Stanford is pooping the bed
- Thread starter dgibbons
- Start date
Forget Love. The trees are getting manhandled on both sides. Haven't seen that happen to Stanford in a long time.
When it comes to pass protection the Cougar O-line is superior to the Stanford line.
Utah getting all kinds of pressure in the 2nd half.
Utah getting all kinds of pressure in the 2nd half.
I just posted in the game thread about the Furd. I think they are on their way to being back to the Stanford of old. Shaw had the gift of Luck to ease the transition. Their style, success, and talent has been eroding slowly each and every year since. Unless they have another "Luck" waiting or coming in ready to play soon, they're gonna be middling at best going forward.
They get a BYE week to further rest Love so he’ll likely be healthy against us. We’ll need a good effort to win down there.
I've had a tough time getting a good read on Stanford over the past few seasons. They'll get clowned in a game like this, then lose some kind of 17-14 slugfest in which Shaw outthinks himself and is running it on 3rd-and-8, but then they'll show up and inexplicably put up 40 points against a good defense.
I think you guys are right that they're trending down a bit, and that their defense, in particular, is nothing special this year. I am concerned by their offense's ability to show up, though, subject to Shaw's ability to muck it up -- Costello be solid, they have a pretty good TE, Love is dangerous if he's ever healthy, and Arcega-Whiteside is a beast.
Long way of saying that Stanford is tough to figure, at least for me, but I don't think they can be taken lightly at all.
I think you guys are right that they're trending down a bit, and that their defense, in particular, is nothing special this year. I am concerned by their offense's ability to show up, though, subject to Shaw's ability to muck it up -- Costello be solid, they have a pretty good TE, Love is dangerous if he's ever healthy, and Arcega-Whiteside is a beast.
Long way of saying that Stanford is tough to figure, at least for me, but I don't think they can be taken lightly at all.
I've talked about their roster management a few times on here in other threads, this is a critical year for them because they have basically one of the oldest rosters in all the Pac 12.
In the 2 deep on offense and defense this is where they are at.
7 Seniors / 3 RS Seniors of 22 players on offense.
4 Seniors / 5 RS Seniors of 22 players on defense.
That is basically 19 Seniors of 44. in the two deep who will be leaving.
Interesting enough they only have 20 Sophs on their roster.
Their starting LT/RG/Center all RS Seniors and will be leaving.
Their starting DE/OLB/ILB X 2/CB all Seniors and leaving.
They will lose a whole lot this year, and the way things are structured they are going to be quite mediocre for a couple years if they can't fill those important voids.
The 2018 class was ranked #7 in the Pac 12
The 2017 class was ranked #2 in the Pac 12
The 2016 class was ranked #3 in the Pac 12
The 2015 class was ranked #5 in the Pac 12
The 2014 class was ranked #2 in the Pac 12
It will be interesting to see how Mills does at QB for Stanford with a declining offensive line. He's a good QB in waiting, but when its his turn to run the offense he may find that he man not have a lot of time to throw.
Utah had 4 sacks and 8 tackles for loss against them. They had about half as much against us. So if Stanford's offensive line is about half as good as ours with all this upperclassmen who are leaving the future does not look good for the Cardinals in the near future.
I am not an expert on Stanford football and don't pretend to be, so let me get that out at the front of this short commentary. 3 quick points:
1.) Recruiting QB's is hard for anybody, and it is particularly difficult if you have a really good one on the roster, since so many HS QB's think they will be ready to play instantly. So I can forgive a good program for having one star on the roster and a bunch of relative unknowns. There is no excuse for not having a serviceable back-up, however, and that appears to be Stanford's situation this year.
2.) It has been my personal experience, FWIW, that many O linemen are pretty sharp folks. If you averaged the IQ's by position on any football team, there would seem to me to be a pretty good chance that the O line unit as a whole would come up the highest on the team, particularly if you didn't count the QB group (which can be pretty variable, but in general would also be pretty bright). The Stanford mystique should make it easier to recruit O linemen than any other position, IMHO. There is simply no excuse for Stanford not being fully stocked with superior O linemen. Their current situation with what appears to be a rather mediocre group is a recruiting travesty. Either somebody can't evaluate talent, or somebody was asleep at the recruiting wheel, or the people responsible for recruiting O linemen are lazy, or they lack a decent O line coach....or some combination thereof. Hard to understand Stanford's situation any other way.
3.) Everything I said above about O linemen is a mirror image to D tackles. Sure there are bound to be some Rhodes Scholar DT's, but I've never personally known one. It has been my assumption that this is the hardest position for most P5 teams to recruit, and make that double for Stanford, since I suspect that the academic pool from which they can draw doesn't match up well with the position. Make what ever profiling comments you like, it seems to be that way. Stanford seems to historically have made it work the best when they had 3 guys in the 270-285 pound range who could move well and were physically built in a way that helped them stay low. They don't often have a true nose who weighs 300+ and will be a first round draft pick. This year I don't see enough of those 270-285 guys who can get it done.
Having said all the above, I don't suggest that Stanford is not a good team, or that they won't win many games this year. But the three points above are what I see as their primary weaknesses, and items 1 & 2 are so hard to explain that I have to assume that complacency and laziness in recruiting are a big part of the answer.
