4.0 Point Stance

It's Over

2008-11-29T10:27:00.001-08:00

Although this blog has been de facto dead for the past two weeks or so, I'll make it official.

There's a couple of reasons. First, the bright flowering of hope that bloomed in September withered into a cold, gray bramble of ennui as the Cardinal went into a November tailspin. Second, too many 12 hour days at work left with me no time to devote to the blog, and the quality wasn't what I had aspired to. Third, no one was actually reading this thing.

Things are looking up for the Cardinal next year. Harbaugh has put together a top twenty recruiting class (assuming no decommits), plus Andrew Luck coming off of his redshirt. We're losing some talented seniors - Fletcher, McNally, Snyder, Kimble, Osaisai, to name a few - but the defense and the passing game has nowhere to go but up. Plus, the schedule next year is much easier - 7 home games! I'd be very surprised if Stanford doesn't go bowling in 2009.

A few final random thoughtsI'd like to get off my chest before signing off: Anthony Morelli was underrated. Larry Fitzgerald was robbed out of the 2003 Heisman Trophy. More teams, especially in minor conferences, should adopt Paul Johnson-style option offenses. The 40-second play clock hasn't had as much of an effect as I thought. Never, ever punt on fourth and one.

Dateline: The Farm

2008-11-20T08:48:00.000-08:00

As usual, the Big Game week brings lots of extra media coverage.

The Chronicle has twin articles on running backs Anthony Kimble and Jahvid Best

Darren Sabedra at the Merc has an article on the benefits of a bowl bid, and makes some good points. Coaches lust after bowl bids largely because it allows an extra month or so of practice. Teams that don't get bowl bids have to pack it up for the year; teams that go can go on practicing through December. Plus, being on ESPN never hurts.

College Football News thinks Gerhardt won't get untracked and picks Cal by 2 scores.

How Big is the Big Game? It even made the International Herald Tribune. Even Europeans hate Cal.

And Stanford beat Cal in the all-important pregame Blood Drive, 234 pints(or whatevers) to 171.

Gameday!

2008-11-15T10:25:00.000-08:00

Mark Bradford for the win

Of all the Saturdays mornings to be stuck at work, this isn't so bad. No great games today - the consensus seems to be that Oregon State v. Cal is the "marquee" game of the week, as OSU controls its destiny for the Rose Bowl. Unless Penn State gets knocked off today, it's likely that the Beavers and the Nittany Lions will have rematch on New Year's Day. Considering that Penn State blew out the Beavs 45-14 in Happy Valley, this is not a rematch anyone cares to watch.

Otherwise, it's a lovely day in Palo Alto to watch IRL football. Despite a 4:00 kickoff, this will be primarily a night game, and I'm hoping for a rowdy crowd.

Sizing Up the Trojans

2008-11-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

The Southern Cal defense bears down on another victim

Stanford v. Southern Cal
Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008, 4 pm

The Southern Cal Trojans are coming to town, and they will be bringing what is possibly the best defense in America along with them. Brian Cushing, Taylor Mays, Rey Maluaga - all ferocious, fast, sure tacklers. The stats are almost unreal.

The Trojans are #1 in the country in scoring defense, total defense, passing defense, and pass efficiency defense. To the extent they have a weakness, it's against the run, I guess - they only have the third best run defense in the country. They've shut out Arizona State, Washington, and Wazzu, and only gave up 3 points to Ohio State and Cal. At one point they went over 9 quarters without giving up a single point.

The ESPN talking point is that Southern Cal is great on D but weak on offense. The statistics tell a different story. Mark Sanchez is the highest rated passer in the PAC 10, and USC leads the conference in total offense with over 450 yards per game. It's a balanced run/pass attack, averaging over 200 yards a game rushing and 250 passing. Although none of the Trojan tailbacks have stepped up to be "the guy," Joe McKnight, Stefon Johnson, and CJ Gable all average over 50 rushing yards a game.

Even taking into account that the stats have been inflated in easy wins over UW and WSU, this is still a very good offense that's coming to Palo Alto on Saturday.

And intangibles? Oh Lord. The Cardinal cost USC a likely national championship last year - you think they'll be out for revenge? This won't be like the Oregon State game, where the Trojans overlook what they perceive to be an overmatched opponent. USC will come to play.

In case you can't tell, I'm not overly optimistic about the Cardinal's chances this weekend. On the bright side, the spread for this game reflects how much Stanford has improved over the past year. Going into the Rose Bowl, the Cardinal were a 40 point dog before pulling off their famous upset. This year, I've seen 23 and 24 point spreads. Even taking into account home field advantage, that's a two touchdown improvement in one year.

Even more heartening (at least from my perspective), the game is a sellout. It boggles my mind why people who haven't been to a game all year will come to the one game that the Cardinal are all but guaranteed to lose; but there you have it.

Week In Review

2008-11-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

Toby being Toby

Stanford 58, Washington State 0
Saturday, November 1, 2008

In miserable weather and in front of a tiny cadre of fans, the Stanford Cardinal had the opportunity to name their score against the Washington State Cougars. They picked 58-0, which is just as good a number as 69-0, or 66-3, or any of the other results from Wazzu's nightmare season. At the risk of piling on, I'd like to note that WSU has already given up the most points ever in PAC-10 play. In other words, the Cougars could pitch three straight shutouts and still have the worst defense in history. Paul Wulff has his work cut out for him.

A lopsided game like this doesn't tell us much about the Stanford team. Toby Gerhardt and Anthony Kimble probably could have had 200 yards apiece, but neither played in the fourth quarter. Gerhardt barely even played in the third. Even so, Stanford amassed over 330 rushing yards with Delano Howell and Blaise Johnson running out the string. Keep an eye on Owen Marecic - he went out in the first half and did not return. The Stanford run game relies heavily on his ferocious lead blocking, and it could spell trouble in the future if he's out.

As for the passing game, Stanford barely put the ball in the air at all. It looks like Harbaugh is devoted to a two-quarterback system, as Pritchard and Loukas shuffled in and out with regularity. Both spent the majority of the game handing off to the Cardinal backs. I'm a little irked that the bye week wasn't spent installing a full offense for Loukas to run. But if the coaches feel this gives us the best chance to win, so be it. Against the Cougars, neither QB was called on to pass, and there was no sense of urgency. That won't be true against Oregon, USCw, or Cal.

Defensively, the Cardinal did a great job in forcing turnovers, and absolutely stonewalled the Cougar offense in the second half, allowing less than 50 yards total offense after the break.

I'm really struggling to find things to say, other than that I haven't seen a Stanford opponent look this overmatched in ... a long time. Stanford-WSU wasn't exactly Texas-Texas Tech in terms of excitement or importance, and the best that can be said is that it's a win. The Cardinal head to Eugene next week to take on the Ducks in a game that should be a lot more interesting and lot more meaningful.

Wazzu - A Pretty Terrible Football Team

2008-10-31T17:29:00.000-07:00

This is pretty much the story of WSU's season

Washington State at Stanford

I often find myself editing posts to take out some of my harsher criticisms. After all, I am writing about amateur athletes, most of whom aren't even 21 years old. But there really is no polite way to say this - the Washington State Cougars are a bad team.

I'm not exactly breaking new ground with a startling revelation here. This is a team that was forced to hold an open tryout among its studentry to find a backup quarterback, and at Coug Center they've pretty much given the football team up for dead and moved on to basketball. The Cougar's results against I-A competition speak for themselves:

Oklahoma State L 39-13
California L 66-3
@ Baylor L 45-17
Oregon L 63-14
@ UCLA L 28-3
@ Oregon State L 66-13
USC L 69-0

Any season that involves a 45-17 thrasing by Baylor is, by definition, a bad season. A season where that 45-17 loss to Baylor is actually one of your most competitive efforts is nearing historically inept levels.

Wazzu can't pass -- they've shuffled in 3 quarterbacks, none of whom average 6 yards per attempt. As a team, they have 6 touchdowns to twelve picks. They can't run -- the leading rusher has only 300 yards and one touchdown, and they average 2.7 yards as a team. They sure as hell can't defend, as they've managed to give up 63+ points four times. They're last in the PAC-10 in scoring offense; last in scoring defense, last in total offense, ninth in total defense. Remember what the Cardinal looked like in 2006? That's a pretty fair approximation.

