1. Perspective 

Stanford is 13-0 in its last 13 games following a loss. The road has been windy recently, but at least we’ve steered clear of disaster. There’s no need to borrow a towel—our car hasn’t hit a water buffalo.

2. Defense

The defense continues to impress, so much so that I didn’t even spend the time watching the tape of the defensive series. With our offense struggling so much, I only watched offensive tape of this past game. The statistics tell you all you need to know about how good our defense is playing. The first team defense held Oregon State to 133 total yards through the first three and a half quarters. Amazing stuff.

The defense’s steak of 31 games of holding opponents to 30 points or fewer will be tested at Eugene this week.

3. Offense and Play-Calling

After the Arizona State game, Shaw finally accepted some blame for not calling plays to fit his current personnel strengths. He said flatly, “I’ve done a poor job of structuring our offense so that our guys can be successful. We have to use our personnel better.” Was Shaw able to back up these words with a distinctly new direction in play-calling? The short answer is: yes.

The first half play-calls were chock-full of plays such as: quick curls to tight ends, wide receiver screens to Montgomery, slants to Montgomery, curl routes to other receivers, pitches or screens to McCaffrey in the flat, and Sanders running diagonally off the tight-ends. Shaw followed through on his promise. There was a far greater percentage of plays that have been working so far this year.

Stanford didn’t run up the middle until its 10^th play of the game when Remound Wright rushed for no gain. But it was 2^nd down and 1, so it was the proper time to try this play. On the next play on 3^rd and 1, Shaw didn’t get stubborn by running straight ahead again or stupid by trying a pass. Hogan used Montgomery on a sweep as a decoy and pitched outside to McCaffrey, who easily ran for the first down. Beautiful call.

The next run up the middle was not until the 18^th play of the game. In my opinion, it was the first play-call of the game that was not perfectly dialed up by Shaw. (Shaw should be highly praised for 17 consecutive play-calls to start the game that were all, at the very least, reasonable and justifiable.) On Stanford’s 18^th play, Wright took the ball from Stanford’s own 17 on 1^st down and lost a yard by running straight up the middle. This is exactly the play Stanford needs to avoid whenever it isn’t working. And in this game, like many others this season, it wasn’t working. Still, it was only the 2^nd time in 18 plays that Shaw had called for it. We can live with that ratio.

Unfortunately, on the next play, Hogan decided to stare down Montgomery, who was triple covered on a slant. Interception. Only two plays earlier, Hogan had stared down Montgomery on a slant and thrown into double coverage for an interception. Besides the run up the middle, this is really the only other play that isn’t working well for Stanford this year: throwing to Montgomery in double and triple coverage. This one is not Shaw’s fault… it all falls on Hogan. Just because that play is called doesn’t mean Hogan shouldn’t be reading the defense for better options.

I suppose there is a third play that we’ve seen a lot this year that I don’t like: the lob pass in the corner of the end zone. It has worked a couple times, but it hasn’t worked many, many more times. At the end of the first half, the lob was unsuccessful on two consecutive plays. I think we should abandon it unless Cajuste or Taboada have single coverage and at least a 10-inch height advantage. It shouldn’t be thrown to Montgomery ever.

Shaw shut down the playbook in the 2^nd half. I don’t really have a problem with Shaw running up the gut when the game is in hand. He is trying to keep the play-book closed to game film and also challenge his offensive line to try to improve its blocking. Seems reasonable to me. I also love that Shaw was on top of calling those defensive time-outs at the end of the 1^st half. It got Stanford a scoring opportunity, but then Shaw made his first, and possibly only, strategic blunder of the game. Stanford had the ball on the OSU 9 with 16 seconds and no time-outs. Stanford tried the two lob passes mentioned earlier. Each used exactly 5 seconds of clock. With 6 seconds remaining on 3^rd down, Shaw tried a field goal. Wrong call.

First of all, the lob pass takes a lot longer to run than a slant across the middle. It is pretty simple to try to quickly target a tight end or wide receiver in the back of the end zone and have only 4 or 5 seconds of clock run off. Even if Shaw lacks the instinct to do some casual expected value estimation, the fact that each of the last two plays took five seconds should have told him something! Anyhow, let’s look at the math. If we run a quick pass play, let’s assume there is a 25% chance of a TD, 50% of an incompletion that takes five seconds or less, and 25% chance of a turnover or expired clock. (These are reasonable numbers—teams historically convert 30% on 3^rd and 9, and the Stanford rate would have been higher since its offense was dominating OSU—though lower because of the short field.) Also, Williamson is making 57% of his kicks this year.

