Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - Printable Version
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly (/thread-25095.html)
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly (/thread-25095.html)
Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - msqueri - 09-08-2024
1. A home win! That has to be the headline for a program that gets fewer of those than anybody in the nation. Have to be happy for the players, coaches, and us fans. We need to relish these. I'm relieved Taylor could get that monkey off his back of never having won at Stanford Stadium. Hopefully we can build on it. The bad news is that what we saw on the field reinforces my sense that the program's rebuild is happening at a glacial pace and there's every reason to think it will remain a very uphill battle to get many wins at home or anywhere else. Through two games, I think the eye test, stats, and comparing against preseason models all indicate that we're still a bad team. We have to hope for some marked progress over the course of the season to give confidence this thing is moving in the right direction.
2. On paper, a 34 point win against this level of opponent is ok. A good team would be expected to win by 40+ and a 34 point margin is consistent with the result one would expect from a below-average but not abysmal team, more or less in the range of how we did against TCU. I think two games is too early to draw anything but tentative conclusions but there are glass half full and glass half empty ways to view this that are probably both right: we are showing signs of modest progress compared to the depths we plumbed last year, and it's happening so modestly that it's hard to have confidence in it (that it's actually progress and that it will have staying power). Disturbingly in the case of this game, last night was quite a bit less impressive than the performance of the last Stanford team to face a similar creampuff, the bad 2022 team that dispatched Colgate. While the margins were similar (in fact three points better for this year's squad), a more nuanced comparison is ugly. We gained 1.52 yards per play less against Cal Poly than Shaw's very bad team did against Colgate and we gave up 0.89 yards per play more than we had against Colgate. Just as in last week's game, the defense acquitted itself better than the offense but did not play well as far as major college football teams go. Alarmingly, our defense only did 0.24 yards per play better than non-scholarship University of San Diego did against Cal Poly last week. We gained a big advantage on special teams but with returns, a blocked kick, and a fake punt conversion that we might be hard pressed to replicate against a respectable opponent. In terms of the bread-and-butter of a football team - play up front in the trenches and overall physicality - we made a team that is not even top 200 look far too competitive. Turning it over on downs in the red zone and only having one sack - in garbage time by a bench-warming defensive backup - are especially concerning developments. PFF graded the team dramatically worse than the 2022 team did against Colgate, worse in every category except pass blocking. It's a bad sign to not dominate this level of opponent.
3. The bright spots were a defense that consistently made plays on third down to get off the field and was stifling in run defense, a passing game that showed some non-Ayomanor signs of life, some young and/or inexperienced players who achieved their first successes at the college level, and continued discipline (these last two games have been our least penalized two game stretch since the beginning of the 2022 season in terms of penalties and since mid-2021 in terms of penalty yards) and resilient play. In all cases, these are enabled by playing a pathetic opponent. Still, better to have successes than not. It was palpable in the post-game press conference how much Taylor wants the players to start having these successes so they can build confidence and a sense of momentum, and in the post-game locker room how much Taylor wants the same for April. At the moment it feels fragile and like we are squinting to discern progress in some areas. But there's no substitute for winning and this was a win.
4. The most interesting thing going on in Stanford football right now is the first game for Elijah Brown and what I expect to be a lot of talk about when he should supplant Daniels as QB1. Brown was always destined to be a big topic of conversation this year as the highest-regarded QB on the roster (both in recruiting rankings and evidently Taylor's judgment based on body language and statements from off-season interviews). That's going to go into over-drive now that Brown has had an essentially flawless debut. I am not going to give a game ball to somebody who only played 15 snaps, all in garbage time against mostly backups (including notably the guys he exploited on the big passes to Irvin and Cisse), but I don't want people to misinterpret my game ball: Brown clearly looked better at processing and being able to spearhead a passing-oriented offense than Daniels. Statistically, Daniels was #54 of 126 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week (a big improvement on last week but against miserable competition and still only good enough to get his season ranking to #122 of 139 QBs nationally) and if Brown had had enough snaps to qualify he would have been #4 in the nation in Total QBR this week. While I think the garbage time/Cal Poly/healthy number of backups on the Mustang fourth quarter defense caveats loom large in necessitating some humility in how much we make of Brown's debut, you can't do much better than he did in terms of efficiency. Fans - and probably some of his teammates - will want to see more. I am confident that will happen but it's a big source of intrigue how Taylor does it in the coming weeks. A bye coming off a great debut is tailor-made for being integrated into a bigger role - perhaps taking a first half series against Syracuse. On the other hand, road games against Syracuse and Clemson are dramatically more challenging scenarios than the training wheels Brown got to play with yesterday. At this point I think Brown may or may not play against Syracuse, depending on how Daniels does in the first few drives. It will be interesting to see how Taylor addresses this in press availabilities.
