Opposing runners are gouging D-line
Though Stanford’s offensive line has been roundly criticized in the team’s two losses after a fortunate win over Oregon, the defensive line has come up short, too.
After the loss to Utah on Saturday night, head coach David Shaw said the Cardinal have to stop the run better.
“We’ve talked about the young defensive line — they are not young anymore,” he said. “We have to play better up front.”
After looking at the game video, he said Tuesday night that the line play wasn’t “terrible,” but “it’s just not where we want to be.”
In the past three games, Stanford has given up 178 yards rushing to Oregon, 272 to Notre Dame and 227 to Utah.
A lot of the responsibility for that falls on the D-line, which includes two relatively inexperienced players, redshirt sophomore Jovan Swann and Michael Williams, and redshirt junior Dylan Jackson. Two others, redshirt freshman Dalyn WadePerry and freshman Thomas Booker, played in spots against Utah.
If they can’t make the tackles themselves, the linemen need to tie up the offensive linemen, freeing the linebackers to make the tackles. Too often for the Cardinal, that hasn’t happened in the past three games.
Already Stanford has allowed four opposing running backs to rush for at least 100 yards: San Diego State’s Juwan Washington (158), Oregon’s CJ Verdell (115), Notre Dame’s Dexter Williams (161) and Utah’s Zack Moss (160). It ranks ninth in the Pac-12 in stopping the run, surrendering 164.3 yards per game.
Last year’s team wasn’t exactly blocks of granite against the run, either, even with Harrison Phillips attracting doubleteams in the middle. It ranked seventh against the run (169 yards per game) and allowed eight 100-yard rushers, two by USC in one game.
Stanford was able to overcome some of them with a strong offense. Not so this year with the O-line failing to produce creases for Bryce Love or anybody else.
Love missed the Utah game with an ankle injury. Shaw said he expects Love to be back on the practice field Sunday and to be ready to play at Arizona State on Oct. 18.
Defensive coordinator Lance Anderson said playing against excellent offensive lines in the past three games “showed us a little bit of where we are right now and where we need to get better.”
He said the bye week is giving the linemen a chance to work on their fundamentals. He said Booker might get more playing time in the weeks ahead, depending on how well he does in practice.
“He’s athletic, he’s strong,” Anderson said. “He’s got to get stronger, like a lot of our guys, and get more experienced.”
Overall, he said, he’d give the D-line a C. “I think we started out strong in the first three games,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of air in the run game. But in the last three games ,it’s been a different story.” Health updates: Outside linebacker Casey Toohill, who has missed the past three games with an arm injury, is “a couple of days” ahead of schedule, Shaw said, indicating there is a chance he could play at ASU. Safety Ben Edwards is “probably weeks away” with an undisclosed injury.
Both wide receiver Conner Wedington and guard Foster Sarell still have a ways to go in their rehab, Shaw said. Sarell has played just two games and Wedington one. Because both played last year as freshmen, there’s a chance they could redshirt this year as long as they don’t play in more than four games total.