Coach Shaw says Cardinal must ‘relearn’ how to win close games
The frustration is mounting during Stanford’s three-game losing streak, to the point that one of the team’s most high-profile supporters offered his take on what needs to change.
Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, the father of Stanford running back E.J. Smith, wrote to his 763,600 Twitter followers that the offense was “too predictable” during Saturday’s 20-13 loss to Washington, which was the second straight game that the Cardinal allowed a go-ahead touchdown in the final 90 seconds.
“That’s what you get ... when you’re trying to feature your QB,” Smith wrote in a sincedeleted tweet. “You have 3 RBs who can produce for you.”
Stanford has run the ball 219 times, the fourth-fewest of the 130 FBS teams (behind only Mississippi State, Western Kentucky, and Nevada). But don’t expect huge changes when the Cardinal face Utah tonight at Stanford Stadium (7:30 p.m., FS1).
“More than anything else it’s really just a mentality,” Shaw said. “It’s the mentality of finishing games. There’s no magic trick, there’s no magic play call, there’s no benching one guy and starting another guy. It’s a collective effort in all three phases to realize when you’re close and get over the top. We used to be one of the best teams in America in doing that for almost a decade, winning those close games at the end, and we have to accept the fact that we haven’t done it and need to relearn how to do it.”
Stanford had closed out games in the past with an effective run game, but despite the three-headed running game Smith referenced of Austin Jones, Nathaniel Peat and E.J. Smith, the Cardinal ranks 125th in the country in rushing offense (90.9) – an even worse position than its 120th-ranked
run defense (206.0).
Making matters more complicated, Shaw said Tuesday that Tanner McKee is questionable against the Utes. McKee is 84 passing yards shy of becoming the third freshman in school history with 2,000 passing yards (Andrew Luck in 2009 and Chad Hutchinson in 1996), and also has four of Stanford’s nine rushing TDs on the season.
There also isn’t much time to make major changes. Stanford is playing on Friday for the second time in four weeks, following its 28-10 loss at Arizona State on Oct. 8.
“I’ve grown to hate these Friday games,” Shaw said. “I absolutely hate them. I don’t think they’re fair to the coaches, I don’t think they’re especially fair to the student-athletes. You don’t have enough time for your
bodies to recover.”
Shaw said he preferred going back to Thursday night games, since at least that means teams had the previous weekend off.
Regardless of how much time there is to prepare, though, Smith might need to just get used to Stanford’s offensive philosophy this season, since Shaw noted how close the team was to winning even with the run-pass imbalance. One red zone possession that ends in a touchdown instead of a field goal, or forcing a single turnover on defense, could have made the difference in each of the past two weeks.
“Can you run the ball better? Can you stop the run better? Those are both legitimate questions,” Shaw said. “But the bottom line is two weeks in a row regardless of the stats we had a chance to win the game and we didn’t.”