[CTcard]

3. Get a complete new offensive coaching team, all of whom need to be able to direct a balanced offense.  After 5 or so years of us flimflamming other teams with our Jumbo boreathon, the opposing DC's seem to have found a way to beat it.  We need to change and the time to start is now!

I don't think this is even close to a correct diagnosis of our troubles on offense.

On its broadest outlines, Stanford has been running more or less the same offense since Harbaugh showed up. That's 9.5 years now. [In a more detailed sense, Stanford has been changing its offense a lot year to year - but it would seem you are talking about the broad outlines.] As recently as last season, Stanford's offense was fantastic. Depending upon just which statistics you think are relevant (but confining the discussion to those that adjust for pace), Stanford had somewhere between the best and one of the best offenses in the country last year.

Opposing teams did not suddenly "figure out" the Stanford offense this season after not figuring it out for 9 seasons.

Beyond injuries and youth, the detailed diagnosis is not so clear to me. The idea I have seen discussed that seems to best fit the facts is that Stanford's complex offense is very effective when it can be run efficiently - which seems to primarily mean with experienced OL and QB. Otherwise, the complexity is a problem. It's just too much to handle for inexperienced players. So, that's why the ups and downs of the Stanford offense over the past decade seem to so closely match the experience at QB and OL.

Now, I would like to see us maintain the great highs that can be reached with an experienced team without trashing the seasons when the experience is lower. It should be possible to find adjustments that maintain some reasonable level of offense in the low-experience seasons while still practicing the complexities enough to eventually master them, but I don't pretend that is a simple and obvious adjustment.

4. Defense is generally OK.  We have two DL studs (but we are completely screwed if either one gets injured) and the secondary (when not injured) could be our best ever.  As for linebackers, PK was great two years ago but has stalled since then.  JA and MT are doing OK and SB and CT seem to have potential, but there are too many in that 3-deep that are not stepping up to the plate (as it were).

The defense has not generally done OK over the past two games.
The first three games were fairly good, but those were all offensively limited teams.

The defense was down two players as they slid into the hole. Granted your starting CBs are pretty important, but that was a big fall. It may be that we have to adjust our expectations of the basic quality all around given what we have just seen.



While we don't play much in the way of brick-wall defenses the rest of the way, we do face some pretty good offenses. That's a big turn-around from what we have seen so far.

[CTcard]

3. Get a complete new offensive coaching team, all of whom need to be able to direct a balanced offense.  After 5 or so years of us flimflamming other teams with our Jumbo boreathon, the opposing DC's seem to have found a way to beat it.  We need to change and the time to start is now!

I don't think this is even close to a correct diagnosis of our troubles on offense.

On its broadest outlines, Stanford has been running more or less the same offense since Harbaugh showed up. That's 9.5 years now. [In a more detailed sense, Stanford has been changing its offense a lot year to year - but it would seem you are talking about the broad outlines.] As recently as last season, Stanford's offense was fantastic. Depending upon just which statistics you think are relevant (but confining the discussion to those that adjust for pace), Stanford had somewhere between the best and one of the best offenses in the country last year.

Opposing teams did not suddenly "figure out" the Stanford offense this season after not figuring it out for 9 seasons.

Beyond injuries and youth, the detailed diagnosis is not so clear to me. The idea I have seen discussed that seems to best fit the facts is that Stanford's complex offense is very effective when it can be run efficiently - which seems to primarily mean with experienced OL and QB. Otherwise, the complexity is a problem. It's just too much to handle for inexperienced players. So, that's why the ups and downs of the Stanford offense over the past decade seem to so closely match the experience at QB and OL.

Now, I would like to see us maintain the great highs that can be reached with an experienced team without trashing the seasons when the experience is lower. It should be possible to find adjustments that maintain some reasonable level of offense in the low-experience seasons while still practicing the complexities enough to eventually master them, but I don't pretend that is a simple and obvious adjustment.

4. Defense is generally OK.  We have two DL studs (but we are completely screwed if either one gets injured) and the secondary (when not injured) could be our best ever.  As for linebackers, PK was great two years ago but has stalled since then.  JA and MT are doing OK and SB and CT seem to have potential, but there are too many in that 3-deep that are not stepping up to the plate (as it were).

The defense has not generally done OK over the past two games.
The first three games were fairly good, but those were all offensively limited teams.

The defense was down two players as they slid into the hole. Granted your starting CBs are pretty important, but that was a big fall. It may be that we have to adjust our expectations of the basic quality all around given what we have just seen.



While we don't play much in the way of brick-wall defenses the rest of the way, we do face some pretty good offenses. That's a big turn-around from what we have seen so far.