Enough of this negativity. What does this game mean for Stanford? Well, it's a must-win to get to bowl eligibility, which will bring the program some street cred, as well as those extra bowl practices that coaches crave. It's a great chance to get Alex Loukas involved in the offense, hopefully as a starter. And it presents Toby Gerhardt with the very real opportunity to reach 1,000 yards and become the first Cardinal back to do so since 1991. He needs 221 yards to do it, but it's within reach considering that Wazzu gives up 266 per game on the ground. Gerhardt, more than anyone else, needed this bye week, and I look forward to seeing him run with fresh legs.

Strangely enough, the Cardinal's biggest challenge may be not to get too cocky. Stanford is clearly a better team than Wazzu, but we aren't some USC-like juggernaut that can roll out of bed and put up 50 on these guys without breaking a sweat. The line is at -30 (!) with an over/under of 52. So Vegas expects us to win by the unlikely score of 41-11. I think it'll be a little closer than that, but only because Stanford will try run the clock and control the game with Gerhardt and Kimble.

The weather forecast for Palo Alto is ugly tomorrow, and I am very concerned that Stanford Stadium will be even more empty than usual. Luckily I'm the kind of contrarian s.o.b. who likes to watch football in the cold and rain. Let's hope the Cardinal can make it worth my while.

Do NOT Listen to Mike McLaughlin

2008-10-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

So this is a couple of days late, but on Monday night I was driving home from work, listening to the Jim Harbaugh show. Todd Husak left early because he had an intramural basketball game (seriously, wtf?), leaving Mike McLaughlin to finish the show by himself.

After finishing up a couple of "if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" questions with Clinton Snyder and Toby Gerhardt, McLaughlin starts talking with some representative from the athletic department (I didn't catch his name).

This guy is apparently involved in football recruiting, and starts talking about how difficult it is for Stanford to find kids who are both great athletes and great students. The usual stuff. Then
McLaughlin drops something like this:

McLaughlin: "So if any of you listeners know about any great young football players with good grades, be sure to send them over to [so and so] at the Stanford athletic department."
4.oPS: *drives off the road*

In case you don't know this, any attempt by any booster ("athletics representative" in NCAA doublespeak) to contact or influence a high school athlete is EXTREMELY FORBIDDEN by the NCAA.* Seriously, this is like rule #1. If you're unsure who exactly qualifies as a "booster" in the NCAA's view, a good rule of thumb is: "everybody." Under the NCAA rules, if you ever make any donation, no matter how small, to a university, you considered a booster of that university until the day you die. Safe to say, 95% of the people listening to the Jim Harbaugh show (or reading this blog) are boosters.

What really enraged me was that the athletic department representative did not even correct McLaughlin. It absolutely boggles my mind that we would have an athletic department employee, who works in football recruiting, yet doesn't know one of the most basic rules of recruiting. Anyway, please don't contact any high school athletes and tell them to go to Stanford. Or, if you do, at least give them a free car or something. If you're going to run afoul of the NCAA, might as well do it right, SMU-style.

*The exception is if you are related to the kid or have a preexisting relationship with him. So if, for instance, you are a former Stanford All-American quarterback, and your son is a four star quarterback recruit, you're allowed to nudge him towards the Farm and away from Arizona freaking State, for God's sake.

UW fires Ty

2008-10-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2008317492_webtyrone27.html

Technically he "resigned" although who do they think they're fooling, really. Not me. Coach Willingham, always master of the obvious, notes that "We didn't win enough games. That's it. We didn't win football games."

The final tally for Ty at UW? 2-9; 5-7; 4-9; 0-7 (and counting). A sparkling 20% PAC-10 winning percentage, and no winning seasons since 2001 (which includes his last two years at Notre Dame).

Even worse, this year's iteration of the Huskies (coming off a 33-7 shellacking by those afore-mentioned Fighting Irish) is possibly the major conference team in the country -- the only real competition for that "honor" are Wazzu and Syracuse -- and ESPN recently named them #3 in the "Bottom Ten."

Willingham will finish out the year, but this early "resignation" ensures that UW will get an early jump on the coaching search. Early buzz is that Huskies fans want UT-Austin defensive coordinator and all-around badass Will Muschamp. They might as well hope that Bear Bryant rises from the grave to coach the Huskies; the two scenarios are about equally likely.

The Two Quarterback System

2008-10-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

It's conventional football wisdom that if you have two quarterbacks, you have none. As usual, conventional football wisdom is bullshit. The last two MNC teams ran a dual quarterback system: both 2006 Florida (Tim Tebow) and 2007 LSU (Ryan Perriloux) had option packages that their first-string "passing" quarterbacks couldn't run.

Right now, the most pressing question for Stanford is whether Loukas is best suited to the occasional snap or whether he's ready to run the whole offense. In limited action against Arizona, Loukas ran the shotgun read option more or less exclusively.

This Saturday, the offense under Loukas expanded. He ran a fair number of shotgun options, but also lined up under center. The one thing he didn't do was throw the ball -- his lone attempt was a low-percentage last second heave. Loukas did have seven attempts against Arizona State, for a total of five yards and one pick. Let's just say the jury is out on his passing ability.

If Stanford is going to make a switch, this is the time to do it. With the bye week coming up, Loukas will have plenty of opportunities to gets first team reps in, and hopefully install some kind of passing offense that plays to his strengths. Plus, the next game is against Wazzu, who may be the worst team in the country, at home. No better situation for Loukas to get starting experience.

I think the coaches need to consider this option very seriously -- Pritchard has had his chance, and other than a stellar game against the awful Washington Huskies, he hasn't performed. He's staring receivers down, not making the right reads, and holding on to the ball too long. I'm not ready to give up on Pritchard yet, but Loukas needs a chance to show what he can do.

Dateline: The Farm

2008-10-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

October 21, 2008

With the bye coming up, it's a slow week for Stanford football. And obviously the #1 sports story in the Bay Area is the 49ers' ousting of Mike Nolan and promotion of Mike Singletary.

The Chronice has a notes column that mentions an interesting trend -- Stanford had been 4-0 when rushing for over 200 yards, and 0-3 when rushing for under 200 yards. Saturday's game broke that trend.

Jon Wilner at the Mercury News thinks that Stanford has improved its brawn, but needs to go back to using its brain. I have no idea what that means.

Ted Miller at ESPN notes that tackle turned guard Chris Marinelli may miss the rest of the year , a very troublesome development for the Cardinal's already thin (well, figuratively thin) offensive line.

The PAC-10 is in serious trouble of not being able to field enough bowl-eligible teams, and the Poinsetta Bowl has made contingency plans to invite a WAC team.

John Elway gives a speech at his high school.

And, from the lunatic fringe of football writing, Gregg Easterbrook apparently believes that colleges should forbid their students from watching TV. (Skip to last paragraph).

Battle of the Butterfingers

2008-10-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Nestor over at Bruins Nation has a good post on (among other things) UCLA's turnover woes; the Bruins are 107th in the country in turnover differential at -.83. Neuheisel says the Bruins D is emphasizing turnovers this week in an effort to get his offense a short field.

That's only half the story, though. UCLA's turnover margin is bad, but Stanford's is worse. We've given the ball up 16 times, and only have eight takeaways, for an average of -1.14 per game. The Cardinal only have 3 interceptions through seven games, which is simply atrocious. With that kind of a negative TO differential, it's a minor miracle that Stanford is over .500.

Three Stanford turnovers (one for a TD) are the reason that Arizona nearly won last week, in a game where Stanford dominated both sides of the line play. One of the keys to this weekend's game (and, really, to the rest of the season) will be the defense's ability to get the ball back and create big plays.

Nestor seems leery of Neuheisel's emphasis on turnovers; he thinks the UCLA defense should be "walking before it starts running," and wants them to emphasize what he considers fundamentals -- positioning and tackling form -- before it worries about forcing turnovers. I couldn't disagree more. Forcing turnovers is a matter of fundamentals --being in position and by swarming to the ball.

Graduation Success Rates

2008-10-15T10:15:00.001-07:00

The NCAA Graduation Success Rates (GSR) came out today. Follow that link to get all the gritty details about various women's volleyball programs; but this post will focus on the football. Keep in mind, these numbers are for the recruiting classes of 1997-2000, so they lag behind reality by a couple of years.

