[BostonCard]

No longer Ohlones (or Yuroks) 24
Not the Aspens (nor Blue Spruces) 13

A week off and return to home cooking does wonders. We move the ball but still have troubles turning that to points. Utah is mostly stuffed.

Interesting that despite the generally dark mood on the board, I haven't seen a pick for the Utes yet.

Triumph of hope over experience?  I'm actually very nervous about this game.  If we win, we will be bowl eligible, and cary some momentum towards Big Game, and would have a chance to end the season with an 8-4 record and a decent if unspectacular bowl game, with a chance to end the year 9-4.  I don't think it will happen (particularly beating UCLA in LA), but a win today would give me hope that it could happen.

And we probably should win today.  We're playing at home, coming off a bye, against a good team, but not one of the caliber we've played against the last couple weeks, and one that has been hit with the injury bug.  But, my optimistic score prediction notwithstanding, I have a bad feeling about this.  Utah, while not putting up a ton of yards, is still playing efficiently (i.e., it is good at turning yards into points).  Stanford is not.  In fact, we are dead last in the Pac 12 in converting yards into points (we get one point for every 15.7 yards).  Utah is second in the pac-12 at 11.7 yards per point.  So, if current trends hold, we would have to gain 1.35 yards for every yard that Utah gained to score the same number of points.  Or, to put it another way, if we held Utah to 300 total yards, they would be expected to put up just under 26 points.  For Stanford to score that many points, we'd have to put up over 400 yards.

BC

[BostonCard]

No longer Ohlones (or Yuroks) 24
Not the Aspens (nor Blue Spruces) 13

A week off and return to home cooking does wonders. We move the ball but still have troubles turning that to points. Utah is mostly stuffed.

Interesting that despite the generally dark mood on the board, I haven't seen a pick for the Utes yet.

Triumph of hope over experience?  I'm actually very nervous about this game.  If we win, we will be bowl eligible, and cary some momentum towards Big Game, and would have a chance to end the season with an 8-4 record and a decent if unspectacular bowl game, with a chance to end the year 9-4.  I don't think it will happen (particularly beating UCLA in LA), but a win today would give me hope that it could happen.

And we probably should win today.  We're playing at home, coming off a bye, against a good team, but not one of the caliber we've played against the last couple weeks, and one that has been hit with the injury bug.  But, my optimistic score prediction notwithstanding, I have a bad feeling about this.  Utah, while not putting up a ton of yards, is still playing efficiently (i.e., it is good at turning yards into points).  Stanford is not.  In fact, we are dead last in the Pac 12 in converting yards into points (we get one point for every 15.7 yards).  Utah is second in the pac-12 at 11.7 yards per point.  So, if current trends hold, we would have to gain 1.35 yards for every yard that Utah gained to score the same number of points.  Or, to put it another way, if we held Utah to 300 total yards, they would be expected to put up just under 26 points.  For Stanford to score that many points, we'd have to put up over 400 yards.

BC