The Stanford Cardinal lost to the USC Trojans Saturday night 42-24 snapping the Cardinal’s three game winning streak against the Trojans. Stanford was held to just 170 rushing yards as a team. 75 of those 170 came on one touchdown run from Bryce Love. Outside of that run Stanford rushed for fewer than 100 yards for the game. The Trojans gained over 600 total yards in the game a whopping 307 of which were rushing yards. The Trojans also won the time of possession battle 34:35 to Stanford 25:25.
Stanford could not run the ball well, did not dominate the time of possession and could not stop the run and the Cardinal only had one sack. All of the things Stanford wants to do well in order to find success they did not do.
The first quarter offense did well to stay balanced, great push from the O line on the run plays and Love did what Love does springing a 75 yard run for a TD. Defensively, corner play started off sloppy, Darnold, although under pressure, kept his composure orchestrating touchdowns on the ground and in the air.
As the first half rolled on, Stanford demonstrated more balanced play, Chryst distributed the ball well especially to the backs and tight ends. The offensive line had trouble keeping the SC defense’s hands down, batting a couple balls. SC opened up the Stanford DB’s as Burnett and Mitchell made big catches from Darnold.
In the last half the USC offense continued dominating time of possession. The defense couldn’t stop the run and although winning the turnover battle, Stanford couldn’t respond to enough of the SC touchdowns to find their way back into the game.
My take: I would have loved to see Chryst send quick short passes, targeting mostly our tight ends - Smith and especially Schultz have proven they have more-than reliable hands, they should be getting more than two receptions a game. Our secondary NEEDS to step it up. Burnett and Mitchell cut our DB’s apart, I’m happy we have the SDSU game to figure things out before UCLA.
My Players of the game: Love with 160 yards on 17 carries and Phillips on defense with 11 tackles, 5 solo.
NEXT GAME: Stanford @ San Diego State, Saturday 9/16 @ 8:30pst CBS Sports.
Comments
We need to develop our QB play
No more of this game manager nonsense. I understand the philosophy of establishing the run game and OLine dominance (nowhere to be found today), but we must become less predictable with the play calling. For example, I totally wanted us to throw that TD when we lined up in jumbo formation—and CONVERTED. Chryst seems like a fine QB if he’s allowed to flourish, and I wish Coach Shaw recognized that. We had an excellent drive with more passes than rushes. Until we regain our footing in the passing game, this is a middling team at best. Not even going to get started on the defensive front…
By reportcard on 09.10.17 12:02am
Concerned about the rest of the season
Losing to a very good USC team that played lights out in their own stadium is not the worst part of yesterday’s outcome. But the way we lost exposed team weaknesses and bad habits that will likely haunt us the rest of the season.
1) The O-line was supposed to be a formidable power this year, especially with the two freshmen (Little and Sarrell) working into the rotation. This unit was nothing of the sort yesterday; and recent history has shown that a sub-par O-line is poison for Stanford’s offensive strategy, which is and remains run-first.
2) And that run-first offense produced 170 yards on the ground yesterday. Take out Bryce Love’s 75-yard ramble, and you are looking at a sub-100-yard effort.
3) Stanford’s defense was touted as elite, one of the best squads in recent years; but the defensive front was shredded to the tune of 307 rushing yards. And the pass rush was abysmal. Whatever happened to "party-in-the-backfield"? The entire TOP philosophy only works if you can get the opposing offense off the field; but this defense was totally outmanned.
4) Creativity on offense was negligible. The plain vanilla running game should have been varied; but bad habits prevailed again when the running game stalled.
USC fans and pundits were the first to note that the Trojans "outStanforded" Stanford. Yes, they beat us at our own game AND added offensive creativity into the mix. In the meantime, most of the conference has figured out what we do. There are reels of film on the vaunted Stanford system; and we are not taking anybody by surprise anymore. Leach and Peterson successfully shut down our offense last year and shredded our defense with an effective passing game supported by the run. Colorado showed little offense themselves last year, but they sure shut down the Cardinal offense (that infamous 10-5 baseball score). UCLA almost did the same: some late game heroics secured the Stanford win. Now a retooled USC squad has beaten us at our own game and did so convincingly.