The Wizard of Odds has a great conference-by-conference graph comparing rates. The East dominates -- the ACC leads the way with a 72.3% graduation rate, and the Big East is second at 67.4%. The PAC 10 came in eighth (beneath the Sun Belt!) with 61.3%. The WAC came in dead last -- by a mile -- with only 53%.

Stanford, not surprisingly, leads the PAC 10 with an outstanding 93% graduation rate, good for third in Division 1A. The Cardinal fell behind Navy at 95% and Notre Dame at 94%.

On the flip side, Arizona is at the bottom of the PAC 10, with only 41% graduating. Cal wasn't that far ahead of them with a 52% football GSR.

Strangely enough, the lowest GSR in IA is also found in the South Bay. San Jose State's graduation rate sits at a miserable 34%. Expect sanctions and possible loss of scholarships to be handed down.

It's very popular among Stanford fans to complain about the increasingly rigorous entrance standards in effect for football players. I support those standards 100%. It's great that Stanford's commitment to academic excellence gets recognized. It's even better that the Cardinal is proving that you can field a winning team while still graduating your players.

As coach Harbaugh said earlier this week: "Some guys will go to school to play football and finesse their way through college. Others will go to be the best they can be. I think if you come to Stanford, you go with the idea of being the best. " Harbaugh's alma mater Michigan (73% GSR) has long held the attitude that they are the "Leaders and Best." That's exactly the kind of mindset the Stanford program needs to adopt as well.

Dateline: The Farm

2008-10-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

UCLA QB Ben Olsen gets a pass off in the Bruins' 45-17 win last year

Tracking newspaper articles on Stanford football:

First, Harbaugh thinks Tavita Pritchard will play on Saturday, and described the QB's concussion as "mild." (Click here and here for my thoughts on "mild" concussions). Harbaugh also confirms that Andrew Luck will redshirt, which should surprise no one at this point in the season.

The Stanford Daily asks, "where are the fans?" and inexplicably blames the people who planned the alumni reunion weekend. Sorry, folks, but the reason the stadium is half-full has nothing to do with the fact that a history lecture and indie film festival were scheduled at the same time.

Tim Kawakami speculates on Harbaugh leaving for the Raiders job.

A little recruiting news; defensive end Josh Mauro from Fort Worth, Texas commits. His other offers were from Utah, Louisville, and Boise State.

I should also (belatedly) mention that Gerhardt was the PAC 10 offensive player of the week.

A few Bruins articles:

The AP write-up is full of white bread quotes from coach Neuheisel. UCLA is working hard, the 2-4 record doesn't reflect how much they've really improved, etc. Neuheisel repeats the refrain of all first-year coaches: he hasn't had time to fully implement his System.

The LA Times reports on UCLA's shuffled and reshuffled offensive line. UCLA's part-time quarterback and full-time M*A*S*H patient Ben Olsen was back in pads and may play Saturday, although he doesn't get the greatest vote of confidence from the coach: "I don't have any problem with Ben coming back and being our quarterback."

Bruins Nation is probably the best blog in the PAC 10. Their verdict: UCLA will need to win the battle in the trenches. They also think Stanford is a "must-win" game, although realistically their season is shot no matter what happens this Saturday.

Week in Review

2008-10-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

Alex Loukas on the run

Stanford 24, Arizona 23

Tremendous last minute victory for the Cardinal as they claw their was over .500. Getting a conference win is nice, and it's great that Stanford is well on its way to a bowl game. But to me the most exciting development is the confidence that Stanford showed in the second half and especially on the final drive. Pritchard hurt; Forcier ineffective -- so what? We can win with our third string quarterback. We can stop Arizona's prolific spread offense when it matters most. The head coach's most important job is to set the tone for the program. It's something Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris couldn't do it. Jim Harbaugh can.

Offense

Game ball to the Stanford offensive line, who turned in a thunderous performance in paving the way Toby Gerhardt and Anthony Kimble to each break the 100 yard mark. Stanford ran for nearly 300 yards against a Wildcat D that was only giving up an average of 107 yards per game before last week. Alex Fletcher & co. deserve much of the credit for Stanford's final drive, when they beat up a seemingly worn-out Arizona front seven. The O-line was shuffled around a bit for this game, as enfant terrible Chris Marinelli moved inside to guard, while Matt Kopa took over at right tackle. Keep an eye out to see if the Cardinal keep this lineup against UCLA.

Pritchard looked pretty good throwing the ball, with the exception of one second quarter interception that fell into the "what could you have possible been thinking" category. Pritchard tried to throw the 15 yard out - not exactly his strong suit to begin with - directly into the teeth of Arizona's zone coverage, and it was predictably returned for a touchdown. Pritchard threw for 113 yards, a respectable total for one half of play.

Unfortunately, Pritchard was seriously injured on the final play of the first half. I have serious problems with the play-calling on that drive. Lining up five wide inside the opponent's ten is generally a terrible idea. First, it's very difficult to really spread a defense out in the tight confines of the red zone. Second, as Tavita learned the hard way, those spread offenses sometimes leave your quarterback to get hammered when he doesn't have a back in to help blitz pickups.

Jason Forcier was totally ineffective -- 2/6 with an interception -- and likely played himself out of his backup spot. Coming into the year, I honestly thought Forcier was the quarterback to beat. He had the Michigan cachet and the high recruiting rankings, but if the way he played against Arizona is any indication, he's simply not ready to lead the Stanford offense.

I give a lot of credit to Harbaugh and his staff for taking the chance on untested Alex Loukas in the fourth quarter. Coming into the game, Loukas was one for eight with an interception. He had about as many receiving yards (three, when he inexplicably lined up as a flanker against Oregon State) as he did passing yards (five, in his lone completion against Arizona State). As third string quarterback, he can't have gotten many reps during the week, and it's asking a lot to have the kid come in cold in the fourth quarter of a conference game and lead a comeback victory. Loukas played extremely well. He completed his only pass, ran for about 40 yards, and made all the right reads running the option.

Loukas was helped by the fact that Arizona didn't any film on him. The Wildcat D wasn't ready for the Vince Young-style read option that Loukas ran. UCLA will be prepared, and Loukas needs to be ready to open up the playbook a bit against the Bruins.

Cardinal fans are all asking whether Pritchard or Loukas will start against UCLA. The official word is that Pritchard will start if healthy. Will he be healthy? Who knows. Concussions are a dangerous thing. Either way, I expect Loukas to get some playing time as a change of pace. Hopefully Loukas' success as a runner will convince the Stanford coaches to stop their ill-fated experiment with Michael Thomas as a quarterback.

Defense

Stanford played with a 3 man line for the vast majority of this game. Although I usually don't like 3-4 and 3-3 defenses, it worked perfectly against Arizona's "Air Raid" spread offense. Most teams would've tried to take advantage of a 3 man front by lining up a fullback and running behind the guards. Arizona never did, probably because it's so dedicated to the spread and tossing the ball around. It's good to have a system; but it's bad to be predictable and to refuse to make necessary adjustments.

More impressively, Stanford held the Arizona passing game largely in check. Because of the way the Wildcats run their offense, they will get passing yards, and Willie Tuitama threw for nearly 300 yards. But Stanford was also able to get pressure on Tuitama without resorting to running exotic blitzes. Even better, Stanford silenced Arizona's vertical passing game. The Wildcats only made one completion over 21 yards; most of their completions were on high-percentage short-range passes, including quite a few screens and swing passes.

Since one of Arizona's touchdowns was on a 75 yard interception return, the defense really only gave up 16 points, thanks largely to a tremendous red zone performance. Arizona moved the ball pretty well between the twenties, but was forced to kick three short field goals. This is one of the real weaknesses of a dedicated spread offense -- in the red zone the offense can't stretch a D vertically, and passing lanes get a lot smaller.

One major concern is the defense's recent inability to force any turnovers. Stanford is currently -8 in turnover margin, second to last in the PAC 10 (only woeful Wazzu is worse). We beat Oregon State in large part due to Bo McNally's interception return for a touchdown; and Arizona nearly beat us the same way. Turnovers are game changing plays, and the Stanford defense needs to start getting the ball back if the Cardinal hope to sustain their success.

