First, this is the only media availability of the bye week. The press conference will be Monday and I'll have post-practice interviews that day and Tuesday before the team leaves for ASU.
I missed the first couple minutes of the conversation with David Shaw while talking to other coaches.
Casey Toohill is expected back for the Arizona State game. Foster Sarell is still a couple weeks away and is ahead of Connor Wedington. Shaw mentioned that the new redshirt rule may apply to both allow them to play using that.
Ben Edwards is "probably weeks away". Davis Mills ran today and did some position specific drills today.
They're "backing off" with a number of the offensive linemen in practice to help them get healthy: "Right now three of the five starters are not doing very much at all. They're just recovering. The rest of the guys are getting some work in. We'll do a little more tomorrow and then take another couple days of guys getting treatment before starting prep for ASU."
Is it an issue for Mills that because of his injury before he got here and then aggravating his injury that he hasn't had a full year of healthy strength and conditioning?
"That hasn't been a factor at all. It's just the injury. He's strong. He's athletic. Physically he's very gifted. It's just, I wouldn't say he's injury prone but it's two injuries he has to recover from."
What was your issue with the Paulson Adebo interference call?
"I didn't see the contact. That was our conversation. I thought there was space between Paulson and the receiver. I thought he threw up his hands and did not contact the receiver as the ball was coming. The ball hit Paulson. That was our discussion."
Stanford has gotten the short end of the transfer over the past couple years. Were you disappointed when Casey Tucker left for instance?
"I would describe it a different way. Instead of saying we've been on the short end I think we've been on the forefront. I've encouraged guys and supported guys to go. We had a job open at guard for Casey to compete. Casey wanted a chance to compete at tackle. Arizona State is close to home and was a place he could compete to play tackle. He wants to play tackle at this level and the next level. That was a big part of him going. I understood and completely supported it. We actually redshirted him the previous year knowing that this was a possibility. We talked openly -- he and I and with his family -- that there was a chance we'd redshirt him and he'd graduate transfer. I understood it. I am 100 percent supportive of the rule. I think it's right. If a young man is at your place for four years, graduates and has a year left to play -- and you don't have a spot for him or he's going to be a backup -- I think he should be able to go anywhere in the nation. I don't think you should be able to stop him."
You said after the game you won't change your style or philosophy, even though your passing game seems to be a lot more successful than your running game. But would you tweak it ... to favor more passing? (Tom Fitzgerald)
Shaw: (Laughing)
How do I rephrase this question?
Shaw: "You can't. It's impossible. You just asked if I'm going to do what I said I'm not going to do. We tweak our game plans every single week. What I was talking about is the philosophy and what it takes to win football games. Statistics are unbelievably misleading. When we spend for the most part three games behind we're going to throw for a lot more yards. When you're winning football games typically the way we've won football games is you get into the third quarter with a two-score lead we're not going to throw it a bunch. Up until that point I'd love to be balanced. Now you take the last game if we don't turn the ball over twice in the red zone and at least get two field goals now we can be more balanced. Running the ball we weren't bad. We were doing pretty well. That's a tough front to run against. We had some four yard runs, some three yard runs and two yard runs. That's when you hope you start to break them. That's what they did against us. The score allowed them to stay in that mode. Now those four yard plays becomes 12-yard gains and 18-yard gains. That's typically our style. They did it better than us."
It has been a one-score game in the fourth quarter the past two weeks and Stanford has been outscored 27-0. Have you seen anything in the film that can help explain that?
"I've seen a lot in the film. It's not the exciting answer. It is execution. It's consistency. It's us making a play versus them making a play. The last quarter against Oregon we made all the plays. The last quarter against Notre Dame they made all the plays. The last quarter against Utah we made a lot of plays but we didn't get into the end zone. The third quarter we did. And we didn't keep them out of the end zone. When you're playing good competition the games boil down to four to eight plays. We had an opportunity to get a sack down by nine with a lot of time left and we didn't get the sack. We gave up a touchdown pass. We had an opportunity to get back within a score and we gave up a big play, so they make it two scores again as opposed to getting a stop. It's 0-0 and we have a chance to get a punt and we rough the punter. A handful of plays will change a game. The hard part for us is we've made those ... bad technique plays and then we've fought back into games. What I challenged the guys is if we don't make those mistakes, and we're playing even with teams, we have a chance to win as opposed to being in the fourth quarter trying to catch up."
