Everything David Shaw said after the win over Colgate

In typical head coach fashion David Shaw was focused on the things that the team needed to be better at

Despite blowing out their Week 1 opponent Colgate, Stanford head coach David Shaw was in full coach mode after the victory when talking to reporters postgame.

He made sure to compliment how well Colgate played, and brought up their great efforts throughout the game after making the trip from New York. He even was complimentary of his own squad in certain aspects, as he was pleased with the physicality, how well they ran the ball and the defense's ability to make plays during certain stretches. 

However he was not pleased with special teams play, that saw four punts muffed with and one of them lead too Colgate's only touchdown. 

Let's take a look at what Shaw had to say to reporters after the game.

What Stanford will be focusing on in practice this week (offensive success or special teams errors)

Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

David Shaw:

Yeah, the hard part is both. We emphasize so many things. We talked about taking care of the football. We did not do that tonight. But we talked about running the ball with efficiency and having the ability to be explosive, and we did that. We talked about passing the ball and being efficient with the ability to be explosive, and we had that. So those are a lot of the ways we wanted to play, but we can't turn the ball over. We can't give them short fields. We certainly can't give them touchdowns in special teams, which we did tonight. We're going to continue to emphasize ball security, taking care of the ball, and we've got a couple of nice drills for the guys that we haven't done in a while to remind them how important that thing is.

But at the same time, there's some positives from tonight too, a lot of real good positives. Guys went out there and played fast. Didn't have a lot of errors on the defensive side. A couple of missed tackles, a couple of mistakes that will happen in Game 1. For a veteran crew, a lot of old guys out there, I thought they played well together, played smart. It was great communication. We can only get better from here.

His thought's on E.J. Smith's first touchdown run

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David Shaw: 

I said it over the headset. That's how you start the season. Old school, single back power play, linebackers overran it. And we talk so much about don't take the back side A gap. You don't choose to go back here. The defense tells you to go back there. 

I said it over the headset. That's how you start the season. Old school, single back power play, linebackers overran it. 

What he saw in the offense's early second half struggles

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

David Shaw:

We just didn't convert the third down. We shot ourselves in the foot. It wasn't halftime speeches or any of that stuff. You've just got to go out and execute. We didn't execute that first drive, but then came back and played well the entire rest of the second half.

I'm not going to worry too much about that. The guys' focus was there. Didn't play great that first drive, but it is a focal point for us to come out the second half and play at a higher level. Defensively kind of got -- gave a little bit too many yards in that third quarter, but then we clamped it back down again and played well.

Always talk about starting fast beginning of the game, finishing the first half in a wise way, which we did. And then starting fast in the third quarter. We didn't quite do that. We turned it on a little bit about halfway through the third quarter. Didn't start the way that we wanted to in any of the phases.

Shaw's thoughts on there being any more pressure with the USC/UCLA games since they are leaving the Pac-12

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David Shaw:

That doesn't even do anything for our guys. Most of our guys are seniors and juniors. They're not going to be here when USC and UCLA leave the conference. So not really worried about that. Bigger thing for us is trying to find a way to get to 2-0.

Once again, not that USC has to be a big game, any more than just being our second game of the year. That's what it will be billed as. That's what it will be hyped as. But for our guys, we're going to keep our focus on what we need to do to be a better team next week than we were this week. We have to play at a higher level and have to cut out some of our miscues, especially on the special teams side.

Got to play much better possessing the ball, got to be even better against the run, and be ready to come back against a really good football team and hopefully be a better team next week than we were today.