Special Teams

The special teams play of the game was clearly the 70 yard punt by David Green that pushed Arizona back to their own five at the end of the third quarter. It was an absolute moon shot, helped along by a perfectly timed wind gust. Otherwise, there were serious problems on special teams. Kimble dropped a kickoff, and Baldwin dropped a punt. The Cardinal didn't lose either fumble, but those are the kinds of mistakes that cause turnovers and cost yards.

Next up is UCLA at the Rose Bowl. Year one of the Neuheisel era isn't looking so great in Westwood, and the Cardinal are a 2.5 point favorite as of Tuesday morning. This is a great chance for Stanford to steal a road win and move up in the PAC 10 standings.

Sizing Up the Opposition

2008-10-11T11:04:00.001-07:00

Arizona Wildcats v. Stanford Cardinal
Saturday, October 11, 2008 2 pm

A couple of weeks ago, after the Wildcats lost to New Mexico, I opined that this season was the "Mike Stoops deathwatch." Since then, Arizona has wiped the floor with UCLA and Washington, bringing them up to 4-1.

Just like Notre Dame last week, Arizona's impressive record is built on beating bad teams. Along with the two wins over the PAC-10 cellar dwellars, they crushed Idaho 70-0 and beat Toledo 41-16. None of these are really impressive skins on the wall.

Arizona does provide a serious matchup problem for the Cardinal. The Wildcats like to run a four received shotgun set and let senior QB Willie Tuitama toss it around. Arizona is average about 260 passing yards a game, which is a huge red flag going against a Stanford defense that is giving up a ghastly 273 yards a game through the air. Tuitama is a four-year starter who was in and out his first two years before breaking out in 2007. Stopping Tuitama and the Wildcat passing attack has to be the #1 focus for Ron Lynn and the Stanford D.

UA tailback Nic Grigsby had a great year in 2007 as a true freshman, running for 704 yards. This year he's run for 548 in five games, and is averaging an impressive 6.0 yards per carry. Grigsby went for 126 yards last year against Stanford. If the shifty Grigsby is able to repeat that performance, it'll be a long day for Stanford fans.

The Wildcat D has also had a great year. in 2007 they gave up 138 per game on the ground and 234 through the air. So far this year (against admiteddly second-rate competition) they've held opponents to 107 rushing yards and only 118 passing yards per game. Expect Stanford to raise those averages a bit. The Cardinal offense has shown improvement in each of the last two weeks, and I expect the Stanford front five to have some success against the Wildcats' young, undersized defensive line.

This is one of the games Stanford has to win to earn a bowl bid. The game's not on TV, and it's an absolutely gorgeous day in Palo Alto, so I'm hoping to see everyone in Stanford Stadium this afternoon.

Hmm

2008-10-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

I just noticed the Week in Review is posted as of Saturday the 4th, even though it wasn't posted until earlier today. So please scroll down a bit to read!

Dateline: The Farm

2008-10-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

October 5, 2008

Still too bitter to write a recap on this one right now, so let's just see what the papers have to say.

The Chronicle has two articles: Jake Curtis thinks the fair catch interference call was bs, but likes how physical the Cardinal were.

In the wake of Marinelli's comments last week, expect Irish fans to raise a stink about this comment from Golden Boy Clausen being snubbed by Coach Harbaugh: "I stuck my hand out and said, 'Good game, coach.' And [Harbaugh] either didn't see me or didn't want to talk to me," I'm betting on the former, but don't expect the Domers to buy it.

The Mercury-News also focuses on the bogus fair catch call.

The Palo Alto Weekly has a basic game recap.

Youtube highlights, predictably one-sided. The losing team's fans tend not to bother with highlight clips.

A couple of Notre Dame articles. I have to admit, Jimmy Clausen really did look good yesterday.

Somewhat surprisingly, Notre Dame still isn't ranked. Usually pollsters give the Irish the benefit of the doubt, and you can make an argument for them at 4-1. But they're still in the "others receiving votes" category, at no. 39 (if I counted right). Oregon drops out, but Cal sneaks in at 25.

And from the AP, Trent Edwards goes down with a concussion.

Week in Review

2008-10-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Clausen, untouched

Notre Dame 28, Stanford 21

October 4, 2008

It's one step forward, two steps back for the Stanford football team this week. The story of this game (like all games) was the line play. Notre Dame's offensive line shut down the Cardinal front four, giving Golden Boy Clausen all day to complete passes on five and seven steps drops. This is what the Charlie Weis offense looks like when it's clicking, folks.

Offense

Stanford's offense got their yards. It would be easy to look at Pritchard's three interceptions (two of which were massively boneheaded plays), but he played pretty well. Pritchard completed 18 passes out of 28 attempts, an impressive 65% rate, for 182 yards. A large chunk of this damage (102 yards) was done in the fourth quarter, with the Cardinal's backs up against the wall and the Irish knowing the pass was coming. It's certainly good enough to win, especially considering that Stanford's already-thin receiving corps is missing Richard Sherman.

That being said, you can't ignore the three first half picks, the first two of which took place well on Notre Dame's side of the field and took away likely points. I was especially irritated that one was thrown straight to Irish defensive lineman Pat Kuntz (the guy who wore jorts to the pep rally). Pritchard also loses points for throwing a seven yard pass on 4th and 15 on Stanford's last drive. It doesn't matter if it's incomplete, or even intercepted, you just have to throw it to the sticks in that situation.

The running game performed magnificently, with Toby Gerhardt running with his usual thunderosity - 13 carries for 104 yards (and that average was lowered by a one yard touchdown run). Kimble, who is clearly having the best season of his career, went for 61 yards on ten carries. Interestingly, there may have been a shakeup at the backup tailback position. The coaches burned the redshirt of freshman Delano Howell, who ran 3 times for 15 yards, rather than give the ball to Jeremy Stewart, who had no carries.

The Cardinal also tried out what I pray doesn't become known as the "WildCard" formation, with high school qb Michael Thomas taking shotgun snaps and running the zone read. He had one carry for 11 yards; one for -2. At the very least, it'll give opposing defenses something else to worry about.

Defense

Let's start with the positive. The Stanford D held Notre Dame to 83 rushing yards, the large portion of which came on a single direct snap play. Of course, there was really no need for UND to try to establish the run, as they threw it at will.

There's just no polite way to say it - the Cardinal pass defense is bad. Coming into the year, the secondary was the perceived weakness of this defense, and they've really done nothing to dispel that. They certainly didn't this week, as Clausen threw for 347 yards and three picks.

There's apparently a scouting report saying "Throw the ball as high as you can, and Osaisai won't be able to find it." Clausen did that to great effect today, and Irish receiver Michael Floyd went over 100 yards on the day. As much as I pick on him, the emu has seriously progressed as a QB since last year and really impressed me with his escapability and accuracy.

The fault doesn't entirely lay with the secondary, though. The defensive line got no pressure for most of the day, and Clausen was able to stand in the pocket, wait for routes to develop, and go through his progression (witness the first quarter TD pass to halfback Armando Allen). Stanford's only sack was registered by Bo McNally on an overload blitz that confused the Irish offensive line. It didn't help that the Irish OL spent the first half simply blatantly holding on every passing play, but even taking that into consideration, the Domers did a good job.

Special Teams

The kicking game was more or less a wash. Zagory missed a makable field goal, but so did the UND kicker.

In the return game, Doug Baldwin has quietly become a very dangerous punt returner. He's not Jeremy Maclin or Trindon Holliday, but he broke a 38 yard return to set the Cardinal up with great field position to set up Stanford's last score (which Baldwin also caught).

Finally, I'd like to say a word about penalties. A lot has been made (including by Coach Harbaugh) of the terrible fair catch interference call. Even worse, the Irish tackles spent the entire first half just blatantly holding the Cardinal defensive ends. At halftime, I was incensed. But the second half was much more fairly called, as the Irish were tagged with 3 holding penalties. In fact, Notre Dame ended up with about 20 more penalty yards than we did. Would I like to have that muffed punt back? You damned straight I would. But it's certainly not fair to blame the loss on that one call.

Up next, the shockingly impressive Arizona Wildcats. Preview tomorrow evening, and see you on the Farm Saturday at 2.