1.) Recruiting QB's is hard for anybody, and it is particularly difficult if you have a really good one on the roster, since so many HS QB's think they will be ready to play instantly. So I can forgive a good program for having one star on the roster and a bunch of relative unknowns. There is no excuse for not having a serviceable back-up, however, and that appears to be Stanford's situation this year.
2.) It has been my personal experience, FWIW, that many O linemen are pretty sharp folks. If you averaged the IQ's by position on any football team, there would seem to me to be a pretty good chance that the O line unit as a whole would come up the highest on the team, particularly if you didn't count the QB group (which can be pretty variable, but in general would also be pretty bright). The Stanford mystique should make it easier to recruit O linemen than any other position, IMHO. There is simply no excuse for Stanford not being fully stocked with superior O linemen. Their current situation with what appears to be a rather mediocre group is a recruiting travesty. Either somebody can't evaluate talent, or somebody was asleep at the recruiting wheel, or the people responsible for recruiting O linemen are lazy, or they lack a decent O line coach....or some combination thereof. Hard to understand Stanford's situation any other way.
3.) Everything I said above about O linemen is a mirror image to D tackles. Sure there are bound to be some Rhodes Scholar DT's, but I've never personally known one. It has been my assumption that this is the hardest position for most P5 teams to recruit, and make that double for Stanford, since I suspect that the academic pool from which they can draw doesn't match up well with the position. Make what ever profiling comments you like, it seems to be that way. Stanford seems to historically have made it work the best when they had 3 guys in the 270-285 pound range who could move well and were physically built in a way that helped them stay low. They don't often have a true nose who weighs 300+ and will be a first round draft pick. This year I don't see enough of those 270-285 guys who can get it done.
Having said all the above, I don't suggest that Stanford is not a good team, or that they won't win many games this year. But the three points above are what I see as their primary weaknesses, and items 1 & 2 are so hard to explain that I have to assume that complacency and laziness in recruiting are a big part of the answer.
When Stanford was at its best defensively they looked like they had 4 TEs for Defensive lineman. I just remember them being big physical and athletic, but not as you mentioned the big fatman powerful DL.
In some ways our DL is kind of like a mini version of what Stanford was using. Our guys are all like 6'3 250 or so while theirs were like 6'4-6'5 270 ish.
Basically it is the everybody is a DE type of line. No clue what will happen in the future for them, but that many upperclassmen leaving makes me curious on how they plan on replacing those guys if the people that are behind them aren't good enough to pass up the medicore play we see now.
If you were to check the Trees' roster, there are several 4- and 5-star O-line recruits. Walker Little, Foster Sarell, Henry Hattis, A.T. Hall, and Brandon Fanaika all were highly rated. Little and Sarell were rated as two of the top 10 high school o-linemen a few years ago. The point? Shaw is still pulling top recruits in. Perhaps a bit of Duckitis (complacency) has taken root within the program.
The sample size is very small, but I knew (slightly) a couple players in the early 90s. OL, DL, QB. They fit pretty well with your assessment - the OL guy was reasonably bright and somewhere between personable and downright friendly. The QB was bright (but arrogant). The DL was gregarious, but...well, it’s possible he would have suffocated if someone didn’t remind him to exhale.
Possibly but they aren't getting that many to replace the ones they have. Stanford has way better retention then most schools, but they are sort of banking on the fact the guys they get will compete at the next level.
Little and Sarell are just sophomores, so they have some growing up to do. Even so, Shaw is still pulling in highly rated OLM, and, as you indicated, these guys don't flunk out.
Stanford under Shaw:
2011: 11-2 (8-1) (tied for first in the north with Oregon)
2012: 12-2 (8-1) conference champion
2013: 11-3 (7-2) conference champion
2014: 8-5 (5-4)
2015: 12-2 (8-1) conference champion
2016: 10-3 (6-3)
2017: 9-5 (7-2) lost Pac-12 championship game
2018: 4-2 (3-1)
The fact that Stanford played in the 2017 Pac-12 championship game speaks more to the mediocrity of the Pac-12 last year than anything else, but it's still too early to predict their demise. If we can continue to beat them like we have the last couple years and UW does what UW is supposed to do, it will definitely start to be a trend. Most schools would still love to be as mediocre as Stanford, but it certainly is starting to look like David Shaw is trending to 8 or 9 win seasons instead of the 11 or 12 win seasons that the Ferd had gotten used to.
2011: 11-2 (8-1) (tied for first in the north with Oregon)
2012: 12-2 (8-1) conference champion
2013: 11-3 (7-2) conference champion
2014: 8-5 (5-4)
2015: 12-2 (8-1) conference champion
2016: 10-3 (6-3)
2017: 9-5 (7-2) lost Pac-12 championship game
2018: 4-2 (3-1)
The fact that Stanford played in the 2017 Pac-12 championship game speaks more to the mediocrity of the Pac-12 last year than anything else, but it's still too early to predict their demise. If we can continue to beat them like we have the last couple years and UW does what UW is supposed to do, it will definitely start to be a trend. Most schools would still love to be as mediocre as Stanford, but it certainly is starting to look like David Shaw is trending to 8 or 9 win seasons instead of the 11 or 12 win seasons that the Ferd had gotten used to.
Furd has to go down in order for the Cougs to further rise in the conference.
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