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Hello Followers.\u00a0 Hope you are doing great.<\/p>\n
Tonight our young Cougars take on the three time defending conference champions\u2014and on the road no less.\u00a0 And while this game represents a near certain \u201cmust win\u201d for our bowl hopes, this one is equally critical for the Cardinal.\u00a0 Simply put, with a loss tonight, Stanford will fall to 3-3 on the year and 1-2 in league.\u00a0 Not good.<\/p>\n
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Moreover, with a loss tonight, Stanford will fall to 6-5 in their last eleven, which is hardly the type of record one would expect from an elite program.<\/p>\n
Of course, one of the reasons for Stanford\u2019s recent fall from grace involves the play of their quarterback, Kevin Hogan.\u00a0 Two years ago, Hogan took the job from Josh Nunes who lost his job following a lackluster 24-17 victory over the Cougs in 2012.\u00a0 \u00a0Following that game, the Trees took off.<\/p>\n
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And the reason for their ascension was as follows:\u00a0 (1) Hogan could run the ball.\u00a0 (2) Hogan could throw the deep ball.\u00a0 (3)\u00a0 Hogan did not turn the ball over.<\/p>\n
And, as well all know from watching the World Champion Seahawks, mobile quarterbacks who can manage the game, hand the ball off to an effective running game, and stretch the field vertically through the passing game have the potential to become, well, champions.<\/p>\n
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Notwithstanding the merits of Hogan\u2019s game, the tables started to turn on him and the Cardinal just a bit during last year\u2019s game with the Utah Utes.\u00a0 In that game, Whittingham\u2019s Utes advanced the blue print on how to beat the Cardinal:\u00a0 Stack the box but play the corners deep.\u00a0 The idea:\u00a0 Try to make Hogan beat you with his arm in the mid-range passing game.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for the Trees, Hogan has since shown a great deal of difficulty beating teams that are able to successfully implement that strategy (e.g., stop the run and not get beat over the top).\u00a0 And the reason for that is two fold.\u00a0 First, he\u2019s not that accurate.\u00a0 Second: For the past two years, Stanford has not gained much production from the Tight End position.\u00a0 So, as we look forward to tonight\u2019s game, the primary keys to the game will be as follows:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Can we stop the run?<\/strong><\/p>\n 2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Can we avoid getting beat deep in the passing game?<\/strong><\/p>\n 3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Can we mount enough pressure and coverage to exploit Hogan\u2019s weaknesses in the mid-range passing game?<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, in response to those three keys, a few words about our defense.<\/p>\n First and foremost, the CAL team that we faced last week was much better offensively than many of us recognized.\u00a0 And the reason for that was not only the speed, depth, and skill they demonstrated at the Wide Receiver position, but also the exceptional play of their young star quarterback, Jared Goff.<\/p>\n But, in addition to Goff, the other key factor of the game concerns our play at Safety. Simply put, our entire defensive backfield looks one way when Hameed is in the game (pretty good) and another when he is not (pretty bad).<\/p>\n The other key factor about our defensive play concerns the setting in which the game as played.\u00a0 Meaning:\u00a0 Our defense tends to play one way at home (bad) and another way on the road (pretty good).\u00a0 Want proof?\u00a0 Well, over the past two seasons of conference play, do you want to wager a guess about the average number of points we allow at home versus games on the road?<\/p>\n (Drum Roll Please).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The answer:\u00a0 We\u2019ve allowed 49.5 points a game<\/strong> at home (in conference) over the past two seasons.\u00a0 In contrast, we\u2019ve yielded an average of only 28.2 points per game (in conference) on the road<\/strong>.\u00a0 And if you want to take the high (Oregon in 2013) and the low scores out of that\u00a0analysis\u00a0(USC in 2013), we’ve yielded an average of an even 25.0 points per game in conference road games.<\/p>\n (That means we’ve given up nearly twice as many points per game in conference home games than we have on the road!)<\/p>\n So, although it\u2019s really tempting to think about last week\u2019s game and imagine a total horror show, the fact of the matter is that there\u2019s good reason to believe that our defense will hold its own tonight.\u00a0 But to do that, we\u2019re going to have to play nasty up front and we\u2019re going to have to get really solid and physical play from our back-up defensive lineman (who will need to play to keep our starters fresh for the second half).