Bands Behaving Badly

2008-10-04T01:37:00.001-07:00

Last year, Stanford's band faced a multi-game suspension for, well, doing what the Stanford band does. As of this afternoon, it was announced that Wisconsin's band has been locked out from performing Saturday night at Camp Randall Stadium. The Buckeyes visit Madison for what may be the de facto championship game for the Big Ten[sic], making this suspension particularly cruel. Their "crime?"

"[S]eminude band members were alleged to have danced suggestively and there were reports of women being forced to kiss other women to be allowed to enter bathrooms on a bus."

In this, an election year, we have to ask ourselves - do we really want to live in an America where this kind of behavior is punished, instead of encouraged? I think you and I both know the answer to that.

Sizing Up the Opposition

2008-10-04T00:17:00.000-07:00

Irish flanker Golden Tate

Stanford v. Notre Dame
Saturday, October 4, 2008

I feel like it's especially important to bring you a detailed "Sizing Up the Opposition" this week, as our opponent is an obscure university rarely mentioned in the national media and practically unknown on the west coast. Notre Dame College is a liberal arts college located in South Euclid, Ohio, near Cleveland. The school was founded in 1922, but didn't begin admitting men until 2001, at which point they apparently started playing football...

Wait, we're playing the Notre Dame in South Bend? Well, in that case you probably know all there is to know about the most media-saturated team this side of Yankee Stadium - "decided tactical advantage," emu-looking quarterback, borderline senile Lou Holtz, etc. But a quick recap can't hurt.

The Irish were terrible last year -- absolutely awful. Couldn't run, couldn't pass, couldn't defend. They were also very young, which led to optimism that they were over their growing pains and could come on strong in in the 2008 season. In fact, they've already matched last year's win total with 3.

Notre Dame started the season against woeful San Diego State. It was not pretty . They only beat the Aztecs by the skin of their teeth, 21-13, and trailed until well into the fourth quarter. This is a game they should've won going away, and the struggles against SD State were not seen as a good sign.

The next week, Notre Dame beat Michigan when the Wolverines fumbled seven times, often without even being touched by an Irish defender. In the meantime, Charlie Weis got his knee blown out by an out of control Notre Dame player on the sideline. I watched a good chunk of this game, and Notre Dame did not play nearly as well as the 35-17 final score suggets.

On September 20, the Irish visited Michigan State and were absolutely curbstomped by Javon Ringer, who went for over 200 yards on 39 carries. Notre Dame, on the other hand, totalled 16 rushing yards on 22 carries. Ouch.

Last week, against Purdue, the Irish seemed to turn a corner. They looked better than they had all year in winning by a score of 38-21. Irish backs racked up 213 rushing yards, with tailback Armando Allen doing most of the damage. Jimmy Clausen had the best game of his collegiate career, and threw for 3 touchdowns against no interceptions. The defense showed some chinks, as Purdue's Curtis Painter threw for over 350. But he had to put it in the air 55 times in playing from behind, and only averaged a mediocre 6.5 yards per attempt.

Offense
Notre Dame's offensive weakness is its rushing game. The Irish have run for 435 yards in four games, for an average of about 108 per. That's not good, and ranks 105th in the country. However, it's leaps and bounds ahead of last year, when they averaged 75 yards per game on the ground, and their leading rusher, James Aldridge, had only 463 yards on the year. (By comparison, Toby Gerhardt already has 431 yards this year.) That was good for 116th in the country, ahead of only Texas Tech and Hawaii (who never run the ball); and perennial cellar-dwellars Syracuse and Duke.

Jimmy Clausen also looks better this year, and has already thrown for nine touchdowns (compared to only seven all of last year). They've seen the emergence of wideout Golden Tate, who had only 6 catches all last year but has come on this year with 20 catches for 367 yards. Clausen catches a lot of crap because of the insane amount of hype surrounding his recruitment, but Weis is a good offensive coach and he's got the emu improving as a passer.

The real difference in Notre Dame's offense from last year to this year, though, is the offensive line. Despite being full of four star recruits, the Irish OL last year was simply abysmal. They're playing significantly better this year - there's no way they could've played worse. Still, they're an average line at best, and I look for Stanford's front seven to have success putting pressure on Clausen and keeping the Irish to <>Defense
Defensively, the Irish line up in the 3-4-4, which I hate, and their defensive line is a little undersized. This is something we can exploit. One of the keys to Stanford's offense will be the offensive linemen firing out and getting hats on the Irish middle linebackers. If we can consistently get linebackers Maurice Crum and Brian Smith sealed off, Stanford's backs will have success up the middle.

Notre Dame's two leading tacklers are safeties Kyle McCarthy and David Bruton. Safeties making lots of tackles means that opposing backs are getting past the Irish front seven. If Gerhardt is healthy, those safeties will have a hard time bringing him down.

The one thing Notre Dame did reasonably well in 2007 was defend the pass. This year, that's turned around, and they are giving up 250 yards a game through the air. That stat is kind of skewed by Purdue's pass-heavy "basketball on grass" offense, but the Irish also haven't gotten many picks - only four on the year. If Tavita Pritchard comes out and plays like he did last week, Stanford wins this ballgame. Of course, he won't have Sherman, and we're not exactly teeming with depth at receiver. The Cardinal should have enough success with the passing game to keep Notre Dame's safeties deep and open up space for Gerhardt/Kimble to run.

The one stat that gives me pause in this matchup is Notre Dame's home-away split. They've gone 3-0 at home, and their only loss was to Michigan State on the road. On the other hand, Stanford may be the best team Notre Dame has faced at home. S.D. State was a cupcake, Michigan was in total offensive disarray (as evidenced by their seven fumbles), and Purdue is in a down year as Joe Tiller transitions out. The Cardinal have a real chance to win this game and get their first victory in South Bend since 1992.

South Bend Sucks Revisited

2008-10-03T13:34:00.001-07:00

Yet another reason why South Bend sucks -- Blue-Gray Sky (a top notch cfb blog) gathers reports of a Dean Wormer-like crackdown on tailgating; specifically, drinking. No drinking before a football game - and these people call themselves Catholics!

He also offers serious advice if you do get busted, including this ACLU-approved "what to do if you're stopped by the police" index card, and recommends bringing your complaints straight to Notre Dame's president.

Newsflash: South Bend sucks

2008-10-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

True, I've never actually been to South Bend, Indiana, but I have it on good authority that it's a miserable place. To quote from the above-linked southbendsucks.com,

"If you are reading this, you are one of the hundreds that visit here looking for answers. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to explain the horrifying city South Bend is. I hope you find some comfort here. "

Chris Marinelli isn't from South Bend, either, but that doesn't stop him from having some pretty strong opinions about the place:

"The field, excuse my language, the field sucks. The stadium sucks. I think the area sucks."

Now, if I were Jim Harbaugh, I would've applauded Marinelli's fire, then gently chided him for neglecting to mention Notre Dame's weather, women, and football team, all of which also suck.

Unfortunately, the Stanford cognoscenti chose to put a muzzle on Marinelli and forced him to issue a mealy-mouthed apology. Harbaugh said that "He let his emotion and his passion about this game get the best of him."

Excuse my language, but isn't "emotion and passion" the whole goddamned point? How can you read something like this and not get fired up:

[I]t's going to go bad for them at one point and we are going to gash the (expletive) out of them, I promise you that. So keep bringing it, keep bringing it. They have one sack all year on 200 blitzes. They can keep bringing all the stuff they want. We can pick up blitzes.

Boom.

Edited to add: Doc Saturday, channeling William Faulkner (as is appropriate for a son of Mississippi):

"This is exactly what I want to hear from a player before a game: 'I hate their guts and I want to physically destroy them.' This is what Dick Butkus or Ray Nitschke would say, right on the record, if anyone had bothered to write it down then because of course you hate your opponent and want to beat them and everyone associated with them into a pulp, leave their town a heap of desperate ruin, embarrass their entire ethnic lineage and make them question the very faith that's guided their lives for hundreds of years. That's what football is all about."

Week In Review

2008-09-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

Stanford 35, Washington 28
Saturday, September 27, 2008

And the offense comes alive! Stanford's most complete game, and most impressive win of the year. It's very exciting to be over .500 in October, and a bowl game is very reachable.