Looking ahead, I am very concerned about the rest of our schedule. A weak Cardinal defense means we will give up points; and this, in turn, means we will have to ratchet up our offensive productivity. But given the current state of our O-line and the lack of offensive creativity, how are we going to keep pace with opponents that have substantial offensive firepower. How do we put up enough points to keep pace with the Huskies, the Cougars and the Ducks (all north foes we have to beat in order to have a chance at the north title). UCLA and Rosen are likely to light up the scoreboard. And then there’s Utah, which is the only Pac-12 team we have never beaten: they are the one team that figured out how to beat us at our own game early on. And their coach is still Kyle Whittingham. The conference is much improved this year. Both Oregon and Cal have new coaches that appear to be shoring up their respective programs. Shaw and his staff need to address these weaknesses and become a whole lot less predictable going forward. Unfortunately, some of the weaknesses are personnel-related and can only be fixed with recruiting (how did we let our once-legendary front-seven get so threadbare?). Yes, Stanford lost to a better team yesterday. No shame in that. But the way we lost and the weaknesses that were highlighted could make this a very tough year. We could find ourselves going 7-5 or even worse. Our last 7-5 regular season record was in 2014: in that year, we struggled to put up points, but we at least had an excellent defense. And 2017? Where are we excellent? There are three more years of film on the team since that 2014 season; McCaffrey and Thomas are gone; and the rest of the conference has not been sleeping.
By Jeff Tarnungus on 09.10.17 1:53am
Quoting dennis green: "They were who we thought they were", i.e. excluding week1 overreactions
USC has the components of a pac-12 champion & playoff team (not national championship caliber yet because of their DL). Disappointed with the blowout nature of the loss but in the bigger picture this will not be a bad loss at season’s end.
Scoreboard aside lots of positives to highlight:
Things to improve (rosy term for negatives):
We have some elite playmakers on offense to be a 10-2 team and maybe a north championship but the defense especially the DL caps the full potential to a 9-3/8-4 season. Just hope body blow theory doesn’t haunt us next week against a good SDSU team that runs pretty well with a dynamic RB.
By layman on 09.10.17 1:56am
O line problem
Bringing back AT Hall will help with offensive line.
As for d line, it will be a problem all year.
By charliefoy on 09.10.17 7:20am
Ya he played in portions when the offense was humming in both halves
AT has definitely gotten better with his hands but his feet still break down a lot in pass protection
By layman on 09.10.17 6:52pm
D-Line
With respect to rushing defense, you stated in another article that you would not go through the trouble to find out whether the 306 rushing yards given up in the USC game constitute a record in the Shaw/Harbaugh era. Well, I went through the trouble and have noted the highest rushing yards amassed by an opposing team in each year:
2007 Washington 388
2008 Oregon 307
2009 Wake Forest 251
2010 Oregon 388
2011 Oregon 232
2012 UCLA 284
2013 Army 284
2014 Oregon 267
2015 Notre Dame 299
2016 Colorado 241
So, yes, the USC game marks the first time in the Shaw era (2011 to present) that a team has rushed for more than 300 yards. But in Harbaugh’s four years, it happened a number of times (four in total). But Harbaugh first needed to establish the tough defense that became our subsequent calling card. More telling than game highs like this are the averages. And there is a clear trend here that is disturbing. The list below shows the average rushing yards per game given up during the season.
2007 169.3
2008 152.9
2009 137.9
2010 120.85
2011 84.3
2012 97
2013 89.7
2014 104.5
2015 139.3
2016 145.7
Anybody see a trend? It would tempting to conclude that Shaw’s first seasons were still benefiting from Harbaugh’s defensive system and that the D-line has been softening ever since. I can expand this to include total offense to determine whether a similar trend is observable; but the run defense is clearly declining. This year has only a sample of two games, but Rice managed more rushing yards (147) than the average of all last year. The front seven is visibly softening; and that is a huge threat to our identity and the prevailing system.
By Jeff Tarnungus on 09.11.17 8:26am
Pre-randy Hart and post-randy Hart (2010-2015)
History will be more appreciative of how good that defensive line of Ben Gardner, Henry Anderson, Josh Mauro were and how the experience of losing to Oregon galvanized our LB core of skov, tarpley, chase Thomas and Trent Murphy to 2 back-to-back pac-12 championships.
By layman on 09.11.17 9:57am
There is indeed a correlation, though 2014 and 2015 were already showing some softening.
Maybe he finally retired when he saw that he couldn’t recruit the caliber of defensive lineman he needed. Then again, 67 is not a young retirement age.