<\/p>\n And then we\u2019re going to have to get exceptional play from whatever linebacker or safety that is assigned to Devon Cajuste\u2014who represents the best and biggest life-raft for Stanford\u2019s struggling mid-range passing game.<\/p>\n +++++<\/p>\n And then we get to our offense.\u00a0 A unit which has been unstoppable by any team not wearing black and white stripes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But tonight, our record setting quarterback will face a team that has the longest active\u00a0streak in holding the opposition under 30 points.\u00a0 And if that wasn\u2019t enough, consider that the Cardinal have only allowed 43 points in the entire season! (As a comparison, we allowed 47 in the second half to CAL).<\/p>\n So, it stands to reason that points are going to be difficult to come by for most of the game tonight.<\/p>\n Now, to the Keys to the Game (Offensively)<\/p>\n In order to win the game tonight, we\u2019re going to have to get plus yardage on first down.\u00a0 So, even thought I recognize how and why the fly sweep is important for spreading the field (Okay, maybe I don\u2019t) tonight might be a good night to put that play to bed.\u00a0 Instead, we\u2019re going to need to hit them with a heavy dose of quick slants and bubble screens.\u00a0 And when we do that, we need to:<\/p>\n Stanford is going to press our WRs all night tonight and are going to send safeties and linebackers to the outside to try to crush our WRs as soon as they touch the ball (BTW: Stanford leads the country in fewest amount of yards after the catch).\u00a0 So, if our short passing game is going to work, our WRs are going to have to have violent hands and they are going to have to do a great job blocking for each other without penalty.<\/p>\n Toward this end, Ricky Galvin was a real game changer in the Utah game with his blocking on the outside.\u00a0 With RG5 injured, Robert Lewis and Calvin Green are going to have to take their games to an entirely different level.<\/p>\n By now, we all know that our kicking game stinks.\u00a0 But beyond that, when we get in the red zone, we simply cannot settle for field goals\u2014we\u2019ll need to go for it all the time. \u00a0\u00a0Think about it this way, if we\u2019re successful in scoring a touchdown one out of every two times in the redzone, that yields more points that being successful twice in scoring field goals.\u00a0 So don\u2019t kick it\u2014at least not until the end of the game!<\/p>\n To date, Stanford has fed off of creating turnovers deep inside their opponent’s territory.\u00a0 So, if Connor or one of our own playmakers is going to turn the ball over tonight, it would be nice to do so inside their 40 yard line.\u00a0 To this point, while losing points is never a good recipe for winning football, it\u2019s much more problematic to give Stanford easy opportunities to score.\u00a0 We want and need them to press tonight.<\/p>\n While getting off to a quick start would be nice , what\u2019s most important is to recognize that if Stanford gets ahead, their M.O. is take the air out of the ball.\u00a0 Meaning: That while Stanford may be really hard to score against, they are also the type of team that you can come back against because their offense often has a hard time scoring. So, if we get down in this one, we cannot panic.\u00a0 Truly, this game is all about \u201cdo your job,\u201d \u201cone play at a time,\u201d etc., etc. and so forth.<\/p>\n Over-Unders<\/strong><\/p>\n Followers, tonight\u2019s game against Stanford, together with the game against Arizona (which comes off a bye week) are going to be the most difficult games to call this season.\u00a0 Moreover, because this game is so critical to our bowl hopes, it\u2019s hard to keep my emotions at bay when coming up with my pick.<\/p>\n But, at the end of the day, I have to trust my eyes and believe that past is prologue.\u00a0\u00a0 Meaning, this team plays much better defense on the road than it does at home; while the offense now has confidence that it can mount game winning drives when it needs to.<\/p>\n So, we\u2019re going to call this one 28-24 Cougs<\/strong>.\u00a0 And we\u2019ll all head to the bye week with our bowl hopes very alive.<\/p>\n Enjoy the game folks–what a great opportunity for our program and our exciting offense!<\/p>\n All for now.\u00a0 Go Cougs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello Followers.\u00a0 Hope you are doing great. Tonight our young Cougars take on the three time defending conference champions\u2014and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":43325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[271814401],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Hogan's](\"http:\/\/cdn3.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_image\/image\/39835620\/20140920_jla_an2_815.jpg.0_standard_730.0.jpg\")
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