Coach Shaw is a class act. Tough loss, but handled with grace.

Coach Shaw - love him - but he need to take more responsibility for these bad losses. He could start by realizing that he is the HEAD Coach - he is the star, he is point man, he is the reason why recruits will come to play at Stanford -- but he has got to trust his staff. Let your offensive coordinator call the plays the whole 100 yards, not 80. Stop taking over the play calling in the red zone. As someone pointed out in another post, Saban ain't pacing around with a playbook is he?

I am loathe to criticize a football coach, as my only tie to college football has been as a fan. But my uneasy feeling that the late-game play calling in Stanford's two losses was atrocious, has been echoed by some media sport pundits. Don't understand why the coaches seem to lose faith in the power run game late in the game. Had the Utah game been put on Gaffney's feet, instead of Hogan's hands, in the closing moments, a different result was likely. Similarly, why was Hogan throwing the ball with about 3 minutes left when the power run game could have advanced the ball, or at least run out the clock for overtime ?

This USC game was a team loss, players and coaches, particularly on the offensive side. The Utah loss was more about slumps on both sides of the ball. Against USC, Hogan shouldn't have been allowed to try to carry the team in the 4th Quarter; he'd actually been quite good for the first 3 quarters but the ground game with Gaffney was solid. There's something missing to a "run-first" offense that doesn't believe in a "run-last" effort, especially when the run game is working. Surmise: "run-first" has merely been a gamesmanship facade. Further surmise: Sometimes, going away from a strength is the best way to expose weaknesses. Coach Shaw overthinks his gamesmanship.

USC follower here. I saw the above comments that Shaw abandoned the run, so I looked at the play by play. The run stopped working, so Shaw went to the pass. That last Stanford drive followed a three and out--three failed rushing plays. USC was keying against the run, as common sense would dictate when Stanford needed to score. Hogan had to get it done, and he started OK, then got pressured and made a mistake, and didn't throw it far enough out of bounds.

USC couldn't run AT ALL in the second half. USC stupidly ignored Stanford's adjustments, and kept trying to repeat the first half, instead of more 1st down play-action passes and/or assorted other plays against its own first-half tendencies. Kessler was so unnerved by the failed run game and couple of hard rushes that he missed a bunch of passes even when he had time. Plus he fumbled on one of those hard rushes.

I give credit to Shaw for changing gears faster than USC did, when he saw that the run game was over for the day.


Both teams have top 10 opponent-adjusted defenses on footballoutsiders.com. The strength of both defenses is the front seven. Neither offense was going to be able to push ahead with same old same old, i.e., running the football. The respective defenses weren't having it and the outcome was handed over to the respective QBs.

Hogan had to step up and didn't. Throw it out of bounds on 2nd down, and Stanford would likely have won.

Kessler didn't step up either, until the very last possession. But then he did. And that was the game.

If Pat Haden, USC's athletic director were granted one wish, he would hire David Shaw. USC is actually a top 25 university, but it's not Stanford. USC admits a lot of athletes that Stanford won't admit. It recruited about 55 4-star and 5-star players in the last five years; Stanford recruited about 25. Imagine Shaw coaching USC's skill players and overall speed. If USC had Shaw, it would be all over for the rest of the Pac-12.

Count your blessings; in Shaw, you have first prize.