I'm avoiding a task right now, so I've decided to direct my energy to an urgent matter: Here are the extended highlights of Stanford's three games. This thread can be the home of future extended highlights of Stanford and opponents, where people can comment with observations. All the highlights are from a channel called Matthew Loves Ball and average about 27 minutes long, featuring key plays for both teams.
Hawaii
USC
Sacramento State
I have a couple thoughts about what I saw in the Sacramento State video.
Hawaii
USC
Sacramento State
I have a couple thoughts about what I saw in the Sacramento State video.
- I'm glad that the defensive line has received compliments on this forum for their performance against Sacramento State and overall through three games. I retract my implied criticism of them in my first post in @msqueri's last Sunday Morning Thoughts thread. Those players and Ross Kolodziej are probably the top unit right now on the rebuild report card.
- It's not haha funny, but it's kind of funny that the best tactic for success in the passing game this season is probably 50-50 balls. This is probably part of the reason Bryce Farrell is playing so much. Both our quarterback play and pass protection are ... meh, so maybe we should just throw jump balls up seam and sidelines like old times.
- Sac State's double coverage of Yurosek appeared to throw off Daniels and Lamson at times. There were a couple times that they looked to Yurosek first, saw he was doubled, and either didn't have enough time to look to the second option or didn't move on from Yurosek quickly enough. I bet Taylor regrets that he didn't do a better job adjusting to this. Will we see a plan to address this from the start against Arizona?
- There were a couple coverage miscues that looked like our guys aren't comfortable yet with the scheme. On one third down conversion, three defenders in zone coverage clustered around one Sac State player in the middle of the field and left a receiver wide open. Tristan Sinclair was in zone coverage on another big conversion, but he closed on Bennett when Bennett scrambled on a rollout to his right, leaving a crossing receiver wide open. Bernadel handed off the receiver to Sinclair's area. Also, our guys are slow.
- Speaking of Bernadel, the roughing the passer penalty was BS, but he probably would have avoided it if he targeted Bennett's middle and wrapped up. Show him clips of Chase Thomas, the dude was great at that.
- How quickly can Paul Williams work his magic with the corners? Manley got beat when he let a receiver get behind him on a scramble drill, a big no-no. It's one thing to get beat because the receiver is sprinting toward the quarterback in that situation, but don't give up a huge play downfield when the defense is chasing the quarterback. It would have been a third-down conversion even if Manley got it right, though. Leigber tackled a receiver in the middle of the field who was about to go by him. We're slow and not comfortable yet with coverage assignments.
- Wright had a couple really bad moments. He also delivered confident tackles on consecutive plays, I think just before Edwards' interception. Wright's first tackle was in a gap on a run play. Man, if his knee was down on the interception then he just barely trimmed the top of the grass.
- Both of Lamson's and Daniels' interceptions were bad. Lamson's was terrible. That was a total panic throw. Daniels was locked on his target so long it was like he was lining up his shot to take out the Death Star — sometimes that's Ok but not in a goal-to-go situation with the defense bunched up.
- We converted a third and long on the opening drive with a run play out of a passing formation. I almost cried. This is not in the video, but Taylor was furious with the officials after Filkins' touchdown run because the officials stopped us from snapping the ball to give Sac State a chance to bring in subs. We didn't make any substitutions, though. Taylor wanted to catch the Hornets off guard and with guys running onto the field. Remember when we almost stole a win at Washington in 2018 but Shaw forgot about the substitution rule for the entire potential game-winning drive? Woohoo, a moment to celebrate a coaching upgrade!
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