IMO TT's decision to rely on the long pass almost exclusively tells us he has no confidence in his team's ability to reliably execute a "West Coast" dink and dunk game plan, at least not against TCU. In particular his choice near the end of the game when there was just over 3 minutes left argues for that conclusion. In that situation you can be sure the TCU defense was instructed to keep all the plays in front of them. It is often easy to take what the defense is giving you and get down the field relatively quickly. All we needed was a field goal. The fact we didn't try tells me TT didn't think we could do it.
The decision to go for it on 4th and 5 from our own 35 at 13:46 in the fourth quarter has been called "aggressive play calling". On first down Stanford completed a pass for 5 yards. That yields a manageable down and distance situation. On second down we throw an incomplete long pass. OK, that could be considered just being "aggressive" and hoping TCU would expect a shorter pattern. It didn't work however. On third down, we do the same thing. IMO that was just dumb. It is fine to have a receiver going deep to open up a shorter route but making the "bomb" your primary target was silly. Get the first down! So on 4th down and 5 we go for it. The message that sent to me wasn't aggression, it was rather desperation. It says "The offense and defense are so bad we can't possibly figure a way to get 3 points in the next 13:46 and must convert here, all or nothing". In the event the result should have been the "nothing" option :-). TCU was unable to get the TD and missed the FG. Our defense played that drive pretty well, but that doesn't mean TT made a good decisions on the previous possession.
On the next drive starting at 11:43 TT called three straight short passing plays where we gained 11, 5, and 8 yards. Any one of these plays would have yielded a first down in the previous series. This makes the two previous long attempts even harder to fathom. Anyway, we then attempted to run wide and lost 7 yards, making it 2nd and 17. That wasn't IMO a bad play call. A TCU player came through apparently unblocked. That isn't the play call but rather its execution. We were now behind the sticks. On the next play we completed a 3 yard pass which would have left us with a third and long. However, a TCU penalty gave us another 15 yards bailing us out of a bad situation. Daniels then ran for 8 yards. Daniels then threw a short pass that was incomplete. On the next play TT went aggressive again and Daniels threw a 29 yard pass to Ayomanor. Being aggressive there payed off, but even if it hadn't we would have 4th and 2 from the TCU 36. It was therefore a very defensible call. A very long FG, so we would have gone for it. Only needed 2 yards.
As far as TTs other play calling, it was IMO "aggressive" not because he felt we had so much skill we could do as we wished but rather because we had so little skill we are better off with "high risk, high reward" plays. In other words, we need to get lucky. We often did because TCU played a very undisciplined game. We scored 3 TDs. Two of them were aided by 1 or more TCU 15 yard penalties. The other one was a very short field starting on the TCU 20 (TCU fumble). It is difficult IMO to give Stanford's offense much credit for generating those points. We did not seriously attempt to run the ball, so obviously TT didn't think we could. He also didn't think we could execute a short passing game and play possession football, because we didn't try to do that either. It must be said that play action passes cannot work if you have no running game. It is difficult to run wheel routes if you have to use your backs in pass protection most of the time. You can't run anything wide if the defense is in your backfield before the ball carrier even reaches the tackle box boundary. You also are going to have trouble completing long passes if your receivers don't get separation and your OL can only sometimes protect the QB.
It is in a way ironic that Dykes gets his first win against Stanford with us playing such an "aggressive" game. When Dykes was at Kal and had Goff at QB, Stanford generally played a "bend but don't break" defense and challenged Kal to make long sustained drives. Kal would play great on most of the plays, but invariably somebody on Kal would make a mistake. Kal would have an incomplete/dropped pass and get behind the yard markers. That often led to a punt. Stanford's somewhat Fabian strategy on defense (against KAL and many others) often drove the fans nuts, but the fact was that few college teams can execute consistently enough to win on a series of long sustained drives. TCU showed signs of that with their flurry of dropped/poor passes on several drives.
