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THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - readarmy1976 - 09-11-2010

My goodness. This Stanford Cardinal team is a polished, focused, cold-blooded killing machine. They are not playing around. 35-0 on UCLA in the Rose Bowl? My goodness. Harbaugh and his players are not f****ng around.

The team\'s defense is so different from last year. They\'re out there knocking people back.

Did you see the cheap shot some UCLA Player took on Chase Thomas? I\'m glad we destroyed them!!!





Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - fullmetal - 09-12-2010

Yeah, #89 for UCLA is a big boy...almost a blindside hit, or at least one that Chase didn\'t see coming.

I do think UCLA is pretty bad this year.  They lost to a perennial Big 12 doormat in Kansas State, though K-State\'s Daniel Thomas was the Big 12\'s leading rusher last year (mainly because they had no passing game).

Still, this was a game that exorcised a few doubts and the last long-standing losing streak in LA.  The defensive attitude was apparent in the tackling quality, the sacks, and the forced fumbles.  

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - Leftcoast - 09-12-2010

Hmmhhhh .... The team \'t looked a bit out of synch to me but still 35 to freakin\' 0!   LOT\'S to work on but .... Wow.

Here\'s my question.  How can we look so ragged and blank the Bruins?   Are we THAT good or are the Bruins THAT bad?   The coming weeks will tell.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - JohnR34231 - 09-12-2010

We\'re a good team right now and the Bruins aren\'t.

How good? Well, as you point out, the coming weeks will tell.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - yvonne - 09-12-2010

I\'ve got to agree more with Lefty. I saw A LOT not to like in this game. In the second half, when UCLA started to move the ball, I kept wondering "How did that guy get loose for so many yards?" Then, the three-time failure to score inside the 20 made things dicey early on.

Still, if Stanford could look that good while not looking like a well-oiled machine, it\'s heartening to think what could happen when/if the parts come together.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - jayasena - 09-12-2010

Quote:Here\'s my question.  How can we look so ragged and blank the Bruins?

This captures exactly what I kept wondering for much of the second half. I guess while we didn\'t execute as crisply as many of us would have liked, we were solid and didn\'t commit any major mistakes either. There are many times over the past decade or so when I would have been thrilled to see unspectacular yet major-mistake-free football from Stanford. So I\'ll choke up my unease with the execution in this game to heightened expectations.

Of course, it helped that the Bruins committed serious blunders, from turnovers to field-goal-killing penalties, at seemingly every available opportunity.

One thought... - Mick - 09-12-2010

Quote:I\'ve got to agree more with Lefty. I saw A LOT not to like in this game. In the second half, when UCLA started to move the ball, I kept wondering "How did that guy get loose for so many yards?" Then, the three-time failure to score inside the 20 made things dicey early on.

Still, if Stanford could look that good while not looking like a well-oiled machine, it\'s heartening to think what could happen when/if the parts come together.
...given that a team and specifically the coaching staff learns more about itself after the first game than all others, I might suggest that Stanford\'s first game against Sacto State was not particularly useful in that regard.  By playing a very weak team, they didn\'t illuminate and probably hid weaknesses and also revealed areas that they thought were strengths but turned out to be perhaps not so strong (WRs not named Owusu leap to mind).

I suspect Stanford will ramp up considerably next week.  I would similarly be reluctant to downplay the effect of a 35-0 road shutout win against UCLA in the Rose Bowl.  No matter how poor UCLA is, they do have some talent.  Think about...first road shutout in 36 years.  Greatest margin of victory over UCLA since 1929.  This isn\'t a DII or D1AA team they played.  The Cardinal are legit, as my son would say.

A better test will be Wake Forest next week.  WF beat us lest year in an early game, now it is our turn to have some fun with the scheduling and timing.  It is an 8:15 p.m. kickoff, 11:15 p.m. body clock time for WF.  WF is 2-0, beating Presbyterian (by a lot, 54-13) and Duke by 54-48.  

Stanford will be 3-0 after this game.  Bank on it.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - readarmy1976 - 09-12-2010

The team\'s offense could have looked much better, but you have to admit the defense was impressive. It\'s totally different from what they had last year. Obviously, it wasn\'t just luck that Vic Fangio had such great defenses in the NFL. He\'s one of the best defensive coaches in football, period, and it showed last night. He has transformed the defense.

Did you see that Masifilo bull rush sack? It was nasty, he just overpowered the lineman and then whale humped the QB. I was like, "THAT guy is on our team? 98?" Oh, Matt Masifilo. Turnovers, big hits, sacks, interceptions, putting guys on stretchers, nobody is licking their chops.