5. It's hard to imagine this offense turning a corner until it can figure something out in establishing the run game with something other than QB runs. We once again had more QB rushes than RB rushes (15 to 14 this time). None of the starting OL or Rogers graded well in run blocking. The nightmare start to Ford's career continued, adding a fumble to go with his 1.1 yards per carry through the first two games of his career (though at least he's getting some success in the passing game). Overall against Cal Poly we did massively worse in rushing than we did against Colgate (2.32 yards per carry worse) and significantly worse (0.46 yards per carry) than USD did against Cal Poly last week, and that's with our stats being padded by Davis' garbage time successes. (Davis was exciting to see after so little from running backs for so long but it was garbage time against largely backups for an already-bad FCS team, so we can't really know what we have there.) I hope that we can figure something out in the run game but we may be in for another year of jury rigging an offense built around QB runs and whatever passing game we can muster without a real running threat. Hope not, but this level of play up front by our OL against Cal Poly is sobering. It does not inspire confidence for me that we mix OL combinations so liberally and took the desperate move of benching our most established OL (though Rogers then played most of the game). Unclear to me what the plan is for building cohesion and confidence on the line. Best I can tell it's a somewhat wishful hope that Pale, Baklenko, Maikkula, and House have the goods to be long-term mainstays and we are getting them reps to progress along the learning curve. By the way, House had some struggles and I didn't love seeing him give up a sack against an FCS opponent but it was the only one we gave up in the game and Cal Poly had four last week against USD. Pass protection worked better in this one than run blocking. Elsewhere on the offense, it's surprising that through two games Ayomanor and Cisse are nearly even in targets. Cisse is doing more than I thought he would, which is encouraging and appears to indicate a bigger role in our offense than Bachmeier, which I am sure will surprise many, but I feel like we need to find the big dog more. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Cisse (4), Ayomanor (2, also drew a pass interference), Lamson (2), Daniels (2), Reuben (2), Ford (2), Roush (2), Irvin (2), Davis (2), Sinclair, Harris]
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - msqueri - 09-08-2024
6. I called the run defense "stifling" above, as I think all would describe allowing only 25 yards rushing on 20 carries. But some perspective is needed here: last week, a non-scholarship FCS team gave up only 8 yards on 18 carries to Cal Poly. Through two games Cal Poly looks like it has a beyond laughable run game. I think April will want to build on the confidence of two straight solid run defense performances, but I remain wary after seeing us do well in run defense in seven games last year but fall apart in the others. With this defensive scheme and personality, I think we need especially good run defense to pick up the slack from what will likely remain a challenged pass defense. In some respect yesterday could be a canary in the coal mine, despite the ostensibly impressive performance of only giving up one score. Our pass defense not only did massively worse against Cal Poly than in the 2022 Colgate game (3.8 yards per attempt worse, 66.67 points worse in passer rating), we were worse in both yards per attempt and passer rating than USD was against Cal Poly. If we show softness like that against Cal Poly, I shudder to think what Syracuse and Clemson will do.