Offense

Easily the most impressive offensive output of the year, doubly so because it all happened without Gerhardt. Toby went down in the first quarter with a supposedly "slight concussion" (no such thing exists), robbing the Cardinal of their most reliable offensive weapon. In fact, through the first four games, he was their only offensive weapon. That all changed against the Huskies.

Both Kimble and Stewart ran extremely well. Stewart had 11 carries for 67 yards, a more than respectable 6.1 ypc. Kimble had 15 rushes for 157, for over 10 ypc and 2 touchdowns.

The passing game also overachieved. I've been less than optimistic about the Cardinal air attack in general and Tavita Pritchard in particular. Pritchard came through this week with the best game of his Stanford career -- 16 of 24 for 222 yards and three touchdowns, with no picks. A very impressive 66% completion rate, and 9.3 yards per attempt. Good to see Jim Dray come back to catch a TD as well.

All told, the Cardinal generated 466 yards of offense, with a nicely balanced 244-222 run-pass ratio. They were able to grind first downs when needed, and came through with big plays - Baldwin's 61 yard TD catch, and Kimble's 83 yard third quarter run. You can quibble about the quality of the defense they faced, but there's no doubt that this was Stanford's "A" game.

Defense

In a bit of a twist from what we've seen earlier this year, the Stanford D didn't quite measure up to the offense's production. Without Jake Locker, the UW offense is absolutely toothless. Yet they still managed 377 yards and 28 points, most of it behind freshman Ronnie Fouch. They did hold UW to only 3.7 yards per rush, but the line didn't generate near the pressure they did against SJ State.

Special Teams

The Cardinal have apparently found a new kick returner in Delano Howard, who Jim Harbaugh is quite high on: "Delano's a football player. I told him, `Don't change. You are a football player. .... He's got football instincts, toughness and talent. Whatever he's got, I'm not going to try to over-coach it out of him. Me and Delano have a thing. He's not going to change."

Great kick coverge, too, as UW was held to an anemic 14.9 yards per kickoff return.

Bring on the Domers.

Great Blog to Check Out

2008-09-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Not Stanford related, but a link I'd recommend to any fan of college football.

Thoughts from a Fat White Guy, by a senior defensive lineman at UConn by the name of Rob Lunn. He's a very good writer, honest and insightful about himself and the sport he plays.

Dateline: The Farm (9/24/08)

2008-09-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

Some cool articles to check out this week.

You can check out Stanford's official (and notably one-sided) highlights from the SJ State game on youtube. Seriously, guys? Creed?

The Stanford Daily has two recent articles - one containing a gratuitous Elway reference, and one positing (correctly) that the line play made the difference last Saturday.

The Chronicle has a "plucky walk-on makes good" story about Aaron Zagory.

Scout has nice things to say about what is shaping up to be a nice recruiting class- Eight 4* prospects so far.

The Merc has now reversed course and thinks Luck will redshirt.

After this headline from the Palo Alto Weekly -- "No more 'zigs' in 'Zags' kicking game" -- I may have to retire the "bad puns" label. I simply don't think that one can be topped.

And from the other side of the fence...

The Seattle Times is thinking that nine guys in the box is the way to beat the Cardinal. Toby Gerhardt as unstoppable man-beast, etc.

The Seattle Post Intelligence has what I can only describe as a "bizarre rant" comparing Willingham's tenure at UW with (1) the $700 bilion federal bailout; (2) living in a FEMA trailer; and (3) Nick Saban. He also manages to work in an irrelevant story about eating lunch with Lou Pinella. Needless to say, I highly suggest you read.

The Week In Review

2008-09-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

Stanford 23, S.J. State 10
Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Cardinal pulled back to .500 this week by beating San Jose State. This is the kind of game the Cardinal need to win as a matter of course - at home, against a non BCS-conference team. They did, and there's a lot of positives to come from this game. At the same time, the game was a lot closer than the final score might indicate.

Offense
Despite all the chatter last week about the debut of Andrew Luck, Tavita Pritchard took all the snaps for the Cardinal this week. He had the kind of game we've come to expect of him. He completed about 50% of his passes -- 13 for 28, for 158 yards and a pick. He should've had 159 yards and a touchdown to go along with it, if not for Doug Baldwin's fumble at the one yard line on what looked for all the world like a 40 yard scoring strike. Baldwin's fumble was immediately preceded by an equally bizarre play where Pritchard plucked his own pass out of the air and scrambled for 25 yards. All told, the passing game did about as well as we could reasonably expect. It didn't hurt that San Jose State's back seven isn't exactly Pac-10 talent.

It was the running game, and especially Gerhardt, that won this one for the Cardinal. Stanford rushed for over 200 yards, and Toby got 148 of those yards. While Pritchard wasn't effective through the air, he was on the ground, with 9 rushes for 40 yards.

Gerhardt absolutely took over on Stanford's last drive, rushing for all 33 yards and the clinching touchdown against a defense that knew what was coming.

Defense

SJ State QB Kyle Reed's stats are kind of misleading. 23 for 26 through the air looks like a great day, until you realize that he only threw for 165 yards. He threw a lot of 2-5 yard passes, artificially inflating his completion percentage while not really moving the ball. Out of those 26 passes, only one was complete for over 20 yards.

Of course, this was the Bill Walsh Legacy Classic (tm), so maybe it's fitting that San Jose State employed the high-percentage, low-yardage passing that Walsh's offenses were famous for. However, Walsh's offenses were not famous for giving up eight sacks a game like the Spartans did.

By the fourth quarter, the Stanford D-line began to dominate. Beginning on the last drive of the third quarter (after Stanford took its first lead) Reed was tackled behind the line 6 times, and fumbled once. You have to think that Stanford's superior conditioning and offseason training paid off in this one, as the Cardinal looked better and better as the game went on.

Special Teams

Zagory had a great game, going 3 for 3 with a crucial 52 yard field goal. If he has an off night, we probably don't win this game. The return game was nothing special, as Stewart managed only 12 yards per kick return and Baldwin seemed content to fair catch punts.

All told, there is a lot positive to come from this game. Stanford physically dominated its opponent in the fourth quarter and pushed them around on both sides of the ball. The passing game continues to be a problem, but the Cardinal's physicality alone will win games against lower-conference teams and the less talented teams in the PAC-10. Speaking of which, I'll have a preview post tomorrow discussing Saturday's game against Washington.

Two Quick Thoughts

2008-09-22T09:10:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately IRL interfered with my football-related duties this weekend. Recap of the SJ State game coming tonight. In the meantime, two comments about the college football world at large:

(1) Maybe Tony Franklin at Auburn isnt the genius everyone thought he was. Ditto Jimbo Fisher, although I suspect he doesn't have the same level of control over Florida State's "offense" as Franklin has over Auburn's.
(2) No way does Javon Ringer of Michigan State make it through this season with the way they're handing him the ball. Remember that SI article a couple years ago, where they talked about Earl Cambpell having to crawl up the stairs because his knees were so shot? That's Ringer by Thanksgiving.

Two more bonus thoughts:

(3) Another embarassing week for the Pac 10.
(4) ESPN reports that LSU quarterback Andrew Hatch has a "mild concussion." The only people who believe that such a thing exists have clearly never had a concussion.

It's Saturday

2008-09-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

And Oregon has lost another Quarterback. Unreal.

I won't be able to attend the Bill Walsh Legacy Classic (tm), although I may be able to get down to the stadium by the fourth quarter. We'll see. We need to crush SJ State if Stanford football is going to get any credit or respect in the Bay Area media. Ohio State hasn't lost to one of its in-state little brothers since like 1921. That's the level of dominance the Cardinal need to establish over the Spartans.

Dateline: The Farm (9/17/08)

2008-09-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Andrew Luck during the Army All-American Game practices

The big news this week is Andrew Luck's apparent promotion from the scout team.

The Merc leads off with "Andrew Luck era may start at Stanford." This is based on him taking "some snaps" at the beginning of practice, after which Harbaugh shooed away reporters. Darren Sabrera doesn't say how many snaps Luck took, and for all we know Pritchard took all the snaps after the reporters left.

Does anyone else note a hint of frustration in this quote from Gerhardt? "Now it seems like everybody is in the box — the free safety is down to 6 yards and teams are forcing us to throw the ball."

The Chronicle has basically the same story, and sdds that Luck was on the travel team for the ASU and TCU games. I wouldn't put too much stock in that observation; redshirts regularly end up on travel squads "just in case."