TT OTOH obviously believed we couldn't even imagine executing long many-play drives so he didn't try that much. Throw the ball up and hope. TCU bailed us out several times which makes the score less lopsided than the game actually was. Last year TT experimented with lots of things, some of which worked. He was somewhat persistent with the experimentation even when things didn't work the first time. I am hoping his apparent one-dimensional, no running game at all, few short passes approach he took to the TCU game isn't actually indicative of what he believes we must do in general. If it is, it will be a very long year
The decision to go for it on 4th and 5 from our own 35 at 13:46 in the fourth quarter has been called "aggressive play calling". On first down Stanford completed a pass for 5 yards. That yields a manageable down and distance situation. On second down we throw an incomplete long pass. OK, that could be considered just being "aggressive" and hoping TCU would expect a shorter pattern. It didn't work however. On third down, we do the same thing. IMO that was just dumb. It is fine to have a receiver going deep to open up a shorter route but making the "bomb" your primary target was silly. Get the first down! So on 4th down and 5 we go for it. The message that sent to me wasn't aggression, it was rather desperation. It says "The offense and defense are so bad we can't possibly figure a way to get 3 points in the next 13:46 and must convert here, all or nothing". In the event the result should have been the "nothing" option :-). TCU was unable to get the TD and missed the FG. Our defense played that drive pretty well, but that doesn't mean TT made a good decisions on the previous possession.
On the next drive starting at 11:43 TT called three straight short passing plays where we gained 11, 5, and 8 yards. Any one of these plays would have yielded a first down in the previous series. This makes the two previous long attempts even harder to fathom. Anyway, we then attempted to run wide and lost 7 yards, making it 2nd and 17. That wasn't IMO a bad play call. A TCU player came through apparently unblocked. That isn't the play call but rather its execution. We were now behind the sticks. On the next play we completed a 3 yard pass which would have left us with a third and long. However, a TCU penalty gave us another 15 yards bailing us out of a bad situation. Daniels then ran for 8 yards. Daniels then threw a short pass that was incomplete. On the next play TT went aggressive again and Daniels threw a 29 yard pass to Ayomanor. Being aggressive there payed off, but even if it hadn't we would have 4th and 2 from the TCU 36. It was therefore a very defensible call. A very long FG, so we would have gone for it. Only needed 2 yards.
As far as TTs other play calling, it was IMO "aggressive" not because he felt we had so much skill we could do as we wished but rather because we had so little skill we are better off with "high risk, high reward" plays. In other words, we need to get lucky. We often did because TCU played a very undisciplined game. We scored 3 TDs. Two of them were aided by 1 or more TCU 15 yard penalties. The other one was a very short field starting on the TCU 20 (TCU fumble). It is difficult IMO to give Stanford's offense much credit for generating those points. We did not seriously attempt to run the ball, so obviously TT didn't think we could. He also didn't think we could execute a short passing game and play possession football, because we didn't try to do that either. It must be said that play action passes cannot work if you have no running game. It is difficult to run wheel routes if you have to use your backs in pass protection most of the time. You can't run anything wide if the defense is in your backfield before the ball carrier even reaches the tackle box boundary. You also are going to have trouble completing long passes if your receivers don't get separation and your OL can only sometimes protect the QB.
It is in a way ironic that Dykes gets his first win against Stanford with us playing such an "aggressive" game. When Dykes was at Kal and had Goff at QB, Stanford generally played a "bend but don't break" defense and challenged Kal to make long sustained drives. Kal would play great on most of the plays, but invariably somebody on Kal would make a mistake. Kal would have an incomplete/dropped pass and get behind the yard markers. That often led to a punt. Stanford's somewhat Fabian strategy on defense (against KAL and many others) often drove the fans nuts, but the fact was that few college teams can execute consistently enough to win on a series of long sustained drives. TCU showed signs of that with their flurry of dropped/poor passes on several drives.
TT OTOH obviously believed we couldn't even imagine executing long many-play drives so he didn't try that much. Throw the ball up and hope. TCU bailed us out several times which makes the score less lopsided than the game actually was. Last year TT experimented with lots of things, some of which worked. He was somewhat persistent with the experimentation even when things didn't work the first time. I am hoping his apparent one-dimensional, no running game at all, few short passes approach he took to the TCU game isn't actually indicative of what he believes we must do in general. If it is, it will be a very long year