The White beat the Cardinal 37-29 in the Stanford football spring game held at Kezar Stadium on Saturday. The White team was the Cardinal defense while the red jerseys was all offense and Stanford went with an unusual format compared to spring games of the past.
After the game Stanford Head Coach David Shaw saw some things that he liked, and other things that needed to be worked on. Here is a transcript of his post game press conference.
The opening question was what Coach Shaw liked and disliked about the game?
“What I liked of course was our defensive pressure is very impressive. Our defensive front seven is about as good as you will find in our conference and when we get everyone healthy and rolling it will be interesting, you might want to compare them to most teams in the nation. Chase Thomas and Trent Murphy on the edge, Terrence Stephens is playing great, Josh Mauro has come along, Ben Gardner is playing well. We are rolling two deep in our front seven that is extremely good. Offensively it was good to see Ty Montgomery make some plays. He has missed a big chunk of spring. We have kind of taken care of him because he had a little hand issue. It is great to see him get out there and catch some balls. He almost made a great catch on a high pass. Besides that he played really well. Ricky Seale did a good job running the ball today. As far as things that were not great, it is good one side and not on the other side. To be able to pass protect against our guys, there was too much pressure. Our two top quarterbacks at times made some plays. Josh made some really nice throws that were dropped and then missed a couple of checks and reads that we cant miss. Brett Nottingham made some great throws, but once again, it is not things you can see from the stands but he missed some things as well. That competition is still even. I don’t know what the numbers say, I dont care what the numbers say from today, that position did not play well enough today for us to win a football game.
How much control did the quarterbacks have in the offense. Check downs etc?
“We wanted to see what they can handle so we have given them quite a bit. We have not given them the entire playbook. But we gave them enough. We wanted to make sure we went out there and challenge them mentally. We did not want to just give them the easy stuff and go out there, that is not how we want to play. We want to see how much they can handle. We got a clue to that today. We will watch the film and see how much was that good and how much was that bad. But we gave them enough to challenge them.”
Shaw was asked about Josh Nunes playing exclusively with the first team and Brett Nottingham playing with the second team?
“We just made that decision going into it. It is hard to say who has an edge right now. The last couple of weeks Josh has played really well, really the last week and a half or so. Brett has played well also. We wanted to see Josh in a lot of action today with the first unit. Brett has gotten just about as many snaps with the first unit before now in the scrimmages, etc. But we just wanted to get a good look at Josh today.”
Shaw was asked if it meant anything that the two young quarterbacks only got one series each?
“Nothing. Kevin Hogan got a series and Evan Crower got a series. The two freshmen quarterbacks going on sophomores, we wanted to get each of them a series with the twos and they each got that.”
Shaw was asked for an injury update on fullback Geoff Meinken who went down with a knee injury and was in a knee brace and on crutches the rest of the day.
“Not sure yet. He was in great spirits. He is walking around back there. But we will get an MRI and see what it is.”
What did you learn this spring about the quarterbacks that you did not know?
“We are past the point of learning about them. We are at the point of seeing who is going to win the competition. We think we know them pretty well. It is just who is going to perform better over time? Now we will take all this evidence we have gotten over spring, we will apply that to the first couple of weeks of training camp and we’ll see where we are.”
How much will change between now and fall in the quarterback competition?
“That is up to them. This is just a decision I am going to make. It is going to be based on the evidence we see on the film, and the evidence that comes from the meeting rooms, and the decisions that they make both before the snap and after the snap. Who is going to take care of the ball and not turn it over, who is not going to throw it to the defense. If it is really neck and neck then I will just make the call and we will just go.”
Shaw was asked about David Yankey starting at left tackle and what that means for the makeup of the offensive line.
“That is a down the road plan B. We had a couple of guys get dinged up so we did it during the week so we wanted to make sure. Yankey is great, he can do left tackle or left guard and it does not matter. We still have a competition going there. Cole Underwood and Brenden Austin have showed some strides. Both young guys trying to get their first taste of playing. When we get into fall training camp we will roll the two young guys in there. Both Andrus (Peat) and Kyle (Murphy) are here today watching us play. Those guys will get a good shot. Nick Davison, who is coming off an injury, we’ll see where Nick is, but those other two guys will get a shot to play and down the road we think Nick will be a heck of a player as well.”
Shaw was asked about the play of the secondary, specifically giving up a deep pass to Ty Montgomery where Montgomery caught the ball between the two defenders.
“Let’s be clear, that was a hell of a catch. Defense or not, the defense played pretty well. That ball was thrown up for grabs and Ty went up and got it. You can look at it as a negative or a positive. That is a guy making a great play.”
What was his overall opinion of the secondary?
“The two big plays we gave up over the top, besides that they played very discipline. They forced the quarterback to hold the football. That is what we talk about. Secondary-wise, if we can force the quarterback to hold the ball for an extra split second, we are going to count on Chase getting there, we are going to count on Murph getting there, we are going to count on James Vaughters getting there, these guys getting after the quarterback. They did that today and it forced the offense into some sacks.”