The Palo Alto Daily headline has the first of what will no doubt be hundreds of puns on the name "Luck."

Of course, the only opinion that really matters is the head coach's. Harbaugh says that "I feel Tavita gives us the best chance to win." Seems clear, right. Then, "At the same time, we will evaluate all aspects as we go through a week of practice." Okay then.

In non-Andrew Luck related news, the Stanford Daily has a game preview.

USA Today has a nice article about "academic schools" having success recruiting. Stanford LB recruit Shayne Skov is prominently mentioned and has nice things to say.

And the geniuses at Maxim mention Stanford in a somewhat less positive light.

Around the PAC-10

2008-09-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

So goes the PAC-10, if the scuttlebutt around the web and in the papers is to be believed. The complete and utter collapse of the sport of football on the West Coast is the cause celebre for many cfb writers this week. And, really, who can blame them? The evidence is hard to refute, as 7 teams went down in flames to (supposedly) lesser competition:

(In ascending order of embarassment)

Oregon 32, Purdue 26 (OT) - At least this was a win, but not a pretty one. I watched about the last third of this game, and was very unimpressed with Oregon, especially compared with the last two weeks. Purdue is not really a good team, and the Ducks should've won this by 20+. Although any road win against a Big Ten [sic] is a good win, the injury bug may spell doom for the rest of the Duck's season. They seem to be running out of quarterbacks at an alarming rate.

TCU 31, Stanford 17 - this one hasn't been getting much pub, as Stanford wasn't really expected to win, and both of these teams are well below ESPN's radar.

Maryland 35, Cal 27 - This one was truly shocking. I watched part of Maryland's game against Delaware, and I thought I was looking at a 3-9 ballclub. In terms of pure talent, Cal had absolutely no business losing to those guys. But Maryland ran the ball; Cal couldn't. You can blame it on the early start or Cal's weird travel schedule if you want, but results matter and excuses don't.

Baylor 45, Wazzu 17 - I still don't believe this game actually occurred. Washington State is not a great football team, but it staggers my mind to think of Baylor scoring 45 on anybody. Here are the scores from Baylor's 9 losses last year: 27-0, 34-10, 43-23, 58-10, 31-10, 51-13, 38-7, 52-21, 52-17. Crazy stat of the day - Baylor QB Robert Griffin went for 217 yards on 11 carries, which reminds me of my own salad days, spent running the flexbone in NCAA 2003.

NM 36, Arizona 28 - New Mexico isn't a bad team, but supposedly bowl-bound PAC-10 teams shouldn't be losing to anyone from the Mountain West. I really can't see Mike Stoops being around next year. However, I said the same thing in 2007.

Oklahoma 55, UW 17 - No one in their right mind thought the Huskies had a chance to win this one, but losing by 40 points at home is enough to make anyone wince. Ty Willingham also won't be coaching this team next year; from the looks of things, he hasn't done much coaching in the past two years either.

UNLV 23, Arizona State 20 - "Bring on Georgia" indeed. As I said Friday, "Such hubris is not dealt with lightly," although ASU's nemesis came a week earlier than expected. Erstwhile H--man candidate Rudy Carpenter had a good day, statswise, but 20 points against UNLV at home? UNLV won this one by not turning the ball over. Carpenter only threw one pick, but it was inside his own ten yard line and led to an immediate TD by the Rebs.

BYU 59, UCLA 0 - Jesus tapdancing Christ. BYU is a good team, but this is unreal. The worst loss for the Bruins since before the Great Depression. And it could've been much worse. BYU starting QB Max Hall was out of the game with 7:43 left in the third quarter. If those clean-cut Mormons weren't so humble, they probably could've taken this one into Georgia Tech-Cumberland territory. I assume BruinsNation is calling for Neuheisel's head? What's that? They're strangely OK with this? Well, I'm sure it was Karl Dorrell's fault anyway.

The Bright Side

It wasn't all doom & gloom on the left coast. Oregon State had a nice 45-7 win over Hawaii to exorcise the demons of the whomping they received last week in Happy Valley. Hawaii, incidentally, is on the cusp of one of the most precipitous free-falls in the history of football. They may go from 12-1 to 2-10.

There was one other game involving a PAC-10 team, which you may have heard something about over the past week. Domination - there's no other way to describe Southern Cal's win over Ohio State. Self-professed H--man candidate Rey Maualaga and the rest of the Trojans made Todd Boeckman wish he had never been born, or at least never got off the bus. Beanie Wells' injury wasn't a factor -- with him in the lineup, the Buckeyes lose 35-10 instead of 35-3.

Between the rest of the conference's embarassing losses to MWC opponents and Southern Cal's prime-time victory over a top 5 squad, prepare for the inevitable spate of "PAC-1" comments and "Southern Cal is unbeatable" articles. Although I was happy to see the Ohio State lose, this game has had the unfortunate effect of causing everyone and his mother to preemptively crown Southern Cal as the inevitable national champion. Oklahoma, LSU, Florida, Mizzou, Penn State, and a couple of other teams may have something to say about that yet.

The Week in Review

2008-09-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

TCU 31, Stanford 14

Offense
On Wednesday, I noted that TCU held New Mexico to 185 yards offense, and said that "Stanford needs to basically double that yardage figure to win this game." The Cardinal managed only 193.

Stanford had one big play on offense - the 38 yard end-around by Baldwin in the second quarter. Take away that play, and Stanford got 33 rushing yards on 28 attempts. Yes, it was that bad. Even Gerhardt only got 45 yards on 15 carries.

The passing game wasn't any better. Pritchard's line looks mediocre: 11 of 21 for 122 yards and a pick. In reality, it was much worse than that. On the final garbage time drive, after TCU had given up, Pritchard went 4 of 5 for 41 meaningless yards. And that pick couldn't have come at a worse time, in the end zone, with a chance to tie. The pick ended Stanford's golden opportunity to score, and basically ended the game.

I'm usually not a big believer in time of possession as a predictor of victory. But TCU absolutely crushed the Cardinal in time of possession and total snaps. They attempted 36 passes and 53 rushes - 89 snaps. We attempted 21 passes and 29 rushes - 50 snaps. That's an incredible disparity. You cannot win ball games with your offense sitting on the bench 2/3 of the time.

Defense
The defense didn't play that bad. They certainly played well enough to give us a chance to win, especially in the first half. TCU had a very impressive 72 yard, 15 play first quarter TD drive, but the D then settled down.

TCU got a lot of 5 or 6 yard gains, but no big plays. The Horned Frog's longest rush was 19 yards, and their longest pass was only 14 yards. At the same time, they were consistently able to get first downs based on tough running by quarterback Andy Dalton and tailback Ryan Christian. In the end, the Cardinal defense was just on the field too long.

The pass defense looked much better this week. Dalton went 20 for 36 , which is an ok completion percentage, but only went for 145 yards, or 4.0 yards per attempt. That's a very good YPA number for the Stanford defense. True, TCU operates a run-first option offense that is far removed from the pass-wacky spreads we've seen the last two weeks. Still, at this point it feels good to stop anybody through the air.

Special Teams

Hooray for optimism! The special teams played great. A blocked punt for a touchdown, and a punt return for an apparent touchdown, although it was reversed by the replay booth. And Green punted pretty well, I guess. No doubt that special teams play kept us in the game.

My Thoughts
First, Pritchard has got to go. He's gotten his chance -- I believe he took every snap but one, an Incredibly Surprising Quarterback Draw by Loukas. This was Pritchard's chance to prove that this is his team. He didn't. The coaches seem afraid to run anything more complex than a high-school offense, and they are clearly not willing to put the ball in Pritchard's hands and let him make a play. When you are running off-tackle on third and 7, you need a new quarterback.

Second, if you're going to be bad, at least be interesting. We had one interesting play call - the 38 yard end around. This probably ties in to my first point -- without a QB you can trust, you can't open up the playbook.

We might be able to beat San Jose State by giving it to Gerhardt 35 times. Maybe Arizona ans Washington State. But we won't be able to beat anyone else on the schedule unless we develop a real passing game, and soon. I don't know if Forcier or Loukas is going to be any better (they didn't show it against ASU), but they deserve the chance. And I mean leaving him in for a full game, or at least a full half, not shuffling quarterbacks every series.

