(Photo: ASU Athletics)
With just hours before kickoff and no official status update on the health of quarterback Taylor Kelly released by the Sun Devil coaching staff, the situation is looking more and more like a last-second decision. As the waiting game continues, so does the debate over which quarterback is better equipped to dismantle the back-to-back Pac-12 champions.
Most pundits agree that a perfectly healthy Mike Bercovici is better suited against a stingy Stanford defense than a less-than-100-percent Taylor Kelly.
The root of the disagreement lies in which quarterback presents the better option when Kelly is all systems go — no longer tentative when making cuts, not flat-footed when making drop backs, and not hampered mentally by his foot injury.
With 17 starts over the past two seasons (culminating in a 13-4 record), Kelly is clearly the more experienced and proven of the two. The running game is also a significant benefactor when he is under center — 304.3 rushing yards per game when he has started, compared to an 84.5 clip in Bercovici’s two starts. Yet the Cardinal have a track record of stifling Kelly on the biggest stage: Kelly was held to a mediocre 65.3 QBR on September 21, 2013 (ASU’s first loss of the season) and a 53.5 QBR on December 7, 2013 (the Pac-12 Championship Game).
On the other hand Mike Bercovici’s high-profile arm makes him the more intriguing NFL prospect, which may lead some to believe that he profiles better against a Stanford team that operates an NFL-level defense. The argument from his camp goes that Stanford neutralizes the running game — the one aspect that makes Kelly better suited to run the offense. The Cardinal defense yielding a season-low minus-26 total rushing yards, but a season-high 292 passing yards to Washington State last week surely supports that argument.
For the sake of transparency, that was the belief that I had until a day ago. Consult the Cronkite Sports football writers’ roundtable article, and you will see that I was a firm believer in Mike Bercovici’s dynamic arm giving the Sun Devils a better chance to take down Stanford.
Well, I hate to complicate the situation even further, but I have changed course.
Call me a waffler, or indecisive, or a sportswriter without a backbone, but I have refined my view thanks to a better understanding of how Stanford’s defense operates schematically. At the time of publication of the round table article I had known Stanford’s defense was ungenerous against the run and beatable against the pass, but I did not know WHY that was the case.
Dissecting the Subtleties of Stanford’s Defense
After re-watching tape of the Stanford-Washington State and the Stanford-Notre Dame games, it is clear that Stanford’s defense is effective against the run because of aggressive cornerback play.
This was on full display with about four minutes left to play in the first quarter in the Cardinal’s matchup against Notre Dame. At that moment, Stanford cornerback Wayne Lyons exploded into the backfield and forced a fumble from Fighting Irish quarterback Everett Golson.
When a defense like Stanford’s is so esteemed and so notorious for stopping the run, other teams will undoubtedly alter the assignments of their personnel to counteract that. Against the aggressive corners from Stanford, Notre Dame frequently used its wide receivers to create gaps for Golson and running back Cam McDaniel. But such efforts were to no avail, as Lyons and fellow corner Alex Carter were too quick in their pursuit and convergence to the football to be contained by wide-receiver blocking.
Those subtleties bode well for a Taylor Kelly-led offense.
As it turns out, the hyper-aggressive nature of the Stanford cornerbacks is actually a blessing in disguise if Taylor Kelly is fully healthy.
Essentially, Stanford’s corners cheat against the run, making their cover four downfield defense undisciplined at times.
This same over-aggressiveness proved costly against Notre Dame, as Everett Golson’s game-winning touchdown pass with just over a minute to play was made possible by Lyons over-pursuing and leaving his deep fourth of the field vulnerable.
So with that, would it not make sense for ASU to uncork the ball 60 times and just expose these risk-taking corners with Bercovici’s laser arm?
The answer is a resounding no.
To bait these cornerbacks into continuing to play aggressively and thus make errors in coverage, there has to be at least a threat of a run. Without the threat of a run, soft pockets in Stanford’s zone defense do not open up downfield. A healthy Taylor Kelly provides this threat of a run, Mike Bercovici does not.
Also, if Mike Bercovici were to receive the start under center and the coaching staff were to adopt the same chuck-it-60-times game plan, there is little doubt in my mind that the mastermind David Shaw (Stanford’s head coach) would instruct his corners to quit concentrating their efforts on run support and simply drop back into coverage like most defenses do.
It has become fashionable to be enamored with Mike Bercovici’s ability to drive the ball down the field. It does not take a rocket scientist to note than he does indeed have a stronger arm than Taylor Kelly does.
But amid all this discussion, Taylor Kelly’s big-play capabilities have actually been belittled. That is perplexing because Kelly in fact one-ups Bercovici in yards per completion, 14.88 to 13.80, respectively. It is by no means a monumental difference, but it certainly shows that even his “average” arm can expose Stanford’s over-aggressive cornerbacks. The fact that he is the mobile quarterback of the two and has proven he can keep the ball on a read-option and scamper for chunks of yards only adds to the rationale behind why he is the better matchup-play against Stanford.
Thus, here are my updated and refined predictions for tomorrow’s game with three different scenarios in play:
With a fully healthy, not-hampered-in-any-form-Taylor Kelly: ASU 28 Stanford 24
With Mike Bercovici (meaning that Kelly is not healthy enough to play): Stanford 24 ASU 21
With the two-QB system, which Graham claims is the most-likely scenario, but which I claim is the least-productive scenario: Stanford 28 ASU 13
Lastly, it should also be noted that Taylor Kelly did absolutely nothing this week to convince anyone that he is healthy enough to start and play at full capacity tonight. Perhaps his workload increased once the media was escorted out of the practice facility. But from what was observed first-hand, he was extremely limited all week. Again, the above argument that he is the more serviceable option at quarterback for tonight’s showdown is based on the premise that he is fully healthy.
Follow Jacob Garcia on Twitter @Jake_M_Garcia or connect with him on LinkedIn.
