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Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - OutsiderFan - 09-17-2014

http://www.ruleoftree.com/2014/9/16/6230859/the-curious-case-of-the-stanford-passing-offense

Anyone see that?  It's got all this great data, and concludes it must be the offensive line.  Combined with Shaw's comments in his Tuesday presser, and what we've seen for ourselves, all avenues point to the OL as the leading cause of the offensive inconsistency. 

The interesting thing is that since there is no metric for measuring OL efficiency (aside from what the offense produces on a play-by-play or aggregate basis), we are sort of left to throw up our hands as to what specifically needs to improve for the OL to evolve into a strength from not a weakness, but more foundation of inconsistency.

The only way to tell is literally to watch the video, to see who appears to be blocking the right guy, who is being beat, who is in sync and who isn't, etc. 

I haven't re-watched any of the games to focus on OL play, but I did the Spring game, and it was a horror show for sure.  Given the OL is facing Stanford's defense, they certainly are getting tough competition to practice against, so that is good.

One nugget from the Tuesday presser was that the OL played its best half of the season in the second half against Army.  Those of you who voted for Washington as the game the OL finally comes together, in the poll I published before the Army game, may be right!





Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - Hulk01 - 09-17-2014

Horrific, minus-16 snap against SC.

Whiffed block leads to TD-nullifying chop block.

Failed push on key 4th and a couple feet.

Failure to establish the needed push and holes for a Stanford-like power game.

Absence of an effective pulling guard eliminates the possibility of running Power.

From NCAA's best pass protection (measured by sacks allowed) to above average sacks allowed.

We have to get them going or it's up to the defense.


Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - washingtonismoney - 09-17-2014

(09-17-2014, 02:42 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:It's got all this great data, and concludes it must be the offensive line. 

I think the author was a bit narrowly focused and wasn't necessarily blaming all the offensive inconsistency on the line. For example, Hogan's bouts of inaccuracy against Army clearly also played a role last time around.

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - Bruce Wang - 09-17-2014

It occured to me today, that our offensive woes may, in part, be due to the loss of Conor McFadden and his whiteboard.  If so, there must be plenty of kids on campus with eidetic memories.  Shaw should just grab one and put a whiteboard in his or her hands.

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - fullmetal - 09-17-2014

Somewhat joking--if the OL were better, Hogan would never really have to throw :p  (Ahh Toby and the TWU...how I miss those years...)

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - BostonCard - 09-17-2014

(09-17-2014, 03:46 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=10663.msg98619#msg98619 date=1410990129]
It's got all this great data, and concludes it must be the offensive line. 

I think the author was a bit narrowly focused and wasn't necessarily blaming all the offensive inconsistency on the line. For example, Hogan's bouts of inaccuracy against Army clearly also played a role last time around.
[/quote]

Completion percentage is not the be all and end all of passing accuracy, but it does bear mentioning that Hogan's is the top in the Pac-12.  He has had a couple of throws he would want back, and a couple of throws where the ball wasn't placed where he wanted, but I think it is really tough to say that someone who completes almost 3/4 of his passes has "bouts of inaccuracy".

BC

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - Mick - 09-17-2014

(09-17-2014, 06:06 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=10663.msg98627#msg98627 date=1410993961]
[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=10663.msg98619#msg98619 date=1410990129]
It's got all this great data, and concludes it must be the offensive line. 

I think the author was a bit narrowly focused and wasn't necessarily blaming all the offensive inconsistency on the line. For example, Hogan's bouts of inaccuracy against Army clearly also played a role last time around.
[/quote]

... I think it is really tough to say that someone who completes almost 3/4 of his passes has "bouts of inaccuracy".

BC
[/quote]



Those bouts of inaccuracy only occur about 1/4 of the time... :P

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - washingtonismoney - 09-17-2014

(09-17-2014, 06:06 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Completion percentage is not the be all and end all of passing accuracy, but it does 59er mentioning that Hogan's is the top in the Pac-12.  He has had a couple of throws he would want back, and a couple of throws where the ball wasn't placed where he wanted, but I think it is really tough to say that someone who completes almost 3/4 of his passes has "bouts of inaccuracy".

