Bad omens for me:
* Words were barely out of the sideline reporters mouth about Lomax struggling with a knee issue and the next thing we know he's locked up on McCaffrey with no bracket or deep help. Also, did we learn nothing from David Johnson smoking us a couple years ago? You can't give a guy with that much ability a 2 way go with all that green to work with.
* What was the deal with going to the gun on 3rd and 2 and then again on 3rd and 2 (or 3) the very next time?
* On the first (I think) 3rd and 2 play we run a hitch to Smith vs. press coverage. I would venture to guess more than a few schools at the D-1 level have this in their arsenal (I know I did at a significantly lower level of coaching)...but against aggressive press coverage it's a VERY low percentage play to try to make a throw to a 'standing' receiver. Anyone ever heard the adage run vs. man and sit vs. zone? In my offenses (and in most offenses whose clinics I've attended) will check to slant or fade in that case, and in a lot of cases it's not even a check the QB has to make. It's a route conversion the receiver makes once he sees the coverage.../soapbox. It just signified to me that in that case we were going to keep trying to slam that square peg into the round hole, probabilities be damned.
* There was a brief glimmer of hope when we got Stanford into third and 9 on their first "real" drive of the game...we had numbers on the smoke screen to McCaffrey, Fisher had a golden chance to stop the play for no gain and he didn't really even come close to making a play and McCaffrey gets 12-15 yards.
* I haven't watched it a 2nd time (not a masochist
) but I was thinking the pick six was the same play we run several times a game, where we have a TE and two receivers lined up in a "Trey" formation and the inside 2 guys run outs and the outside guy takes the top off to clear it out. As far as I'm concerned we should almost never throw to the inside receiver (unless it's soft cover 3 and the flat man is occupied with the TE). We did, and not only did Stanford jump the route, but CJ was late with the throw and it wasn't even a good throw to boot.
Those plays gave me the unfortunate feeling that:
* We weren't going to be able to old Kirk/new Kirk/any Kirk our way out of this one
* The stuff we've done all year (and gotten away with it because of our charmin-soft schedule) wasn't going to work terribly well
* We still lack any sort of creativity or explosiveness on offense, especially when matched against a defense that DOES bring speed/athleticism
* While I didn't think we'd shut McCaffrey down, I had no inclination that he would embarrass us the way we did