10-02-2022, 10:31 AM
1. We are who we thought we were. This is one of the worst teams in Power Five football. I imagine some watching the game were surprised by the stat on the broadcast that Stanford has the longest active FBS losing streak in the nation. But long stretches between FBS wins is not new for us. From the end of 2019 to the pandemic season, we went 398 days in between wins. Come Friday (the day before our next game), we'll be at 370 days and counting in between wins over an FBS opponent. Going a year without beating a major college football team is something that has happened to Stanford fans twice in the last few years. Previously that kind of thing happened for us about once every generation (1947, 1960, 1983, 2006). It is very hard for national media and casual Stanford fans to grasp given Shaw's legendary lifetime achievements, but what he's done the last 3-4 years is worst stretch of football in Stanford history/worst current coach in America level of futility.
2. It seems silly to micro-analyze what's going on when the big picture remains so stark. I don't want to give the impression that what ails us is fixable. Nonetheless, it helps me understand and diagnose to crunch the results. The big story of our season has been the pitiful offense. It's not just turnovers and sacks, though those are big factors. The offense simply has not been anything like advertised. We knew it would need to carry the team and it hasn't been even close to being able to do so. At times it's even been worse than the defense. Last night was a case in point: the defense gave up 0.49 yards per play worse than Oregon's average while the offense gained 1.22 fewer yards per play than the Duck average. I would never let the defense off the hook as its miserable state the last half decade has been the prime driver of Stanford football's irrelevance, but the offense is equally culpable and far more disappointing this year.
3. The way we've been losing seems to perfectly encapsulate the plight of the bad team. From game to game, we can get some things right. But in the aggregate it's nowhere close to competitive and opponents can just pick how they want to beat us, leaving us to our pyrrhic victories. Once again the second half became a time for moral victories and stat padding. When the game was still being contested, the Ducks played with their food. Due to a combination of indiscipline, sloppiness, and officials routinely bailing Stanford out, Oregon had 135 penalty yards, nearly doubling the FBS average for penalty yards in a game in the first half alone. And yet still it was a 31-3 halftime score.
4. As in past losses, we had bright spots but who cares? The pass defense was the stingiest Oregon has faced other than Georgia and was closer to Georgia than to any other team and the stingiest we've been since the Vanderbilt game over a year ago. But Oregon could just pick the way it would beat us, which in this case was on the ground with a whopping 9.5 yards per carry, 71 percent more than the next worst run defense against Oregon this year (Cougs giving up 5.56 yards per carry, which was even worse than FCS Eastern Washington). We've regressed into the 2021 Utah/Cal games range of historically hapless run defense. The same whack-a-mole/pick your poison dynamic happened when we had the ball: we ran more effectively than anybody but Georgia has against them, but even with Oregon's very bad defense they had their way with us, holding us to the lowest (4.61) yards per play they've given up in nine games, thanks to a pitiful passing effort by Stanford.
5. Sorry, I use the word pitiful advisedly when describing our passing game last night. Unlike last week when McKee spun it when he could get the ball off, this was miserable even when he threw. He had a few good ones, like the touchdown to Higgins, but overall it was a crappy game. We had almost two yards per attempt and almost 20 passer rating points worse output than the next worst FBS opponent against Oregon this year. Folks, Oregon's pass defense sucks (111th in the nation even after containing us). This was awful by McKee and, as has been the case for non-Wilson receiving targets all year, the receivers and tight ends. McKee's Total QBR for the week was 108th of 120 QBs nationally. Especially given the opponent, this was a terrible showing. But even on the year writ large, a third of the way into our season the passing attack is nothing like we imagined. We're in the 40-50 range nationally in the major passing stats, pathetic given our personnel.
2. It seems silly to micro-analyze what's going on when the big picture remains so stark. I don't want to give the impression that what ails us is fixable. Nonetheless, it helps me understand and diagnose to crunch the results. The big story of our season has been the pitiful offense. It's not just turnovers and sacks, though those are big factors. The offense simply has not been anything like advertised. We knew it would need to carry the team and it hasn't been even close to being able to do so. At times it's even been worse than the defense. Last night was a case in point: the defense gave up 0.49 yards per play worse than Oregon's average while the offense gained 1.22 fewer yards per play than the Duck average. I would never let the defense off the hook as its miserable state the last half decade has been the prime driver of Stanford football's irrelevance, but the offense is equally culpable and far more disappointing this year.
3. The way we've been losing seems to perfectly encapsulate the plight of the bad team. From game to game, we can get some things right. But in the aggregate it's nowhere close to competitive and opponents can just pick how they want to beat us, leaving us to our pyrrhic victories. Once again the second half became a time for moral victories and stat padding. When the game was still being contested, the Ducks played with their food. Due to a combination of indiscipline, sloppiness, and officials routinely bailing Stanford out, Oregon had 135 penalty yards, nearly doubling the FBS average for penalty yards in a game in the first half alone. And yet still it was a 31-3 halftime score.
4. As in past losses, we had bright spots but who cares? The pass defense was the stingiest Oregon has faced other than Georgia and was closer to Georgia than to any other team and the stingiest we've been since the Vanderbilt game over a year ago. But Oregon could just pick the way it would beat us, which in this case was on the ground with a whopping 9.5 yards per carry, 71 percent more than the next worst run defense against Oregon this year (Cougs giving up 5.56 yards per carry, which was even worse than FCS Eastern Washington). We've regressed into the 2021 Utah/Cal games range of historically hapless run defense. The same whack-a-mole/pick your poison dynamic happened when we had the ball: we ran more effectively than anybody but Georgia has against them, but even with Oregon's very bad defense they had their way with us, holding us to the lowest (4.61) yards per play they've given up in nine games, thanks to a pitiful passing effort by Stanford.
5. Sorry, I use the word pitiful advisedly when describing our passing game last night. Unlike last week when McKee spun it when he could get the ball off, this was miserable even when he threw. He had a few good ones, like the touchdown to Higgins, but overall it was a crappy game. We had almost two yards per attempt and almost 20 passer rating points worse output than the next worst FBS opponent against Oregon this year. Folks, Oregon's pass defense sucks (111th in the nation even after containing us). This was awful by McKee and, as has been the case for non-Wilson receiving targets all year, the receivers and tight ends. McKee's Total QBR for the week was 108th of 120 QBs nationally. Especially given the opponent, this was a terrible showing. But even on the year writ large, a third of the way into our season the passing attack is nothing like we imagined. We're in the 40-50 range nationally in the major passing stats, pathetic given our personnel.