This trend is very scary, since a high-performing DL is foundational to the Harbaugh/Shaw philosophy. If Shaw and his staff do not reverse this slide, the best years of this program may be behind us.
By Jeff Tarnungus on 09.11.17 11:04am
Despite Academic Challenges, We Seem To Recruit Just Fine
..at most positions, at least as measured by recruiting rankings (we have ranked between #15 and #24 the past three years). There is no reason to think that recruiting is the problem – unless you believe that you have to recruit in the top 5 in the country to truly compete for the national championship, which may well be true to some degree. We also have developed a series of 3 Star recruits into stars, and THAT is an important consideration for Stanford. Picking the right 3 Stars that fit our system can work.
Player development is something that goes on below the level of David Shaw, and it may well be that we don’t have the talent there that we used to (they get head coaching jobs elsewhere sometimes, for example). Certainly I have been very disappointed in our QB development. With the 5 Stars that we get at that position and a redshirt year, there should be no excuse for these players not taking the field and being fully ready to play in their second or third year on the Farm. We had a nice pick up in a RB coach this year. Now let’s go get a real QB coach. I am not smart enough to know whether it is talent, depth or coaching that is hitting our front 7 defensively, but it needs to be addressed. The run yardage trend posted by Jeff is scary. It is hard to play a bend but don’t break defense against the run – but that is what we appear to be trying to do.
By hoyaparanoia on 09.11.17 11:53am
Chryst is doing just fine
Not many 5* QBs pan out. Just ask jacob Eason or max Browne or Blake Barnett or even Josh Rosen. Football is a team sport where wins and losses don’t solely fall on the QB.
Chryst played really well when his protection didn’t break down, had perfect timing on his back shoulder throws and even raw arm strength in the Pocket. The program got spoiled by Andrew luck and got lucky with Hogan who had a thick skin for criticism. I am still not happy with the staring down but it took Hogan 5 years and still he barely corrected going 40+ wins (with a different QB coach too)
By layman on 09.11.17 6:50pm
Agree That Chryst Is Doing Just Fine
in the Stanford system. Some of his throws were superb on Saturday and he did feel the pressure all day. Even with all of the tips, his stats show a normal Stanford game manager QB day – 15/28 for 172 yards. I think he is capable of much more, but is limited by game plan and playcalling options – plus his offensive line. Plus he only got on the field halfway through last year – again, not his fault.
Who was Hogan’s QB coach? Not Tavita? Hogan is actually sticking in the NFL these days.
By hoyaparanoia on 09.12.17 7:48am
Even there they haven't solved the wind up
The game manager QB’s yards are really different than air raid QBs. Chryst’s yards are all on critical 2nd and long and 3rd downs beyond short. His completion% will be around 50 because of the number of deep shots and intermediate throws than swing passes or bubbles.
Btw darnold has a pretty big wind too. But his ability to move defenders with his eye and make anticipatory throws to spots on the run makes him hard to defend. I really thought this is the game to go all-man and just jam the receivers for tight windows. Alas front 7 broke down badly
By layman on 09.12.17 10:09am
DL needs a Solomon Thomas effect ala Richard sherman
First of all Solly was a dominant force who could have really made us a playoff team had he stayed (made the smart move getting the money before any career ending injury).
But I am really rooting for him to dominant enough in the NFL to lure those high 4* DL talent to consider Stanford, like how this secondary benefitted from Richard sherman. Just 1 good DL is worth 2 defenders on the Field since the offense has to account for him with a lot of double teams
By layman on 09.11.17 6:55pm
Anyone hear about the status of Love, Harry, & Meeks?
By treetogo on 09.10.17 5:12am
Love not being used properly
This kinda ties into the creativity thing, but Love is more than just a running back. Last year, he was used as a pass threat on screens and even routes. Didn’t he even return kicks occasionally? Loves an elite player, and Shaw needs to start using him like McCaffrey more.
By charliefoy on 09.10.17 7:16am
It looked to me like Shaw conceded the game
As I said in the game thread, once USC got going, Stanford really didn’t show anything on offense or defense to adjust. I think USC is the better team in terms of talent and perhaps Shaw thought Stanford’s only chance to get a Pac-12 title would be to hold everything back for a title game. Of course, Stanford has a long road to even get there so this may be reading too much into it. Shaw often seems to start the season with amnesia for anything that has worked in the past other than a very basic run-first offense and vanilla defense.
By worldblee on 09.10.17 8:42am