Tavita Pritchard
After the Utah game, are you noticing trends through the first six games of what triggers the offense to get into trouble?
"In this bye week is really a time you can look at the first six games and it's what we're doing right now. I don't have a good answer right this second but I will tell you that with Utah ... we weren't good enough in situational football. The big figures there were the turnovers and that they occurred in the red zone. The momentum swings and the point swings there were too big to overcome. In other games it has been bad first and second down efficiency that has led to bad third-down efficiency. In different games it has come back to situational stats. If you try to look at the big picture those are trends that have affected how we've played as an offense."
Utah often had to bring extra guys to get pressure on Costello. How are you evaluating KJ so far in his ability to read that there is going to be one more guy than he has blockers for and how is he managing that?
"When you talk about recognizing pressures on the fly, or recognizing defenses that will disguise what they're doing in coverages or blitzes, that is a function of experience. And sometimes it's having to learn lessons the hard way that we all as quarterbacks have gone through. The best thing KJ is doing right now is he's really learning from all these experiences. He just had I think his 13th game as a starter, which now means he has been a full-year starter. You're going to start to see those things pay off from experience. I'm excited to see from this bye week. We really feel it's a one-game push from here. We have to beat a really good, physical Arizona State team."
On the other side, when a defense brings extra pressure and a quarterback knows he won't have much time, what can the receivers do to help him?
"They can have an awareness of that within the context of what we do. They can't always break routes off, necessarily. For the most part we try to build a lot of those things in. Maybe it's speeding up their route a little bit. But to your point, it's a combination of everyone. It's not just KJ recognizing. It's not just the receivers recognizing. A lot of times what we do is try to leave the least dangerous guy, if there is an extra guy, unblocked and we didn't always do that. It's a function all those different pieces together."
At one point Stanford was gaining 16 yards a completion. I know there were some big mistakes but what did you like about the passing offense?
"You hit on it. We made plays and moved the ball. The errors came in critical moments. I think when you talk about our ability to sustain drive and put points on the board that's where you have to put a lot of focus in evaluating that game. You can definitely build on some of those things. Quite honestly there were things that were done well at different parts of the year -- making plays on some of the vertical things, a plethora of receivers and tight ends making plays for us. Can't say enough about what those guys have done. We have to continue to build on that while still keeping our focus on making plays in critical situations."
I missed the first couple minutes of the conversation with David Shaw while talking to other coaches.
Casey Toohill is expected back for the Arizona State game. Foster Sarell is still a couple weeks away and is ahead of Connor Wedington. Shaw mentioned that the new redshirt rule may apply to both allow them to play using that.
Ben Edwards is "probably weeks away". Davis Mills ran today and did some position specific drills today.
They're "backing off" with a number of the offensive linemen in practice to help them get healthy: "Right now three of the five starters are not doing very much at all. They're just recovering. The rest of the guys are getting some work in. We'll do a little more tomorrow and then take another couple days of guys getting treatment before starting prep for ASU."
Is it an issue for Mills that because of his injury before he got here and then aggravating his injury that he hasn't had a full year of healthy strength and conditioning?
"That hasn't been a factor at all. It's just the injury. He's strong. He's athletic. Physically he's very gifted. It's just, I wouldn't say he's injury prone but it's two injuries he has to recover from."
What was your issue with the Paulson Adebo interference call?
"I didn't see the contact. That was our conversation. I thought there was space between Paulson and the receiver. I thought he threw up his hands and did not contact the receiver as the ball was coming. The ball hit Paulson. That was our discussion."
Stanford has gotten the short end of the transfer over the past couple years. Were you disappointed when Casey Tucker left for instance?
"I would describe it a different way. Instead of saying we've been on the short end I think we've been on the forefront. I've encouraged guys and supported guys to go. We had a job open at guard for Casey to compete. Casey wanted a chance to compete at tackle. Arizona State is close to home and was a place he could compete to play tackle. He wants to play tackle at this level and the next level. That was a big part of him going. I understood and completely supported it. We actually redshirted him the previous year knowing that this was a possibility. We talked openly -- he and I and with his family -- that there was a chance we'd redshirt him and he'd graduate transfer. I understood it. I am 100 percent supportive of the rule. I think it's right. If a young man is at your place for four years, graduates and has a year left to play -- and you don't have a spot for him or he's going to be a backup -- I think he should be able to go anywhere in the nation. I don't think you should be able to stop him."
