Much has been made of Stanford’s offense in 2018. A side of the ball expected to produce at an elite rate has done nothing of the kind at the halfway point in the season. There have been no shortage of symptoms undermining Stanford’s ability to score this season, some of their own doing and some out of their control. Redshirt sophomore KJ Costello’s role and performance has been a crucial factor, as quarterback play always is, and with the Cardinal headed for an open date in advance of its game next Thursday against Arizona State, let’s check in and see what KJ’s first half shows.

Stanford’s offense is languishing at 2.13 points per offensive drive per Brian Fremeau’s per-drive metrics. That’s 68th in the nation. As Bill Connelly’s per-play metrics on CFB Study Hall point out, this is an explosive but incredibly inefficient group. Stanford’s 39% success rate currently sits at 103rd in the FBS and its 1.39 IsoPPP is 10th. We know the deal. Stanford is a mystery bag of self-detonating plays that eventually erupts with a big play to produce its points. As its overall profile suggests, it’s not a model for success.

Costello, for his part, is currently playing to that overall profile. The Cardinal has an average 3rd Down distance of 9.4 yards, which is not surprising considering the inefficiencies, and it also has an 11% big-play rate, which is 15th in the country. Per PFF, Costello has thrown 46 deep balls (20+ yards), second in the Pac-12 to Arizona’s Khalil Tate. PFF also measures “Big Time Throws” defined as throws that are deeper down the field, into tighter windows, and require great timing and accuracy. Costello has made 14 such throws this season, the third-most in the Pac-12.

PFF also tracks “Turnover-Worthy Throws,” passes so poor that they should end up as turnovers, regardless of result. Costello has made seven such throws this year, third-most in the Pac-12. However, when you factor in his total passes attempted (194), he comes out at 3.6%, which is about middle-of the road for the conference.

Now let’s look at what KJ is doing under pressure. He’s been sacked 14 times (2nd most Pac-12), hit 18 times (3rd-most), and hurried 41 times (5th-most). He’s been under pressure on 30% of his throws total for the season, which is only slight above the league average of 28% and actually below the 32% rate from 2017. Under pressure, he’s completing 48% of his passes, which is up from 43% last year, and he’s throwing for 9.3 yards per attempt which is almost double his 2017 rate. He has two touchdown passes and two interceptions. His PFF grading suggests that he’s doing much better than last year, when he was graded below average under pressure. This year he’s above average, clearly owing to his ability to hit on the deeper passes with the heat on him.

The interesting thing here is that in terms of volume, he’s not facing more pressure than he did last year. Against Utah and Notre Dame, his pressure rate went up to 34%, so the Utes and Irish did present more of a challenge, but not overwhelmingly more. There have been plays where KJ has moved well in the pocket, negotiated the rush and executed. There have also been plays where he’s left touchdowns on the field per his own admission. We know that among his gifts speed is not included, which does change things for those defending him.

It’s tough not fall into a chicken and egg spiral when evaluating KJ’s play. He throws a really good deep ball, and in fact on throws of greater than 20 yards he is 23-40 (58%) with six touchdowns and no interceptions. He’s also averaging 19 yards per attempt. Is Stanford throwing deep because KJ is so good at it or because he’s been forced to do it and he’s so good at it? The Cardinal’s only offensive success comes from big passing plays this year, so should they be running more of those plays? It’s tough because over the long haul we can see that such a formula does not produce consistent enough offense, especially against better defenses. Against Utah, Stanford got their share, but Utah ultimately won the day because they could keep rushing and waiting for the one pressure to get home to detonate the Cardinal’s drives.

That all happens when you can’t run the ball, and Stanford simply cannot. That’s an overall topic for another article, but it got me thinking about Allen Iverson’s favorite word, practice. As much as hoops coaches bristle at The Answer’s famous dismissal, football coaches are probably even more sensitive to such an attitude, because in no other sport is the ratio of games to practices so skewed in favor of practice time. Now consider: KJ missed all of spring practice, and so did Jesse Burkett and for the most part Bryce Love. Stanford split left guard time in the spring and in August between three players, two of whom have been compromised by injury in Devery Hamilton and Foster Sarell. AT Hall has been out at times during both fall camp and the season.

What am I getting at? There has not been a single significant stretch of time in this entire calendar year where Stanford has been able to accumulate reps with its best 11 players, no matter who you think comprises that 11. Make it 14-15 for the various personnel groupings (13, 14, 22, 23 personel) and the bottom line is that this team simply has not been able to put in the time to get good. This is how you end up with coaches every week saying it’s not just one guy, or one scheme, it’s a different guy almost every time. This is where systematic inconsistency comes from. You can’t spot teams like Utah, Notre Dame, Oregon, Washington, Alabama, Clemson, and on and on the hundreds of reps that you get in the spring and fall and then expect to be functioning at your best.

This is the bottom line with this offense and with KJ. He’s clearly better than he was last year, and he clearly has leverageable strengths, but the lack of a full offseason of reps is undoubtedly hamstringing him and the offense as a whole. It’s not a very elaborate or intriguing explanation, but it’s also the one that makes the most sense. Forget about Kevin Carberry. He didn’t come in and turn proficient performers into struggling ones. Forget about the schedule. Yes, had it been more front-loaded with lesser teams, perhaps things could be different. Forget about the game-day play-calling. Everybody loves to pound on ShawVitaBerry, and sure, they can always be better. But that line of thought reduces this to just pulling levers, and Notre Dame and Utah didn’t beat Stanford just because they knew what was coming. They’ve known what was coming for a decade.

Does more creativity help? Sure. But it’s not the root cause here. The reason why the coaches are struggling is not because they don’t have the plays, or the schemes, or the creativity. It’s because they don’t have the time. This team didn’t bank the time it needed to maximize its potential, and now that we are halfway through the season they can’t make it up because attrition demands that this is when more rest is needed. David Shaw said as much this week. “Where we are right now honestly with our offensive line trying to get healthy, that's where we have to back off a little bit. We still have to prepare. We have to get ready. There's some physical aspects to our practice we have to maintain in order to play a football game, but we've got to be smart. That's where next week we'll be wise about what we do with our guys. Right now, I'd probably say 3 out of our 5 starters are not doing very much at all. They're just getting recovered and the rest of the guys are getting some work in. We'll do a little bit more tomorrow, and then we'll take another couple days where these guys are just getting treatment, and then we'll start our prep for Arizona State.”

Ultimately that’s the biggest takeaway when you look at Costello or any individual aspect of the offense. The question now is whether or not the rest time they have coming up will enable enough reps for this team to realize the potential it’s lost half the season trying to realize on offense?

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R.J. Abeytia has been contributing to The Bootleg since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Abeytia and follow The Bootleg @TheBootleg for up to the moment Cardinal news and analysis.

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