1. Perspective

Stanford saved its best for last. That was pretty close to a perfect game. Of course, there have been more dominant victories in the past few years, but no 21-point victories on the road against top-10 teams. It was a complete game, and it was the 7^th consecutive win over UCLA, who was still in the running for making the Playoff. UCLA has never suffered a longer run of defeats against a single opponent in the history of its program.

There’s a guy who sits a few rows behind us at home games who usually wears a shirt that says, “All three phases!” He must have been very pleased with Stanford’s performance.

2. Hogan

Hogan played the best game of his career. He turned water into ice and sunshine into touchdowns. He completed 16 of 19 passes for 234 yards and had 7 runs for 46 yards. Hogan’s three incompletions were all nicely thrown balls that hit the hands of his receivers. My favorite of all of his passes was a deep ball to Rector in the 2^nd quarter. This pass was perfect. Unfortunately, Rector only put one hand out to catch it when he could have grabbed it with both. Hogan was so good throwing the deep ball last year, but has been inconsistent at best this year. In this game, every pass he threw was either perfect or good enough. And he took zero sacks and threw zero interceptions. (Stanford had zero turnovers for the first time all season.) Hogan had an almost flawless game. His ESPN adjusted QBR for the game was higher than any of Marcus Mariota’s game QBRs all season. When Hogan plays like that, Stanford can keep pace with anyone in the country.

3. Was Ty Montgomery a Cardinal (Red) Herring?

I knew that Owusu, Trojan, and others would easily fill in for Montgomery. But why has our passing offense been so successful these past two games? Could our offense be better without Montgomery? As crazy as it sounds, I think it is possible. Unlikely, but possible. Perhaps Hogan (and the play-calling) targeted Montgomery too much, especially when he was double covered. Many crucial sacks and interceptions resulted from Hogan staring down a covered Montgomery. I don’t really buy into this theory, but I don’t see a clear way of disproving it either. More likely, though, the offense line is just playing better in the past two games. There has been more balance to open up the pass, and Hogan has had more time to throw. And against UCLA, Hogan just played like up to his capability.

4. Defense

I haven’t written much about the defense this year. Since they have been so consistent, it is less interesting to write about them. The Stanford defense finished the season ranked 5^th in total defense (287 yards/game) and 2^nd in scoring defense (16 points/game). You could make an argument that the Stanford defense is the best in the country. However, Stanford ranks 100^th in turnovers gained, an important defensive measure. So I wouldn’t say that we have the best defense in the country, but certainly one of the best. Remember, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year on defense. We lost some great players and our defensive coordinator, Derek Mason. Current defensive coordinate Lance Anderson and the seniors who provide leadership deserve a ton of credit. We lose a lot of talent again after this year, but it looks like the system is in place to produce powerful defenses.

5. Coaching

I have really enjoyed watching Shaw let Hogan pick up key yardage with his legs. On a crucial 3^rd and 3 in the first quarter, Hogan faked a handoff to McCaffrey and then ran right for the first down. Hogan has good instincts for finding a seam that will allow him a few yards. The play also adds an extra blocker, since McCaffrey peeled off and blocked the weak-side pursuer. Hogan’s 7 carries for 46 yards included five designed running plays.

I’ve gotten a good laugh at coaches trying fake plays against us. Haven’t they seen film? Don’t they know that our guys are always playing the fake? I like Mora’s decision to try to pick up the first down on 4^th and 5 from the Stanford 30 while trailing 28-10 late in the 3^rd quarter, but you only needed 5 yards! Do you really have a greater chance of getting 5 yards with a fake field goal rather than a well-designed offensive play?

6. Up Next: Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl? Foster Farms Bowl?

Jon Wilner of the Mercury News thinks that Stanford will be chosen—ahead of Pac-12 teams with better records—by the Foster Farms Bowl (Dec 30^th), which is the Bay Area bowl game, now played at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara. If this is true, Stanford would face an opponent from a power conference, the Big-10. Unfortunately, it would probably be a team like Rutgers. Still, we should be rooting for this option, since the alternative is playing a Mountain West team (most likely Colorado State) in the Royal Purple Bowl in Las Vegas.

7. The top-4 of the Playoff Rankings

Mississippi State drops out of the running, but the rest of the hierarchy of admission to the four-team Playoff remains the same:

1. Alabama (SEC Champion)
2. Oregon (PAC-12 Champion)
3. Florida State (ACC Champion)
4. Baylor or TCU (Big-12 Champion)

TCU has no chance of losing to Iowa State, so if Baylor loses to Kansas State, TCU will take one of the Playoff spots. I don’t think the committee should take both Baylor and TCU. Both teams lack big-nonconference wins, and the Big-12 as a whole lacks big non-conference victories. Assuming Minnesota falls out of the top-25, which it obviously should, then the Big-12 has exactly zero nonconference victories against the top-25. It also lacks a championship game. For these reasons, there is no way that both Baylor and TCU should make the Playoff. So, the Big-12 is guaranteed one of the three spots, and there are up to three spots available if Alabama, Oregon, and/or Florida State lose.

If any of those three do lose, then the committee is going to face controversy—serious drama and outrage will ensue. I just spent a half hour constructing a statistical and transitive argument for why Georgia Tech (if it beats FSU) would have a better case than Ohio State, Wisconsin, or Missouri. It wasn’t a bad argument, but then I just deleted it all. Why? There just aren’t clean arguments to be made. The fact of the matter is this: it is utterly impossible for humans to do a consistent, defensible job of ranking football teams. As I’ve noted before, there are too many variables. The only way the committee can get out of this process unscathed by justifiable criticism is if the best team from each of the best four conferences actually wins its conference championship. Amazingly, for this first season of the Playoff, this is still possible. The committee still has a chance to sneak out the selection room door and back to their much more important jobs. But if Ohio State gets in, or Arizona beats Oregon but is left out, or Missouri wins but the best conference—the SEC—is shut out of the Playoffs… oh man… grab a water gun filled with whiskey and head into the woods, my friends. It will not be pretty.

In my opinion, as long as we are stuck with a four team Playoff, the only reasonable selection method is to have a committee meet with a bunch of programmers and statisticians and devise an algorithm that ranks the teams according to desired criteria. Then, make the formula public knowledge. That is the only reasonable way to do it. Would it take the fun and human-drama out of it? I don’t think so. In fact, I would get even more giddy each week to watch the rankings show on ESPN if I knew that it was coming from an objective and unbiased source. Instead, judgments come from a room of mostly (white) men trying to sound sage and making decisions involving a lot of power and money—a perfectly American phenomenon, I suppose. Just like football.