You said after the game you won't change your style or philosophy, even though your passing game seems to be a lot more successful than your running game. But would you tweak it ... to favor more passing? (Tom Fitzgerald)
Shaw: (Laughing)
How do I rephrase this question?
Shaw: "You can't. It's impossible. You just asked if I'm going to do what I said I'm not going to do. We tweak our game plans every single week. What I was talking about is the philosophy and what it takes to win football games. Statistics are unbelievably misleading. When we spend for the most part three games behind we're going to throw for a lot more yards. When you're winning football games typically the way we've won football games is you get into the third quarter with a two-score lead we're not going to throw it a bunch. Up until that point I'd love to be balanced. Now you take the last game if we don't turn the ball over twice in the red zone and at least get two field goals now we can be more balanced. Running the ball we weren't bad. We were doing pretty well. That's a tough front to run against. We had some four yard runs, some three yard runs and two yard runs. That's when you hope you start to break them. That's what they did against us. The score allowed them to stay in that mode. Now those four yard plays becomes 12-yard gains and 18-yard gains. That's typically our style. They did it better than us."
It has been a one-score game in the fourth quarter the past two weeks and Stanford has been outscored 27-0. Have you seen anything in the film that can help explain that?
"I've seen a lot in the film. It's not the exciting answer. It is execution. It's consistency. It's us making a play versus them making a play. The last quarter against Oregon we made all the plays. The last quarter against Notre Dame they made all the plays. The last quarter against Utah we made a lot of plays but we didn't get into the end zone. The third quarter we did. And we didn't keep them out of the end zone. When you're playing good competition the games boil down to four to eight plays. We had an opportunity to get a sack down by nine with a lot of time left and we didn't get the sack. We gave up a touchdown pass. We had an opportunity to get back within a score and we gave up a big play, so they make it two scores again as opposed to getting a stop. It's 0-0 and we have a chance to get a punt and we rough the punter. A handful of plays will change a game. The hard part for us is we've made those ... bad technique plays and then we've fought back into games. What I challenged the guys is if we don't make those mistakes, and we're playing even with teams, we have a chance to win as opposed to being in the fourth quarter trying to catch up."
Tavita Pritchard
After the Utah game, are you noticing trends through the first six games of what triggers the offense to get into trouble?
"In this bye week is really a time you can look at the first six games and it's what we're doing right now. I don't have a good answer right this second but I will tell you that with Utah ... we weren't good enough in situational football. The big figures there were the turnovers and that they occurred in the red zone. The momentum swings and the point swings there were too big to overcome. In other games it has been bad first and second down efficiency that has led to bad third-down efficiency. In different games it has come back to situational stats. If you try to look at the big picture those are trends that have affected how we've played as an offense."
Utah often had to bring extra guys to get pressure on Costello. How are you evaluating KJ so far in his ability to read that there is going to be one more guy than he has blockers for and how is he managing that?
"When you talk about recognizing pressures on the fly, or recognizing defenses that will disguise what they're doing in coverages or blitzes, that is a function of experience. And sometimes it's having to learn lessons the hard way that we all as quarterbacks have gone through. The best thing KJ is doing right now is he's really learning from all these experiences. He just had I think his 13th game as a starter, which now means he has been a full-year starter. You're going to start to see those things pay off from experience. I'm excited to see from this bye week. We really feel it's a one-game push from here. We have to beat a really good, physical Arizona State team."
On the other side, when a defense brings extra pressure and a quarterback knows he won't have much time, what can the receivers do to help him?
"They can have an awareness of that within the context of what we do. They can't always break routes off, necessarily. For the most part we try to build a lot of those things in. Maybe it's speeding up their route a little bit. But to your point, it's a combination of everyone. It's not just KJ recognizing. It's not just the receivers recognizing. A lot of times what we do is try to leave the least dangerous guy, if there is an extra guy, unblocked and we didn't always do that. It's a function all those different pieces together."
At one point Stanford was gaining 16 yards a completion. I know there were some big mistakes but what did you like about the passing offense?
"You hit on it. We made plays and moved the ball. The errors came in critical moments. I think when you talk about our ability to sustain drive and put points on the board that's where you have to put a lot of focus in evaluating that game. You can definitely build on some of those things. Quite honestly there were things that were done well at different parts of the year -- making plays on some of the vertical things, a plethora of receivers and tight ends making plays for us. Can't say enough about what those guys have done. We have to continue to build on that while still keeping our focus on making plays in critical situations."