It seems like the offense has taken a small step back from last year. I didn\'t think it would be, but it\'s a big drop off from Toby to Taylor/Gaffney/Amanam. You go from big NFL bowling ball to average talent college sophomores. Taylor does not look very special out there. We\'ve probably got the worst running back position in the Pac-10 right now.

Having a real defense is a "game changer" (ha ha) so I think this team can go further than last year\'s. It will be close between them and Oregon for the Pac-10 crown.

GO STANFORD.










Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - yvonne - 09-12-2010

I haven\'t seen Oregon, but based on scores and the quality of opponents, I would say that Oregon right now is much better than Stanford.  Oregon is scary good.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - washingtonismoney - 09-12-2010

I saw portions of Oregon-Tennessee and I bet they feel similarly about that game as we do with UCLA: nice to win while playing (relatively) poorly--but we\'ll see what happens if we get into full-on Death Star mode.

Could be an exciting game if both teams are in Death Star mode again this year. The series has produced two really memorable, exciting, good games in a row; hope the streak continues (with a good result for the good guys).

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - Mick - 09-12-2010

Quote:Wow, I really don\'t agree with you about the wide receivers, Mick. Ryan Wheland proved himself long before the Sac State game. And did you see that 34-yard catch by Doug Baldwin in the second quarter? The DB was biting, scratching and jabbing an icepick through Baldwin\'s skull and still he made the catch.

Whalen, I believe, couldn\'t hold onto a quick pass over the middle on a blitz on the first series. Otherwise, I don\'t recall any WR mistakes. Luck just wasn\'t that sharp -- when his passes missed, they really missed. (And the Bruins have a fairly capable defensive backfield, we should note.)

11 completions in 24 passes, despite strong OL, good running QB and domination on field.  Failure to get separation from DBs.  I wonder if routes were properly run, based upon Luck\'s success last year.  IN other words, was it our Voldemort trophy-capable QB or the WRs?

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - dabigv13 - 09-12-2010

I thought Luck played well, he overthrew and underthrew a few guys, but he never made a stupid throw, and he made some bigtime throws when he had to, like the 3rd and 8 completion for 9 to Whalen. To my mind, a QB\'s smarts is more important than his arm, and Luck played a really smart game.

Also, UCLA has a good secondary, I\'m not surprised that we didn\'t cut them up through the air. If we had Owusu out there, and Baldwin in the slot, maybe we start to expose some of their nickel backs a bit more.

I was much more concerned about the lack of execution from Alex Loukas. We still haven\'t seen him make anything happen with his arm, and he looked pretty poor just getting the offense set and the ball hiked. Let\'s hope he doesn\'t have to see meaningful action.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - Farm93 - 09-12-2010

Oregon looks like the leader of the Pac.  Great, but Stanford is probably the second team on the list at the moment.
USC has looked weak, OSU lost and C.a.l beat two bad teams at home in September.  The C.a.l. run looks good, but they have been their before.

Stanford apparently looked unimpressive by winning 35-0 against a non-WSU Pac-10 team on the road!!  They also looked unimpressive while playing without their starting RB, WR/KR, LB and TE.

The D, the weak link, managed to create 2 forced fumbles with recoveries and grab 2 interceptions.  Again, impressive while appearing so unimpressive.

I suspect those fans of Oregon are far more concerned about Stanford than many of the other programs.  So if Oregon is scary good, then Stanford is scary to them.  And IMHO that\'s a pretty good place to be 2 weeks in.

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - Farm93 - 09-12-2010

And now they appear real enough to others to be ranked #19 in the AP and Coaches polls.

The bottom of the polls are filled with enough Pac-10 teams to suggest that the argument about which team is #2 in the conference is still up in the air.  USC, Arizona, Oregon State, C.a.l and Stanford all appear in the 18-28 range.  

Re: THIS TEAM IS THE REAL DEAL - fullmetal - 09-12-2010

Quote:The team\'s offense could have looked much better, but you have to admit the defense was impressive. It\'s totally different from what they had last year. Obviously, it wasn\'t just luck that Vic Fangio had such great defenses in the NFL. He\'s one of the best defensive coaches in football, period, and it showed last night. He has transformed the defense.
Fangio certainly has put some teeth into the defense.  You can give up 80 yards, but if you hold them to no score and manage to earn a turnover, those 80 yards may mean nothing.  Big, smart plays.

Let\'s hope that translates into some offensive teeth too.  Harbaugh--c\'mon.  1st and goal inside the 20, you go to your Voldemort candidate on play-action, okay?  Woulda done the same thing last year--teams knew Toby was coming.