[msqueri]

1. A setback and failed test early in the Pritchard era. It stinks to get thoroughly dominated at home and on national television. We are clearly still a bad team. Everything folks have said about the yawning chasm between Stanford and teams that compete for relevance on the national stage is true. That's the bottom line. If Luck and Pritchard want us to compete, the seriousness that has been mustered to date will not get us there. The most important thing, as our brain trust acknowledges, is the quality of the players. Ours aren't good enough. Nonetheless, in the next three months until we get a chance to upgrade the roster, we have opportunities to show progress and hopefully make future sledding easier. Even in this game, when Miami hit the throttle to start the season as they routinely have in the Cristobal era, there were signs of building blocks that, with continued work could produce our best team of the New World Order. The margin in this game was catastrophically ugly - equivalent to the quality of team that would beat the national champion by multiple scores. Not going to sugarcoat that. Have to flush it. But the team's goals can still be ahead of them.

2. This was the worst we've been dominated, whether you look at points per non-garbage drive, yards per play, or score, in the 19 games since 2024 SMU. We gave up 6 points per non-garbage drive, literally a touchdown every single time other than the first quarter three and out. That ranks in ignominy in this era with 2023 Oregon State, 2024 NC State, and 2025 Notre Dame as opponents that did whatever they wanted against us. We scored only 0.857 points per non-garbage drive. That's bad but we've had this much trouble scoring on offense a dozen times since 2021. Yards per play confirms yesterday's defense to be dusted 'n' disgusted and the offense less horrific. We gave up 8.19 yards per play, the eighth worst we've been dominated by an offense this era. The Mensah to Toney duo is great but we shouldn't have made them look that great. On offense, gaining 4.6 yards per play is actually nearly two yards more per play than last year's Miami game and better than seven games last season. Considering that Miami was preseason SP+ Defensive #7, this is a silver lining. Our offense looks better through two games than last year, and that's without Pale, Prongos, or Nico Brown. Because the defense got torched so badly, the net points per drive was the eighth worst showing of the era and net yards per play margin was ninth worst. I don't want to put too much lipstick on this pig but it is important to acknowledge Miami's quality. We have only played six teams this era that finished top eight in the AP poll, which I think Miami has a good chance to do.

3. We are only two games in to the Pritchard era. All takes on coaching acumen should be provisional. Subjectively, I like what I've seen out of QB play and playcalling and don't really otherwise have opinions on the effect of coaching. There were some things in this game that raise some concerns. Offensive delays of game and WR false starts two weeks in a row are not great. The nation-leading drops may or may not reflect on coaching. Giving up a Miami record-breaking passing touchdown debut and receiving yardage reflects poorly on a former NFL defensive coordinator famed for pass defense and leading a unit expected to be solid. It is striking to me that our strategy was to focus on the run (both evidently and per the Darrius Davis interview this week) and we succeeded in that and still got boat-raced all game long until Miami called off the dogs. Perhaps not game-planning, first and foremost, around maybe the highest paid college football player ever throwing to maybe the best receiver in the country was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, and not in the hyphy way. And if we were dialing up safety help for all the man coverage on Toney, that wasn't clear on a number of plays. Heck, several times it was just a safety (or LB!) in coverage on him.

4. The other provisional coaching observation is that I see some dissonance between our emphasis on finishing and being ruthless and relentless and Pritchard's calm, not hard-edged demeanor. Does keeping QB1 and RB1 in deep into garbage time send a message of intensity after we've already kicked a 24 yard field goal down 25 when the next position after the half is going back to the juggernaut offense? When the coach isn't yelling at anybody? When he uses the post-game statement to talk about what we're excited about coming out of a 39 point home loss? I have said a lot about how Pritchard's personality contributes to a good culture. But it's fair to ask these questions about his edge, at least until we show some edginess. Even if all we wanted from him was love, hope, and motivation, there needs to be some edge to sustain us through adversity.