Dateline: The Farm (9/12/08)

2008-09-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Chronicle wonders whether Hurricane Ike will stall Stanford's passing game. The rain falls on the "just and the unjust alike," so the weather will presumably have the same effect on TCU. This could only be a good thing. Anthony Kimble, originally from Baton Rouge, knows a thing or two about hurricances: "I played in a couple of tornado watches, thunderstorms. This will be like taking it back to the old days."

The Mercury News has a story on Jim Dray, who had 3 knee surgeries thanks to TCU, and who is presumably out for revenge, Alien vs. Predator style.

The Merc also has some Q&A with Harbaugh. Mostly questions about the weather: "Well, it'll be windy."

John Reid of the Palo Alto Daily News with a familiar refrain -- Stanford will have lots of trouble defending the pass. Article contains one gratuitous Elway reference. (Note: This will be a continuing feature.)

CFN picks TCU by 11. Same story: Stanford will "have to do a much better job of throwing the ball and stopping the other team’s passer."

ESPN's Pac 10 blog looks on the bright side -- at least we throw the ball better than the Cougars. Furtive whispers that Luck might get some playing time.

And further developments in the ASU "Bring on Georgia"/Chick-Fil-A scandal. Such hubris is not dealt with lightly, and I expect the Dawgs to win that one by three touchdowns.

Sizing Up the Opposition

2008-09-10T23:31:00.000-07:00

Stanford-TCU
Saturday, September13, 2008; 10 a.m. Pacific

Generally there's a tendency to assume teams not named "University of __" or ___ State" will be pushovers. In TCU's case, that's clearly not true. Since 2002, the Horned Frogs have gone 10-2, 11-2, 5-6, 11-1, 11-2, 8-5. True, they don't play a Pac-10/Big-12 level schedule, but that's still damn impressive. In addition, they have a stellar record against smart kids during that time span, having beaten Vandy, Baylor, Northwestern, and ... Stanford, last year, in Palo Alto.

The Cardinal actually had one of their better offensive showings last year against the Frogs -- Kimble went for over 100 yards and 2 TDs, and Pritchard threw for 171 yards with 2 TDs and no picks. Defensively, not so much. TCU won on the back of its freshman QB, Andy Dalton, who went 23/34 for 344 yards, with 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. That's a bad sign, especially because Dalton wasn't really a world beater last year. He did complete ~60% of his passes, but only threw 10 touchdowns against 11 interceptions.

TCU does return most of its starters from that team, although they lost a couple of WRs and safeties. But last year is last year. The Frogs are 2-0 this year, with one real win and one phony win.

The 67-7 devouring of cupcake Stephen F. Austin tells us nothing about TCU. From the box score, it looks like the the Frogs just ran it straight at SFA all game long. The few times Dalton did decide to pass, there was nothing the Lumberjacks could do to stop him.

However, beating New Mexico -- who went 9-4 in 2007 -- at New Mexico is impressive. TCU didn't generate a lot of offense; Dalton threw for 120 yards on 25 attempts, and led the team in rushing with 17 for 56 and a touchdown. TCU's total offense was only 291 yards. But they held New Mexico to 56 rushing yards and 185 yards of total offense, along with 3 points. The Lobos also managed to eke out one single yard on a punt return, for a total yardage of 186 on the game. That's an absolute mugging by the TCU defense. Stanford needs to basically double that yardage figure to win this game.

That won't be easy. TCU's calling card in recent years has been its great defense, and Gary Patterson is an outstanding defensive coach. TCU has come tantalizingly close to BCS-busting three times in the past five years, but hasn't managed to sneak into the big money game. They'll have to beat Stanford pretty convincingly to get into that discussion this year. Despite a 13(!) point line favoring TCU, I don't see it happening.

Early Wakeup

2008-09-10T23:26:00.001-07:00

Due to Hurricane Ike, the TCU game has been moved up from 6 pm (4pm Pacific) to noon (10 am Pacific).

The official government track has Ike hitting Dallas (where TCU is apparently located -- who knew?) at 7 pm Saturday, so I'd say this is a wise move.

The week in Review

2008-09-09T18:15:00.001-07:00

A (belated) look at last Saturday's game.

Arizona State 41 - Stanford 17

I don't have a lot to say about this game, for two reasons. One, I went headfirst into a wall about 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and everything after that is kind of hazy. Two, I threw my remote control in disgust and switched the game off with about 7 minutes left in the fourth, after ASU made it 41-17.

Any way you slice it, this one wasn't pretty. But it was more or less as expected. We've already established the Cardinal's two main weaknesses this year: passing, and defending the pass. The Sun Devils were able to take advantage of both.

Stanford's QB triumvirate totalled 14 for 31 for 120 yards -- 9.58 yards per completion, but a measly 3.87 yards per attempt. (Edited to add - this doesn't take into account a couple of flagrant interference calls on ASU, one of which should've been about a 40 yard completion).

In comparison, Rudy Carpenter completed 27 of 36 for 345 -- 12.78 yards per completion, and a sparkling 8.57 yards per attempt. Teams that allow the opposing QB to throw for 8.57 yards per pass attempt generally lose.

Make no mistake, Rudy Carpenter is a very skilled passer. His 2007 yards per attempt total was an impressive 8.05, which compares favorably to highly feted QB's like Graham Harrell (8.01) and Todd Boeckman (7.96). ( Not quite in the truly elite range, though: Dennis Dixon was at 8.41 ypa before his injury, and Tebow ended up with a must-be-a-misprint 9.39 ypa)

More importantly, Carpenter has a quick release that is especially suited to beating the blitz-happy Cardinal D. The Stanford front 7 brought pressure on the majority of passing downs Saturday night, and put quite a few hits on Carpenter. Unfortunately, too many of those hits came 1/4 second after he had let go of the ball on a three step drop. Not every quarterback can do that, and we have to give Carpenter some credit for not getting rattled.

Offensively, there wasn't much to crow about. Both Gerhardt and Kimble ran pretty well, but there obviously wasn't the same level of production as against the Beavers. The passing game was a disaster, as one would expect when three quarterbacks are shuffled in and out more or less at random.

But no matter how bad the stats look, the fact remains that Stanford was in this game for a really long time. You see a 41-17 score and you assume it was over by halftime, but the game was very much in question into the fourth quarter. And that is a big improvement over last year.

ROFL @ Cal

2008-09-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

The tree sitter saga is finally over, after lasting about 14 months longer than it should have. Breathless minute-to-minute reporting here.

Hilarious slideshow here

Dateline: The Farm (9/9/08)

2008-09-09T07:16:00.001-07:00

A collection of stories, musings, and other references to Stanford football

John Wilson at the Mercury News thinks Stanford may not have been great against the Sun Devils, but it's better than Buddy Teevens.

CFN's short writeup hints of the looming quarterback shuffle, which is notably different from a controversy.

Dr. Saturday/SMQ prematurely starts to shovel dirt on this Stanford team - "So much for the Cardinal turnaround."

The Palo Alto Weekly improbably refers to "Heisman Trophy candidate Rudy Carpenter." If true, that would make me feel a lot better about last Saturday's game.

And Brands Create Customers has an interesting and detailed post on Stanford's money-back guarantee on tickets, from a marketer's perspective. I think his commentary on what the guarantee means for the "Stanford brand" is a little overstated.

Introductions

2008-09-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the unofficial Stanford football blog. I'll be following the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of the 2008 Cardinal, linking to various news stories, and providing what insight and analysis I can.

I'm starting this blog due to the surprising lack of Internet presence regarding Stanford sports. Other than the Bootleg (I refuse to pay) and the Cardboard (which averages maybe 10 posts a day) there isn't any grassroots Net support for Cardinal athletics. Whereas you look at Big Ten [sic] or S-E-C (cue Deliverance banjo lick) teams, and it seems like there are a dozen blogs, message boards, and fan sites for everybody from Auburn to Wisconsin. It's an odd situation where people in Opelika, Alabama, have more of a Net presence than people in Palo Alto, California, and I hope this blog can fill that niche.

You can email me at fourpointstance -at- gmail -dot- com. I'm especially interested in any stories or analysis of the Cardinal that I've overlooked, but I'm happy to read any general questions, comments, or complaints.