#How To Watch Stanford vs Washington State Live Free>>> https://streamnfl.club/ncaaf/

By noboyi on 11.16.19 1:51pm

This is unbearable.

By drkato9 on 11.16.19 2:32pm

As Predicted

Not enough Stanford first downs to sustain any drives. Fall behind early to WSU.

19 – 0 early in the second quarter.

Game over.

By hoyaparanoia on 11.16.19 2:33pm

How not to play defense, by Stanford

Don’t rush and don’t cover, either.

By worldblee on 11.16.19 2:46pm

Huh?

Are you guys doubting Davis "Ice Man" Mills? I know it’s tempting but dont do it….
#wereGood #GoCardinal!

By Slot_Man22 on 11.16.19 2:47pm

I Think Mills Is An Exceptional QB

He throws a beautiful catchable ball. Gets his receivers involved. But hard to play catch-up.

By hoyaparanoia on 11.16.19 2:55pm

Program is broken

And hurting. Sad to see. Incrementalism doesn’t seem to be the way out. Coach Shaw doesn’t seem to be a turn around kind of coach despite his other successes and knowledge of the game.

By DCCARDINAL on 11.16.19 2:49pm

Dude...

We’re about to blow Washington away!! #wakeUP

By Slot_Man22 on 11.16.19 2:55pm

Wedington and Fehoko are the only reasons to keep watching this game

By worldblee on 11.16.19 2:54pm

Maybe If Mills Calls All His Own Plays

We might have a chance………….

By hoyaparanoia on 11.16.19 2:57pm

LOL

Yeah…Shaw’s play-calling is a bit too conservative and it’s obvious

By Slot_Man22 on 11.16.19 3:00pm

Mills Hits Receivers (Wilson, Weddington, Fehuku)

That Costello can’t. Ball placement and air under the ball.

By hoyaparanoia on 11.16.19 3:05pm

Yep

By Slot_Man22 on 11.16.19 3:07pm

WakeUP you "so-called" Cardinal fans!!

We have a young team and a Super Star QB who has managed to convert on not one but 2 third and longs…… Let’s go Cardinal!!!

By Slot_Man22 on 11.16.19 3:03pm

Gimpy kicker and 3 yards for a first down?

Have to go for it! Any chance to keep the ball about from WSU is worth the risk.

By worldblee on 11.16.19 3:54pm

Mills is so much better over the top than KJ is

KJ’s throws tend to be low and erratic whereas Mills gives the receiver every chance to catch the ball.

By worldblee on 11.16.19 4:05pm

After pulling to within 3, Stanford has lost any semblance of being competitive

WSU just went ahead by 4 scores. It has been so UGLY on defense. Cougar drives have ended TD, TD, TD, INT, FG, FG, TD, FG, TD, TD.

By g8tgod on 11.16.19 4:55pm

This game

Is reminiscent of the game early on against USC. no defense ;(

By Slot_Man22 on 11.16.19 5:01pm

We are now, officially, the Stanford of old

Talented QB, no defense, losing season, no bowl game.

Congratulations, David Shaw. You have returned Stanford to its former unglory. Remember that Elway never played in a bowl game.

By Jeff Tarnungus on 11.16.19 5:18pm

Its definitely the trend

As you pointed out yourself, the trend really started back in 2015, which was the first year where we had a big defensive drop-off. It was masked that year by McCaffrey’s fantastic season and our 5th year QB having a great year as well — but the defensive deterioration was already in full swing and has never really picked up since then — that’s now five seasons. So it’s definitely a trend for the program now — we haven’t been a solid defensive team for long enough that players are graduating from the program this year who have never played on a great defensive team.

Without the solid defense, the entire system of Harbaugh/Shaw-ball falls apart. The system was never designed to have a flashy, high-octane offensive team (despite what we got in 2015 … that was a bit of an outlier because we had McCaffrey at his collegiate peak that year). The reason for that it is that it is just extremely hard to recruit the kind of weapons to compete at that kind of football given our recruiting constraints. It’s a sound approach, in theory, but in order for it to execute, you need to recruit the lunch-pail players on OL and defense, and then you need to develop them. That is what Harbaugh did. It was still happening in early Shaw, too, although there was a "hangover" in the first few years of Shaw’s tenure where he was working with some of Harbaugh’s recruits and still had coaches Harbaugh had recruited, too.