Specifically in the Army game, I think there were more than a few passes that Hogan would want back. Over the course of the season, he hasn't looked too bad. But in that game? Clearly some room for improvement.

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - SamAtoms1980 - 09-17-2014

(09-17-2014, 07:30 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=10663.msg98653#msg98653 date=1411002370]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=10663.msg98627#msg98627 date=1410993961]
[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=10663.msg98619#msg98619 date=1410990129]
It's got all this great data, and concludes it must be the offensive line. 

I think the author was a bit narrowly focused and wasn't necessarily blaming all the offensive inconsistency on the line. For example, Hogan's bouts of inaccuracy against Army clearly also played a role last time around.
[/quote]

Completion percentage is not the be all and end all of passing accuracy, but it does 59er mentioning that Hogan's is the top in the Pac-12.  He has had a couple of throws he would want back, and a couple of throws where the ball wasn't placed where he wanted, but I think it is really tough to say that someone who completes almost 3/4 of his passes has "bouts of inaccuracy".

BC
[/quote]

"It does 59er mentioning . . ". What the hell does that mean?
[/quote]

It means that we should consider toning down our hatred of Ursus arctos

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - BostonCard - 09-17-2014

(09-17-2014, 07:30 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=10663.msg98653#msg98653 date=1411002370]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=10663.msg98627#msg98627 date=1410993961]
[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=10663.msg98619#msg98619 date=1410990129]
It's got all this great data, and concludes it must be the offensive line. 

I think the author was a bit narrowly focused and wasn't necessarily blaming all the offensive inconsistency on the line. For example, Hogan's bouts of inaccuracy against Army clearly also played a role last time around.
[/quote]

Completion percentage is not the be all and end all of passing accuracy, but it does 59er mentioning that Hogan's is the top in the Pac-12.  He has had a couple of throws he would want back, and a couple of throws where the ball wasn't placed where he wanted, but I think it is really tough to say that someone who completes almost 3/4 of his passes has "bouts of inaccuracy".

BC
[/quote]

"It does 59er mentioning . . ". What the hell does that mean?
[/quote]

It means I was the victim of the overaggressive autocorrect, the phrase was supposed to be "it does bėar mentioning."

BC

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - gocard14 - 09-18-2014

Color me unconcerned.  Yes our Oline play has taken a step back, but it has in precisely the way that you would expect a young but talented line to.  The level of play is high, but with a higher rate of mistakes and miscommunications.  The penalties have been bad but are improving (and 9 times out of 10 that chop block wouldn't be called). The pass blocking miscommunications are present but unfortunately expected, and should clear up as the season progresses.

I've seen plenty of plays where our O-line protects beautifully or opens up brobdingnagian holes.  The stop on the 4th and short wasn't a case where the O-line didn't do its job, but rather our fullback failing to navigate the quagmire and tripping on his own blocker. Those plays always turn into a giant pile at the line of scrimmage. Our line kept them out of the backfield, which is all you can hope for when they have 11 people at the line of scrimmage.

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - CTcard - 09-18-2014

(09-17-2014, 02:42 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:The interesting thing is that since there is no metric for measuring OL efficiency (aside from what the offense produces on a play-by-play or aggregate basis), we are sort of left to throw up our hands as to what specifically needs to improve for the OL to evolve into a strength from not a weakness, but more foundation of inconsistency.

Of course there isn't really any statistic that measures the contribution of one position group all alone, though it is more obvious with Oline. For example, any passing statistic is not just a measure of the QB: somebody has to catch the ball, usually run with it after catching (though there are stats that try to take this out), and the QB has to remain standing - preferably in the pocket, have throwing lanes, etc.

I agree with the baseline argument in that article that the biggest issue for the Stanford offense so far is the Oline, though I don't like much of the argument made. I don't see the average yds gained on a Hogan scramble as much of a measure of the effectiveness of the Oline, perhaps the number of times he scrambles might be. The sacks stat by itself is too small a number to be statistically reliable at this point though there is an issue in pass protection.


However, now at last I see some of the potential which up til recently seemed to be based primarily on recruiting rankings: there were times vs S-C. that they really were moving some elite level DL players, vs Army - when Shaw appeared to think "enough of this, let's secure the win" - they power-ran the offense right down the field with Garnett pulling around creating (or sometimes just into) brobdingnagian holes.