[msqueri]

1. A setback and failed test early in the Pritchard era. It stinks to get thoroughly dominated at home and on national television. We are clearly still a bad team. Everything folks have said about the yawning chasm between Stanford and teams that compete for relevance on the national stage is true. That's the bottom line. If Luck and Pritchard want us to compete, the seriousness that has been mustered to date will not get us there. The most important thing, as our brain trust acknowledges, is the quality of the players. Ours aren't good enough. Nonetheless, in the next three months until we get a chance to upgrade the roster, we have opportunities to show progress and hopefully make future sledding easier. Even in this game, when Miami hit the throttle to start the season as they routinely have in the Cristobal era, there were signs of building blocks that, with continued work could produce our best team of the New World Order. The margin in this game was catastrophically ugly - equivalent to the quality of team that would beat the national champion by multiple scores. Not going to sugarcoat that. Have to flush it. But the team's goals can still be ahead of them.

2. This was the worst we've been dominated, whether you look at points per non-garbage drive, yards per play, or score, in the 19 games since 2024 SMU. We gave up 6 points per non-garbage drive, literally a touchdown every single time other than the first quarter three and out. That ranks in ignominy in this era with 2023 Oregon State, 2024 NC State, and 2025 Notre Dame as opponents that did whatever they wanted against us. We scored only 0.857 points per non-garbage drive. That's bad but we've had this much trouble scoring on offense a dozen times since 2021. Yards per play confirms yesterday's defense to be dusted 'n' disgusted and the offense less horrific. We gave up 8.19 yards per play, the eighth worst we've been dominated by an offense this era. The Mensah to Toney duo is great but we shouldn't have made them look that great. On offense, gaining 4.6 yards per play is actually nearly two yards more per play than last year's Miami game and better than seven games last season. Considering that Miami was preseason SP+ Defensive #7, this is a silver lining. Our offense looks better through two games than last year, and that's without Pale, Prongos, or Nico Brown. Because the defense got torched so badly, the net points per drive was the eighth worst showing of the era and net yards per play margin was ninth worst. I don't want to put too much lipstick on this pig but it is important to acknowledge Miami's quality. We have only played six teams this era that finished top eight in the AP poll, which I think Miami has a good chance to do.

3. We are only two games in to the Pritchard era. All takes on coaching acumen should be provisional. Subjectively, I like what I've seen out of QB play and playcalling and don't really otherwise have opinions on the effect of coaching. There were some things in this game that raise some concerns. Offensive delays of game and WR false starts two weeks in a row are not great. The nation-leading drops may or may not reflect on coaching. Giving up a Miami record-breaking passing touchdown debut and receiving yardage reflects poorly on a former NFL defensive coordinator famed for pass defense and leading a unit expected to be solid. It is striking to me that our strategy was to focus on the run (both evidently and per the Darrius Davis interview this week) and we succeeded in that and still got boat-raced all game long until Miami called off the dogs. Perhaps not game-planning, first and foremost, around maybe the highest paid college football player ever throwing to maybe the best receiver in the country was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, and not in the hyphy way. And if we were dialing up safety help for all the man coverage on Toney, that wasn't clear on a number of plays. Heck, several times it was just a safety (or LB!) in coverage on him.

4. The other provisional coaching observation is that I see some dissonance between our emphasis on finishing and being ruthless and relentless and Pritchard's calm, not hard-edged demeanor. Does keeping QB1 and RB1 in deep into garbage time send a message of intensity after we've already kicked a 24 yard field goal down 25 when the next position after the half is going back to the juggernaut offense? When the coach isn't yelling at anybody? When he uses the post-game statement to talk about what we're excited about coming out of a 39 point home loss? I have said a lot about how Pritchard's personality contributes to a good culture. But it's fair to ask these questions about his edge, at least until we show some edginess. Even if all we wanted from him was love, hope, and motivation, there needs to be some edge to sustain us through adversity.