7. One of the things I am most watching this season is whether April's defense has turned a corner. At the end of the year we can judge by points per game, SP+, FEI, points per drive, etc. but week to week we can judge this, in addition to the comparative metrics I look at, based on consistent effort and flying to the ball. I like that two weeks into the season we have had high single digit players in each game show up with multiple positive plays in the box score (Sinclair, Bernadel, Leigber, Rose, Bailey, Wright, Aybar, Staples, Marceau-Olayinka in this one). I don't like that we are not getting very many sacks (though we are doing better in tackles for loss). From a personnel standpoint, the thing I like most is that the inside linebackers have had a nice start to the season. Against Cal Poly, Sinclair was especially central to the defense getting off the field on third downs, making three plays to force punts or a field goal. Bernadel had a great game in run defense, both based on my box score accounting and PFF grades. Elsewhere on the defense, Leigber struggled in coverage but made two big third down plays of his own, Bailey got in the backfield to make plays a few times, and Wright made the major contribution of a turnover but I don't think had a particularly good game. Ultimately our DL will be judged by the overall quality of the defense but to a casual eye test fan and serious box score scourer like me the DL have been invisible. I see Phillips only played 7 snaps last night so I wonder if he got hurt. The other thing of note is that garbage time gave us a lot of action for younger defensive players. As I've noted previously, our defense is not young and will be losing a lot of key pieces, so it's good to see signs of life from the next generation. Rose showed up all over the place in garbage time and Mattingly even got in on the action. Frausto-Ramos had some tackling issues but the aforementioned third down sack was a big play for him. Perhaps most surprising to me was Staples making a few plays, as did Marceau-Olayinka. We shouldn't draw much from Cal Poly but these guys having some success - like Cisse, Brown, Davis, Blackburn, etc. on offense - is something I imagine the coaches view as significant given their long-term growth mindset.
8. Special teams was a major asset. Bachmeier led the way with the 90 yard touchdown and was serviceable on his other returns (at the moment he leads the nation in punt return average....are we going to return to Bryce Farrell after the bye?). Aristotle Taylor blocked the punt (what a fun moment for him!). Sinclair converted on the fake punt. Kenney made both attempts, from 32 and 43 yards, and is now one of 14 kickers nationally to have at least four makes and be perfect so far on the young season. Flintoft was ok - 38 yard pet to the Cal Poly 33 - on his one punt. Morris, who I personally would love to see make all-conference some day as a special teams player, made three kick coverage tackles and emerging special teams worker Dubre made two of his own. Really excellent week for the special teams. So far this is looking like a real strength for the team.
9. Game balls: Daniels, Sinclair, Bachmeier, D'Onofrio
10. I have been disappointed so far this season to not see more obviously discernible improvement in the team across the board but there is still the vast majority of the season ahead and now an opportunity with the bye to work on some things and take strides heading into ACC play. Syracuse looks like a formidable opponent, fringe of the top 25 and playing at their place. As with the TCU game this is a legitimate test against a credible opponent. These are the types of teams we want to be competitive against. I think we are capable of it (though I worry about pass defense against McCord) and it would go a long way to advancing this rebuild and the development of winning mentalities if we could somehow win back-to-back games for the first time under Taylor. Even short of that this is an opportunity to show we can compete against a real team and keep up the slow progress Taylor promises us the team is making.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - Mick - 09-08-2024
Excellent overview. I think the game vs. Syracuse will be telling. They hit the spread vs. Georgia Tech at home. I'm curious to see how Stanford performs after a bye week (Syracuse has a bye as well). Also curious to see what the early spread is.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - martyup - 09-08-2024
Thanks Matt. Well you certainly sobered me up about Brown. A perfect outing by a top rated HS QB gets the mind into fantasy mode. What is your take on the idea of having Brown and Daniels on the field at the same time?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - msqueri - 09-08-2024
(09-08-2024, 01:30 PM)martyup Wrote: Thanks Matt. Well you certainly sobered me up about Brown. A perfect outing by a top rated HS QB gets the mind into fantasy mode. What is your take on the idea of having Brown and Daniels on the field at the same time?
That seems gimmicky to me but am open to being wowed by Taylor's creativity. I'm skeptical one of those guys being on the field but not receiving the snap would be better than having Cisse or Bachmeier on the field, which is what I think we're talking about here.
