Blogging with the Enemy: Stanford Preview

A discussion with Hank Waddles of GoMightyCard. Questions by the readers of AngryBeavs. Check Hank’s site tomorrow for my responses to his questions.

If a Tree scores a touchdown but no one’s around to see it, does it still count?

I see what you did here. I’ve got a couple things to say about this. It’s interesting that the Tree nickname has been embraced by the University and the fanbase over the past decade or so, because when I was a student at Stanford thirty years ago, you would never hear a Stanford team referred to as the Trees except by opposing fans making fun of us. As a result, it’s not something I’ve gotten used to. The other part of the question, though, has to do with attendance It’s possible that any Stanford touchdowns scored on Saturday night will be seen by fewer Stanford fans than any Cardinal touchdown in the past decade. With Stanford’s typical poor attendance compounded by a stretch of four losses in five games, a lack of a star player to draw fans, and a late start, the crowd will likely be embarrassingly small even by Stanford standards. It’s a shame, because it’s Senior Night, and this group of departing seniors deserves a big crowd. Sadly, they won’t get it. And when you then consider that the game has been relegated to the Larry Scott Network, this will probably be the least-watched Stanford game in the David Shaw Era.

What’s wrong with Bryce Love? He was in the pre season Heisman talk, but hasn’t done anything this year. Do you expect him to be pac12 player of the week like every other RB that’s played Oregon State?

Bryce Love has obviously been a great player, one of the best ever to play for Stanford. He’s everything that’s right about college football, but this has been a lost season for him. He looked like his usual self when he ran for 136 yards in Week 2 against USC, but he took a blow to the head on his last carry that afternoon and missed the next game. He returned to have decent games against Oregon and Notre Dame, but then he was injured again. He was pulled down from behind on a meaningless 3rd and long play near the end of the loss to the Irish, and he suffered another sprained ankle. He sat out the next week, and he hasn’t been fully healthy since then. Probably the bigger reason for the decline in his numbers has been the health of the offensive line. This line was projected to be a strength, with four of five starters returning from a unit that had cleared the way for Love’s should’ve-won-the-Heisman season. The expected starting five has only been on the field together in two games, and even those players who haven’t missed time still haven’t looked healthy. Stanford is 11th in the conference in rushing yardage, leading only Washington State, who obviously doesn’t really try to run. Stanford’s success has been built on a dominant running game, so this decline has been shocking, to say the least.

It may be worth discussing the effect of the new Redshirt Rule. Has Shaw indicated his plans, and does it benefit any one type of school over another? Are there any (RS) players who will now get playing time? If so, what does he expect of them?

David Shaw has been talking about this new rule since Media Day, and he spoke about it again this week. He loves it. I really don’t see a downside to the rule. It could be that Alabama will essentially field a redshirt team when they play their annual November cupcake game, but even that isn’t really a bad thing. Shaw has mentioned two specific things that he likes about the rule. First, he says there are times when the coaches might feel like a freshman is ready to play, but then when he gets on the field it turns out he isn’t. When that happens now, they can pull him back and nothing will have been lost. On the other hand, he says there are often times when freshmen clearly aren’t ready in September, but after spending the fall acclimating and learning, they’re ready to contribute in November. He cited sophomore cornerback Paulson Adebo as an example. He was ready by the end of the season, but the coaches chose not to play him and burn his redshirt. The best example of that from this year has been Andre Fox, a pass-rushing defensive lineman who’s been added to the mix late in the season.

The Stanford D and O line have been less than dominant. What has changed?

I discussed the offensive line above, but the defensive line has also been a major concern and the subject of lots of conversation among fans. The biggest problem is that there is no Solomon Thomas or Harrison Phillips. When the anchor of your defensive line is essentially unblockable, it obviously makes everyone else on the line that much better, and there’s no one remotely like that this season. The recruiting at the position has been strong for the past three years, but it’s rare that youngsters make much of an impact in the trenches. I believe the line will be a strength again as early as next year and certainly in 2020, but right now the rotation is thin and the players are young.

Who’s a better coach: Harbaugh or Shaw?

