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I would be the first to admit that I’m no expert. Our intrepid football team “crushed” a Rainbow Warrior team that didn’t look all that impressive. The Cardinal QB, Daniels, looks pretty decent and our TE, Yurosek, keeps up a tradition of great players at that position. Did any of you have any initial impressions? I didn’t have any expectations, and Stanford totally lived up to them.
It appears that tackling is going to be a major problem. Maybe it’s first game fine tuning? It does not appear that we will have a running back from this team that will be memorable, however that is an observation that may not age well. But the aspect of Stanford’s play that motivated me to make this entry is our pass defense.
One could be forgiven for not recognizing how inconsistent/non-existent our pass rush is, because it is so frightening to know that the opponent is going to pass, your attention is reveted downfield. A pass will absolutely succeed unless Hawaii drops the ball, which fortunately, they do that a lot.
But I may be out of touch. My understanding was that it used to be “best practices” for a defensive back, when he’s covering a receiver on a deep route, to look for the ball when he sees the receiver do so. Is that no longer the case? It seems the technique now is to stare intently at the receiver and wave one’s hands frantically. It appears that we also try to run into the receiver while we’re doing this and hope we don’t get called for an infraction. I can only imagine how loudly our defenders are yelling as they execute this textbook defensive technique. (do I need to mark this as sarcasm?).
Can anyone comfort me and confirm that my concern is merely a function of my ignorance and we will continue our reversion to the mean: occasionally having a winning record, play a fun brand of brand of football and every so often pull off a spectacular upset? At the moment I am concerned that it might be an epically frustrating season. Perhaps it’s appropriate that there is a new wave of covid unfolding.
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my summary:
- looked fundamentally sound overall
- played with enthusiasm
- Some great talent
- little depth . . . every tweaked ankle is terrifying
- I was hoping for more out of the running game
- downfield pass defense may be the scariest dimension of our team this year . . . see depth comment above for terror augmentation
Curious for JohnnyO’s take
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No pass rush = giving up 40 a game these days.
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Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work) -
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I think we’re going to get crushed by USC. They beat SJSU by 28, and they’re a 29.5 point favorite over Stanford.
Over/Under is 70. SJSU ran pretty well against USC, that gives me a sliver of hope. But I’m not feeling it. Unless Daniels has an amazing day and USC is sloppy as heck, we lose by at least four TDs.
Audaces fortuna iuvat
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