Expected Value of Trying for TD: (chance of TD) • (TD points) + (chance of FG) • (FG points) = .25 • 7 + .50 • .57 • 3 = 2.6 points

Expected Value of 3^rd Down FG: (chance of FG) • (FG points) = .57 • 3 = 1.7 points

Obviously I don’t expect Shaw to do any of these calculations in the moment, but a familiarity with these types of calculations allows one’s instinct to recognize in a matter of seconds when one strategy is very likely more favorable than another. Just because Shaw is paid millions of dollars per year doesn’t mean that he needs to be thinking this way. It does mean, however, that he needs to delegate these decisions to another staff member who has immediate access to his ear in crunch time.

4. Up Next: Oregon (7-1)

The funny thing about Stanford’s recent decision to limit its interior running game is that the run game just might work against Oregon. Oregon is 76^th in the nation in run defense. I think Shaw will give the running game a chance to establish itself. If Sanders can somehow find some seams on the edges, and Wright can pick up four yards through the middle, then Stanford will try to make the game look similar to last year’s trench war. If Oregon stops the run, at least Shaw now has the other blueprint fully drawn-up. Because of what ASU did, I expect Oregon will stop the run. How good of a game Hogan will need to have will depend entirely on our defense.

For the first time, I’m headed up to Autzen for the game. Keep an eye out for the cape in the Stanford section. 

5. Essential Inequalities for the Inaugural Playoff Committee Rankings

There is a lot to be determined in the remaining games this season, and it is currently a really tough task to distinguish among so many teams with one and two losses. For example, I really don’t know what to make of the Big-12. TCU and Baylor look pretty good (at least offensively), but they both played such horrific nonconference schedules that it is tough to rank the Big-12 against other conferences. West Virginia, Kansas St, and Oklahoma St hung tough against Alabama, Auburn, and Florida St, but all three Big-12 teams lost. Even though those teams look competitive, the Big-12 has zero victories against top-25 teams. The bowl results from last year are mixed as well; the Big-12 had a decent but not spectacular bowl season.

The Pac-12 is also very difficult to place. UCLA beat Texas, but so has every other team with reasonably ambulatory capabilities. USC’s loss to Boston College is utterly confusing. Arizona looked mediocre in its nonconference games. Utah’s win at Michigan is looking like it is no different than going through a turnstile.

However, there are a few things that the committee must clearly get right in order for it to take its first step forward with any credibility. And there is a central theme, of course. The SEC has earned its seat at the head of the table, and the Big-10 should be taking scraps of leftover fat. Here are the essential inequalities:

• Oregon > Michigan State. Oregon 46, Michigan State 27. End of discussion. Prediction: The committee will get this one correct.

• Arizona St, Arizona, and Utah > Ohio State. Ohio State has a bad home loss, a bad OT win, and no win that is as good as the best win that each of these Pac-12 teams has. Ohh… but wait, isn’t this Ohio State? What about the history? The pageantry? The recent dominance? Phony baloney. The Buckeyes haven’t beaten a top-20 team in three years. Prediction: The committee to fail on this one because of name bias against Utah.

• Auburn, Mississippi, and Alabama > all Big-10 teams. Michigan State has only one win against the top-75, and that is against a very overrated Nebraska. Michigan State should be nowhere near the playoff discussion right now. Prediction: The committee will get this one correct.

• Auburn, Mississippi, and Alabama > all Big-12 teams. As mentioned above, the Big-12 lost its games against the better SEC teams. The Big-12 did not win a single nonconference game against a ranked opponent. Or even a nearly-ranked opponent for that matter. It went 4-6 against the other Power 5 conferences. The four wins are against three bad Big-10 teams and Tennessee. Ouch. The Big-12 will likely be left out of the Playoff. Prediction: The committee will get this one correct.

• Auburn > Mississippi > Alabama. Auburn has only lost to two teams in its past 17 games: the best team from 2013 (FSU) and the best team from 2014 (MSU). Neither Ole Miss nor Alabama played FSU last year or MSU this year. So to compare these three teams you really have to take FSU and MSU off the table. Clearly, Auburn owns the superior resume. Is Auburn better than Alabama? Personally, I don’t think so. But that doesn’t matter. They have the better resume. They beat the top team from the Big-12 (Kansas St) on the road and crushed LSU (41-7), who just beat Mississippi. And, while Alabama might be better than Ole Miss, Ole Miss beat them head-to-head. For every argument that Alabama should be ranked higher (59-0 win over Texas A&M), there is an argument that speaks otherwise (one point win against Arkansas). Prediction: The committee will fail on this one because of the name bias towards Alabama.

So who is in the current top-4? FSU, MSU, and Auburn should be locks. After that, you could make a strong case for Ole Miss, Notre Dame, or Oregon. If anyone else takes that fourth spot, the committee has failed.