[CTcard]

Don't get me wrong -- I am disgusted by the conservative/predictable approach (the plays are not all conservative, but the approach is).  I actually think it hit bottom at the Rose Bowl against Michigan State and the philosophy has improved somewhat; at least I don't really hear/see as much arrogance now about Stanford daring people to stop what they know is coming.

You should realize that you were most disgusted by the best post-Luck offense Stanford has had (2013 season). Various methods of measuring the offense that take into account pace of play put the 2013 Stanford offense at #15-27 in the country (see post with numbers on p.5 of this thread). That's way better than 2012, 2014, and 2015 so far.

Since that time, I agree with you that Stanford has mostly abandoned the physical run-first approach to offense. That has coincided with a collapse of the Stanford offense. The three good-games to close out the 2014 season were the only three games where Stanford returned to a run-first, downfield play action pass approach.  Then vs Northwestern the game plan seemed to again be to try to win on short dump-off passes. [The RBs actually averaged 5.0 yds/carry, but they only got 19 carries.]*

I think everybody agrees upon the disease - a struggling offense needs to get better. I think a lot of the attempted diagnoses of the underlying causes reflect what happened in 2012 as much as what is on the field right now.



*To temper the analysis of the NW game, one should remember that by last year's performances and returning players, NW was expected to have a very good defense and a struggling offense this year. That has as much to do with the result as our good defense and struggling offense.

[CTcard]

Don't get me wrong -- I am disgusted by the conservative/predictable approach (the plays are not all conservative, but the approach is).  I actually think it hit bottom at the Rose Bowl against Michigan State and the philosophy has improved somewhat; at least I don't really hear/see as much arrogance now about Stanford daring people to stop what they know is coming.

You should realize that you were most disgusted by the best post-Luck offense Stanford has had (2013 season). Various methods of measuring the offense that take into account pace of play put the 2013 Stanford offense at #15-27 in the country (see post with numbers on p.5 of this thread). That's way better than 2012, 2014, and 2015 so far.

Since that time, I agree with you that Stanford has mostly abandoned the physical run-first approach to offense. That has coincided with a collapse of the Stanford offense. The three good-games to close out the 2014 season were the only three games where Stanford returned to a run-first, downfield play action pass approach.  Then vs Northwestern the game plan seemed to again be to try to win on short dump-off passes. [The RBs actually averaged 5.0 yds/carry, but they only got 19 carries.]*

I think everybody agrees upon the disease - a struggling offense needs to get better. I think a lot of the attempted diagnoses of the underlying causes reflect what happened in 2012 as much as what is on the field right now.



*To temper the analysis of the NW game, one should remember that by last year's performances and returning players, NW was expected to have a very good defense and a struggling offense this year. That has as much to do with the result as our good defense and struggling offense.