonner since Kelly and Wyrick were proving vulnerable, but still a very nice game for Bonner.
7. PFF thought Rogers bounced back quite credibly in his second start filling in for Bragg, Roush overtook Archer in snaps but had a brutal game, Williamson had another good game, Bailey was mediocre but did some nice things, and Herron (despite a stat-padding performance based on conventional stats), Mangum-Farrar, and Miezan had very rough games. Moi got 34 snaps, which is quite a lot but partly has to do with the tempo of this game compared to Colgate. Armitage played a significant amount more than against Colgate (16th in defensive snaps as opposed to 21st), which appears to have been a function of an unannounced absence entirely for Buckey. As Armitage is ostensibly an edge player and Buckey a DL, this is an example of the fluidity of personnel usage.
8. Sanborn's two punts were more effective than he tended to be last week: a 48 yard net punt inside the 20 and a 49 yard net punt inside the 20 (though three yards of that and being inside the 20 owed to a muff), though he let meat on the bone on both.
9. Game balls: Rogers (PFF thought McKee better but I could give McKee the ball every week and that's no fun), Bonner, Sanborn, Shaw
10. Now for the weirdly timed bye. I get the sense Shaw and the players are resolved to make lemonade out of a lemon and use this bye and our relative health to sneak in an extra week of practice (as opposed to the bye norm of largely taking a week off) and work on what film has revealed from the first two games. With a new offensive identity that we're no longer trying to keep under wraps, this is a chance to work on solidifying that identity. To the extent Bragg, Rouse, Smith, and Buckey are working through things, some rest may do them good. When we're back in action, we'll have a pair of road games that will go a long way to deciding what kind of season it is. Washington and Oregon are beatable. Given location, timing on the schedule, and other factors, the USC game was arguably one of our seven or eight most winnable games. If this is going to be a winning season, a game like the upcoming one at Washington is one of the ones that is likely needed to get us there. Will this be a Stanford team that responds to adversity or one where failures snowball?