To me the most sobering thing about Brown is just thinking about how little experience he has under duress and how little his apparent skills seem suited to improvisation. I think he'd be nails on an offense that has its shit together, I just don't think that's us. But he nonetheless may be our best option. I think one of the most important things about our season is seeing who can perform best at QB under the circumstances we will actually face most of the time the remainder of 2024 and 2025. It is going to be so interesting to see what Taylor does against Syracuse and Clemson. A series or two for Brown makes sense, but the best laid plans of mice and men.....
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - qwerty49 - 09-08-2024
Matt, you didn't mention Aybar (#14) in your analysis of the D. It seemed to me he was positioned to make more plays than he actually did. Or is it his job to always go after the first option?
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - msqueri - 09-08-2024
(09-08-2024, 02:18 PM)qwerty49 Wrote: Matt, you didn't mention Aybar (#14) in your analysis of the D. It seemed to me he was positioned to make more plays than he actually did. Or is it his job to always go after the first option?
Aybar made a few plays and I also noticed him on the negative end of the spectrum with a missed tackle (which PFF didn't catch/didn't agree with me on). He also had some close-but-no-cigar plays where he seemed to be right in the passing/pitch lane but couldn't disrupt the play. PFF assessed him as having a subpar game, especially in coverage (which is interesting because Bailey, controversially, is usually the one we make drop back a h.u.g.e amount of the time but we did much less of that than usual and let Bailey come forward, as I and many others have been clamoring for). Anyway, I think you and I and PFF agree that Aybar didn't make as many plays as he could have.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - ADPinWDC - 09-08-2024
(09-08-2024, 02:15 PM)msqueri Wrote:(09-08-2024, 01:30 PM)martyup Wrote: Thanks Matt. Well you certainly sobered me up about Brown. A perfect outing by a top rated HS QB gets the mind into fantasy mode. What is your take on the idea of having Brown and Daniels on the field at the same time?
That seems gimmicky to me but am open to being wowed by Taylor's creativity. I'm skeptical one of those guys being on the field but not receiving the snap would be better than having Cisse or Bachmeier on the field, which is what I think we're talking about here.
To me the most sobering thing about Brown is just thinking about how little experience he has under duress and how little his apparent skills seem suited to improvisation. I think he'd be nails on an offense that has its shit together, I just don't think that's us. But he nonetheless may be our best option. I think one of the most important things about our season is seeing who can perform best at QB under the circumstances we will actually face most of the time the remainder of 2024 and 2025. It is going to be so interesting to see what Taylor does against Syracuse and Clemson. A series or two for Brown makes sense, but the best laid plans of mice and men.....
So, try Brown -- try Brown and Daniels, try option pass.
We have NOTHING to lose.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - fullmetal - 09-08-2024
Agreed with Matt's analysis.
I'm not sure why our OL/DL can't win their 1:1 matchups to the point where we can have success in the run game and in backfield penetration. Is it pure strength/power/weight? Is it blocking technique? Is it latent injuries? Seems like something that should have been addressed in the spring/summer months, but what do I know, it's not my job to prepare these student-athletes for the game of football...
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - SkiBum80 - 09-08-2024
(09-08-2024, 08:16 PM)fullmetal Wrote: Agreed with Matt's analysis.Yes it bothers me too.
I'm not sure why our OL/DL can't win their 1:1 matchups to the point where we can have success in the run game and in backfield penetration. Is it pure strength/power/weight? Is it blocking technique? Is it latent injuries? Seems like something that should have been addressed in the spring/summer months, but what do I know, it's not my job to prepare these student-athletes for the game of football...
We try so many running plays that seem complicated. Pulling lineman.
And often slower to develop
Never seems to fool any defenders
So vulnerable to a tackle for loss
I would hope to see more quick hitter / off tackle where it is a fast developing total line surge
The running back hopes to hit a gap even a small one, get through to linebacker level. So maybe 2 or 3 yards by then and RB maybe carry’s tackler another 1 or 2.
Possible 4 yard gain.