Our top three running backs are averaging 7.9 yds/carry (Sanders), 5.8 (Young), and 5.9 (Wright), for an overall average of 6.5 yds/carry on 18 carries per game. This compares to last year Gaffney averaging 5.2 yds/carry on 23.6 carries per game, in 2012 Taylor averaging 4.8 yds/carry on 24.8 carries per game, in 2011 Taylor and Gaffney averaged 5.6 yds/carry on 24.3 carries per game. This year's averages are pretty good and make me wonder if we will start relying more heavily on the run game than we have so far - more like usual over the past several seasons.

A lot of the bad plays seem to have been some sort of mental error, which one would think is more fixable than simply getting beat.
The two late sacks vs S.-C seem to have been wrong blocking assignments for the play.
The chop block while officially on Wright, was really on Garnett who initially took a different guy then lunged at the blitzing LB when a) Wright was in position to make the block, and b) Garnett was not going to be able to make enough of a block to do any good anyway.
On the 4th down and 1 at the S.-C 3 yd line there was a general lack of push, but the biggest single issue seemed to have been Caspers pulling not blocking the right guy (Cravens I think).
The penalty nullifying Wright's TD run vs Army was a completely unnecessary hold on Bright many yds downfield.

So, there is certainly hope. I think the OLine will be very good in 2015. I hope we see some of that in 2014 as well.

p.s. "foundation of inconsistency" - nice use of self-contradictory paradox.



Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - washingtonismoney - 09-18-2014

(09-18-2014, 07:26 AM)CTcard link Wrote:I agree with the baseline argument in that article that the biggest issue for the Stanford offense so far is the Oline, though I don't like much of the argument made. I don't see the average yds gained on a Hogan scramble as much of a measure of the effectiveness of the Oline, perhaps the number of times he scrambles might be. The sacks stat by itself is too small a number to be statistically reliable at this point though there is an issue in pass protection.

I think the author would agree with you, that the number of scrambles is more revealing than the actual yardage gained. That's more of a curio.

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - Renaissance Man - 09-18-2014

Sack statistics do not always reflect the play of the OL.  On one play in particular in the Army game, the pass protection was excellent, but Stanford sent only the two wide-outs into pass patterns, both running deep patterns up opposite sidelines.  Both were tightly double-covered, Army's pass rush maintained integrity, giving Hogan no option to run, and he wisely took the sack.  One or two safety valve receivers, and Hogan would have had the option of dumping off or running, but the play had an all-or-nothing design, and we ended up with nothing.

Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - OutsiderFan - 09-18-2014

One other interesting nugget from the Tuesday presser...

Shaw made clear that though Stanford could pass more (because pass protection is good and the receivers are so talented), they are still committed to the run and will keep at it even when not working well, because the program's identity is so committed to being able to run the ball - move a player from point A to point B, against his will.

In other words, the offense could pass more (possibly score more points, and even have beat USC doing so), but to be in position to accomplish the team's year end goals, it must be able to run the ball more consistently, and develop the physical toughness that is the hallmark of the program. 

There is a fine line between doing what works, relying on it too much, and not being able to do anything else if the first option is taken away.  But given the passing game in terms of being a threat all over the field, is an option in 2014 that wasn't in 2013, it seems very smart to keep on working at getting the running game rolling, because if that happens, the offense will be too much to handle for most teams. 

After watching the U$C game I couldn't help but think David Shaw and staff were thoroughly confident they were going to beat that team handily, because nobody expects a team to shoot itself in the feet so much.  If the second half OL performance against Army is a foreshadowing of thing to come, the offense could really become very good.  The Washington game will tell the tale. 














Re: Delving deeper into the offensive inconsistency - CompSci87 - 09-18-2014

(09-18-2014, 01:07 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:because the program's identity is so committed to being able to run the ball

In a sense that's not a good reason, and people will latch onto that comment and call Shaw stubborn for running the ball just because that's what he wants the identity of the program to be. But what lies behind it is the much better reason for running the ball -- generally an offense that's a threat to both run and pass is a lot harder to defend. So even if one of those aspects isn't working well as well as the other, it's important not to give up using it and trying to improve it.

Signed,
Captain Obvious