Here’s another popular topic. My standard answer is this: Jim Harbaugh was probably the only person in America who could’ve arrived at Stanford when he did and turned the program around. Harbaugh is a force of nature. David Shaw, however, was the perfect person to step into that spot and continue building on that success. It was Shaw who took the team to three Rose Bowls and carved out a place for Stanford in the college football landscape. But when a team finds success like that, expectations increase, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this mediocre season has brought calls for a change. Shaw is seen as stubborn and conservative, and there’s a growing number of fans who are critical of him whether the team wins or loses. Last week I even saw #FireShaw bouncing around on Twitter. Personally, I’m a huge Shaw supporter — some have called me a Shaw apologist — and can’t imagine anyone else I’d want leading this program.

Stanford have given up more passing yards than any other team in the Pac-12 this year. OSU’s pass game has come alive. OSU also has a couple great running backs. How will they fare defensively and why?

Again, the roots of Stanford’s problems defending the pass lie in the defensive line. The defensive secondary is the strength of the defense. Even with the difficulty of replacing Quenton Meeks and Justin Reid, who both left a year of eligibility on the table and have moved on to success as rookies in the NFL, there’s still a considerable amount of talent back there. Adebo, discussed above, has the potential to be the best cornerback Stanford has produced since Richard Sherman, and defensive backs coach Duane Akina, who coached two different Thorpe Award winners at Texas, has said that Adebo could be one of the best he’s ever had. Even so, injuries have hit there as well. Alijah Holder is talented, but he he’s still recovering from a knee injury that ended last season, and he doesn’t yet have the burst that he had before that setback. But as I said, the problem lies up front. The Cardinal simply can’t get consistent – or sometimes even any – pressure on the quarterback with a standard three- or four-man rush. As good as the secondary might be, they can’t cover quality receivers for long periods, so they’ve given up yardage. My preference would be for more blitzing, seeing as the problem can’t worse than it is. If they can’t defend the pass when dropping seven or eight into coverage, they might as well rush five or six guys at every opportunity, if only to see if they get a different result.

KJ Costello has thrown 9 picks so far — has there been a specific reason for so many interceptions?

K.J. Costello is a gunslinger. You’ll immediately recognize that he doesn’t fit the standard mold of the robotic Stanford quarterback. He celebrates with fist pumps and chest bumps when he throws touchdowns and gesticulates wildly when forced off the field after a third down incompletion. All that emotion makes him a natural leader, and that, as much as his ability, forced the coaches to make a change last season when Keller Chryst was struggling. The entire offense seemed more alive when Costello was in the huddle. All that being said, he sometimes makes bad choices, and some of those bad decisions have led to those nine interceptions and a handful of other near interceptions. One thing you’ll notice is that he fearlessly throws to receivers who are covered, based primarily on the idea that Stanford’s big, tall receivers are never really covered. If Kaden Smith, for example, is blanketed by a linebacker, he’s actually still open because he’s bigger and stronger and faster than the guy who’s covering him. Costello will still throw to covered receivers because he believes they’ll make the play for him. This usually works out, but sometimes it doesn’t.  The other thing going on here is that he’s still pretty inexperienced, with just more than a season under his belt as the starter. Check back next year. He’s going to be much, much better than he already is.

What do you see as the outcome? 

It’s hard to have expectations for this Stanford team from one week to the next because it lacks a clear identity. In the past, we’ve always known what we would see from the Cardinal, but the questions were what we would see from the opponent and how opposing coaches would approach what Stanford does best. With the Stanford running game in question, it’s never clear what will happen. Some weeks the plan is to continue with the run even when it isn’t having success, but against Washington State the game plan was completely different. The running game was abandoned in favor of the pass. (Most fans would like to see that every week.) While fans and the media always look ahead and ask what the rest of the season might bring and how high or low expectations should me, Coach Shaw made it clear this week what his expectations are. When asked about a potential bowl game, he explained that the bowl game was completely out of his control. His only goal for the season was to win the game on Saturday. For that reason, and because this is the final home game for the Cardinal, I expect the team to be ready to play. I don’t remember a Stanford team being so hard hit by injuries, but I still think they’re healthy enough to get this win. Look for Costello to have a nice game. It’s a shame that J.J. Arcega-Whiteside won’t be able to play (sprained ankle last week), because he’s the best receiver Stanford has seen in quite a while, but Costello will have enough targets to get to 300 yards passing with two or three touchdowns. I’m not sure what to expect from the running game, because Love is still not fully healthy and backup Trevor Speights seems unlikely to play. The defense is still a question mark, but I think they’ll be able to get enough stops to give Stanford a victory. Let’s say Stanford 31, Oregon State 21.