Once that began to work its way through the system things began to unravel. That is, the further we got away from 2011, the more the program deteriorated. Again, it was masked because we still had great success — 2012, 2013. Remember, though, that the key defensive pieces on those teams were all Harbaugh recruits — Thomas, Skov, Gardner, Parry, Anderson, etc. — who had also been developed by Harbaugh-recruited coaching. 2014 was kind of a transition year — the defense was quite good, but the offense wasn’t consistent enough. But by the time we got to 2015, the team could no longer depend on its defense to keep the other team’s possessions short, and give the ball back to our ball-control oriented, keep-away offense (which had been our offense prior to 2015). So we found great success in 2015 because we had the player who ought to have won the Heisman and we had Hogan playing extremely well — but the entire blueprint was already busted in 2015. Both the offense and the defense were "off script". We couldn’t sustain that kind of offensive production with our recruiting approach, and the defense was also "off-script" in terms of our strategy for team building and emphasis.

Since 2016 we have indeed been reverting to Stanford’s pre-Harbaugh pattern. Have a good to great QB. Have 1-2 offensive weapons that are good for some highlights and a few wins. Have a porous OL and an unreliable defense. Win between 4 and 6 games. Now it has taken a while for it to hit the level of this season, because the quality of recruits, in terms of the questionable star rating, has been high. But either the ratings are not right, or we are not developing the recruits, or, likely, both. As we have all discussed here before, it points towards the assistant coaches, but also it has to point towards Shaw himself. Shaw has watched this happen, he has seen the deterioration himself. His lack of attention to this has led us to where we are. Shaw now has the challenge to see past his own earlier success and try to overcome his more recent lack thereof — which will require some humility and some boldness at the same time. We will see if he has enough of both to do what’s required to get things back on track, or if we truly do settle back into the "standard Stanford pattern" that the entire rest of the league has been expecting for several seasons now.

By Brendan Ross on 11.17.19 8:16am

Great post, Brendan

Perfect summary of the last nine seasons and how the program has slowly, but inexorably drifted downward.

You hit on an important point, which was the catalyst of the turnaround back in 2008-2009: taking 3-star players (lunch-pail types) and turning them into 4-star winners. Shayne Skov is always my favorite example, even though he was actually a 4-star recruit. But this was a guy who became an absolute terror on the defensive side of the ball and could disrupt, pursue and hunt down QBs and ball carriers across the line. He tried (and failed) to make it in the NFL because he just didn’t have the size and the speed, but he was one terrific college football player. I remain convinced that we are still recruiting players who could be the next Skov, but we aren’t developing them. And that’s where I am skeptical about whether Shaw can turn the program around and create the toughness, grit and winning spirit that sparked the first "Revenge of the Nerds" era. He has lost his best coaching staff (the ones who were holdovers from Harbaugh’s staff), has created a comfortable family atmosphere in the program and appears to lack the same kind of killer instinct Harbaugh possessed. Toughness, grit and a hyper-competitive spirit do not issue from these ingredients. Shaw will only turn the program around if he hires some top assistants who have the personality profile, drive and pushiness that he appears to lack. When you are a cerebral, even-keel kind of guy in this sport, you need some pit-bulls on your staff to make things happen and coach up the players. So far, Shaw’s staff selections have been people very much like himself, part of the Stanford family, not terribly disruptive with innovation or new ideas, just all very steady-state. That is not going to produce a winning program.

By Jeff Tarnungus on 11.17.19 9:54am

Nothing To Add

Thank you Jeff and Brendan. Reversion to mean is upon us……………..

By hoyaparanoia on 11.17.19 1:54pm

God I feared the worst and somehow it's even lower

Shortchanged on DBs, this was never going to be a win. But that was atrocious defense. I think carberry can get a pass, but need serious shakeup on defensive coaching staff. Start with the best DL coach, an old school guy, reestablish that line of scrimmage. It’s just can’t rush can’t cover right now.

By the way mills is awesome. Kudos for the fight he showed. Just as I feared, even his record setting performance doesn’t mean much because of some poor play calling and time management. I mean what was that end of half sequence?

I hope we lose the axe next week and see the necessary changes we need. Light a fire under Shaw

By layman on 11.16.19 8:22pm