The simplest of all plays
Almost never see the Cards pull it off regularly for bout 3 or 4 years
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - Goose - 09-08-2024
(09-08-2024, 08:38 PM)SkiBum80 Wrote: We try so many running plays that seem complicated. Pulling lineman.Actually it goes back further than that. This "simplest of all plays" requires the line to "win" at the point of attack with straight ahead blocking. Our OL can't do that. Our "total line surge" at best yields a stalemate. The back has nowhere to go. Stanford has not had a back that could move the pile forward two yards since before CMac. Shaw always argued CMac could run inside and move the pile, but in reality it was his quickness and ability to read the blocking that allowed him to avoid the pile. Love absolutely relied on quickness. Our OL would get stuffed much of the time, but if they got even a crease he was gone. Those lines, bad as they were, were arguably better than what we have now (and have had for at least the last four years). We run the "complicated" running plays because it is hoped that the defense will make a mistake. We can't push them out of the way, so we hope they will take themselves out of the play. Sometimes it works, but generally it doesn't.
And often slower to develop
Never seems to fool any defenders
So vulnerable to a tackle for loss
I would hope to see more quick hitter / off tackle where it is a fast developing total line surge
The running back hopes to hit a gap even a small one, get through to linebacker level. So maybe 2 or 3 yards by then and RB maybe carry’s tackler another 1 or 2.
Possible 4 yard gain.
The simplest of all plays
Almost never see the Cards pull it off regularly for bout 3 or 4 years
Unless and until we have an OL that can attack at the LOS and move somebody, we aren't going to be a very good football team. No mystery there. This is the reason "everybody" was hoping for a marked improvement in our OL play. So far, we haven't seen that. We can argue about how much "improvement" we see this year over last. IMO we have actually regressed ever so slightly, but we have only two games worth of data. Things can get better. Lets hope it does.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - TonyLima - 09-08-2024
Slightly OT: I am uploading my video of the Cal Poly game right now. This one may trigger copyright takedown notices. Get it while (if?) you can.
Update Sep 9. New playlist Stanford Football 2024. Cal Poly game is there, no current copyright issues. Might as well watch it. Barring some major changes, I don't expect to post too many more.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - SkiBum80 - 09-09-2024
Offhanded and totally speculative thought about the Cal Poly game.
And not proven by a deep dive into the stats, but only from anecdotal observation.
But that is, that if you wiped off the 1st half and pretended it never happened, and just graded us on the 2nd half, I'm guessing we come out looking quite a bit better than the game as a whole.
Of course this is an exercise in fantasy.
However, if you believe that our 2nd half team is the one that finally started to get it's act together, and is more likely to be the one going forward in the season, then it can give some added hope to any of us desperate enough to grasp at any straw no matter how fanciful.
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - VB Card - 09-09-2024
(09-08-2024, 10:18 PM)TonyLima Wrote: Slightly OT: I am uploading my video of the Cal Poly game right now. This one may trigger copyright takedown notices. Get it while (if?) you can.
Update Sep 9. New playlist Stanford Football 2024. Cal Poly game is there, no current copyright issues. Might as well watch it. Barring some major changes, I don't expect to post too many more.
Welcome to the ACC, where the conference posts the condensed highlights on YouTube after game (every single play in a 20ish minute video) and later in the week, the full replay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwR0YMx00QE
RE: Sunday morning thoughts - Cal Poly - TonyLima - 09-10-2024
(09-09-2024, 05:56 PM)VB Card Wrote:(09-08-2024, 10:18 PM)TonyLima Wrote: Slightly OT: I am uploading my video of the Cal Poly game right now. This one may trigger copyright takedown notices. Get it while (if?) you can.
Update Sep 9. New playlist Stanford Football 2024. Cal Poly game is there, no current copyright issues. Might as well watch it. Barring some major changes, I don't expect to post too many more.
Welcome to the ACC, where the conference posts the condensed highlights on YouTube after game (every single play in a 20ish minute video) and later in the week, the full replay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwR0YMx00QE
TYVM. Do they do this for every sport? Because I have a quasi-life.
Edit: I’ll ignore football, but their coverage seems spotty with the exception of soccer. WVB will continue.