UCLA Football Preview: Has College Football Passed Stanford's David Shaw By?
UCLA Football Preview: Has College Football Passed Stanford's David Shaw By?
The Stanford coaching staff hasn't changed much at all. Could that be the reason Stanford is one of the worst teams in the Conference?
When a formerly successful coach stays in the same place for too long, it’s fair enough to start to wonder if the game hasn’t passed the coach by. After taking over Stanford during the Cardinal’s football renaissance, it’s a fair question to ask about David Shaw. The Cardinal football team is just 3-4 this season, and those three wins weren’t exactly signature wins either.
The Cardinal opened the season with a win over Colgate. Not surprisingly, Stanford won big. After losing their next four games to Southern Cal, Washington, Oregon, and Oregon State, the Cardinal went to South Bend and beat the Fighting Irish, 16-14. Last week, after falling behind 14-6 at the half, the Cardinal defense shut the Sun Devils out in the second half while adding three second half field goals to win 15-14.
So, the Cardinal’s three wins all came against bad football teams where the Stanford defense held the opponent to 14 points or less.
As far as David Shaw’s coaching staff goes, there isn’t anything new. Every member of the staff has been on the staff at least a year.
Lance Anderson is back for his 16th season as the Willie Shaw Director of Defense. Tavita Prichard is also back for his 5th season as the Andrew Luck Director of Offense and Kevin M. Hogan Quarterbacks Coach.
In addition to UCLA, the Cardinal still have Washington State, Utah, UC Berkeley and BYU on the schedule, which makes me think that wins will probably be hard for Shaw to come by. Will that result in some coaching changes next season? Probably not, but how long will Stanford AD Bernard Muir stand by and watch the team decline under Shaw? We’ll see.
Special Teams
Given how the Cardinal won last week’s game against Arizona State, any discussion of the Stanford special teams needs to begin with junior kicker Joshua Karty. Karty scored all 15 of the Cardinal’s points against the Sun Devils.
In fact, Karty has been perfect this season. He’s made all 12 field goal attempts including a long of 53 yards and he’s made all 18 PAT attempts as well. In addition to the 53-yarder he made against Oregon, Karty has made kicks longer than 45 yards in each of the past three games. So, don’t expect David Shaw to go for it on fourth down if he can send out Karty to try a kick inside 50 yards.
Karty also kicks off for the team. Very few of his kickoffs have been returned. In fact, 28 of his 37 kickoffs have gone for touchbacks. Given Chip Kelly’s propensity for taking the touchback, don’t expect to see UCLA running many kicks back this Saturday.
Senior Ryan Sanborn will handle the punting duties for Stanford. Half of Sanborn’s 28 punts have been fair caught. Only three have gone for more than 50 yards though. He is only averaging 42.11 yards per punt.
Bryce Farrell had been the team’s primary kick returner, but he hasn’t appeared in any of the last three games. It doesn’t seem like he got hurt. In fact, the Cardinal Sports Report recently wrote that it seems like a coaching decision which has kept him from playing since Oregon.
Instead, the Stanford depth chart lists Brendon Barrow as the team’s kick returner. He seems a little more dangerous, given that his longest return of the season went for 36 yards and is the Cardinal’s longest return by anyone on the team this season. He is also averaging more yards per kickoff than anyone else on the team with an average of 23 yards.
Moving over to punt returns, junior Casey Filkins is Stanford’s primary punt returner. Filkins longest return of the season was just 15 yards and his average is 6.38 yards per return. Given that, the running back from Lake Oswego, Oregon doesn’t appear to be a dangerous return man.
Go Bruins!
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.