What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ?

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RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - 82lsju - 01-16-2025

(01-16-2025, 03:57 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 01:51 PM)paloalto Wrote: About 30 people post on Cardboard football threads. This is a very small echo chamber. The prevailing attitude seems to be. “I’m interested in football so all students should be interested in football”. Do a handful of 70 year old, die-hard football fans know what 18 year old students are interested in?

There is a website College Confidential about college topics. It has a very big message board. I’ve frequently posted on this board for twenty years; particularly on threads involving Stanford. Many threads are discussions by students about what top colleges they will be applying to. I’ve never seen a post, “I’m thinking of applying to Stanford but I’m concerned about how many games the football team will win”.

I agree with you, though to take the other side a moment, many people have made the point that if Stanford were a better team, attendance would follow. You can view this in two ways; either there are lots of closet football fans who are so put off by the quality of the product that they don’t show up; by this measure the number of (potential) fans should be measured by what the school does when it is successful. Or you can look at things by saying that there are a lot of bandwagon fans who will bother to show up in the instances where Stanford is successful, but that true fans, the ones who show up thick or thin are very rare.

The other argument that has been made is that while no one will say “I am considering applying to Stanford due to its football team”, a successful football team with a rabid fanbase contributes to the overall environment, which contributes to the “gestalt” as to how people feel about the school, which does drive how people apply or decide to go to the school. I think Mick has provided some data to back up the fact that schools see a bump in applicants after successful sports seasons.

I buy into the idea that athletic success when it happens has positive downstream effects on the campus environment, student satisfaction/happiness, and “campus togetherness” for lack of a better term. My issue is that we should acknowledge the costs associated with these benefits and that the University should decide whether these costs (financial, but also to the University’s values), which are increasing as collegiate sports evolves. Where I differ from many on this board is that I seriously question whether the marginal benefit is worth the compromises we need to make. While collegiate sports is a way to improve the campus environment, produce more well-rounded students, etc., it is not the only way. For example, my employer has an annual “Gives Back” which culminates in a concert with well-known acts (this last year, it was Imagine Dragons; last year, Dua Lipa was the headliner) and of course generates a lot of excitement and is nice for morale, even as it is expensive to put on. Now, I’m not saying that the University should get Taylor Swift to perform at the Stadium or Coldplay to put on an extra show that is free to students and faculty and staff. But there are a lot of different activities that can be used to improve the campus environment and make students excited to be at Stanford. Privileging sports just because a lot of 70-year-olds (hey, as a still sub-50-year-old, I resent that) want to be associated with a school with a better football team reflects a somewhat skewed view resulting from self-selection of people on this board.

BC

while attendance was much better in the Rose/Orange/Fiesta bowl years let's not forget that for an awful lot of the "less interesting games" (e.g., OSU, WSU, UA, ASU, CU, UU, home games labor day weekend, and many non-conference games) the actual attendance in the stadium was still probably 25k-35k so I think the bandwagon fans outnumber the fans waiting for the team to be good.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - BostonCard - 01-16-2025

(01-16-2025, 04:11 PM)82lsju Wrote: while attendance was much better in the Rose/Orange/Fiesta bowl years let's not forget that for an awful lot of the "less interesting games" (e.g., OSU, WSU, UA, ASU, CU, UU, home games labor day weekend, and many non-conference games) the actual attendance in the stadium was still probably 25k-35k so I think the bandwagon fans outnumber the fans waiting for the team to be good.

Absolutely, I was trying to be generous. This board is very under representative of the Stanford community at large, which in many ways, is the anti-SEC: "it just doesn't mean that much".

BC

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - needle - 01-17-2025

Quote: This board is very under representative of the Stanford community at large, which in many ways, is the anti-SEC: "it just doesn't mean that much".

I'm unmoved by most of the arguments that suggest competing as other universities do in college sports is somehow an affront to Stanford's core mission. But this argument here is by far the strongest that Stanford should "pack up its ball(s) and go home."

It is not enough for Andrew Luck and whomever the next Stanford football coach is to win 7+ games; they must also do so while putting butts in the seats, or the whole endeavor will be proven as truly unbefitting of Stanford.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - 82lsju - 01-17-2025

(01-17-2025, 10:25 AM)needle Wrote:
Quote: This board is very under representative of the Stanford community at large, which in many ways, is the anti-SEC: "it just doesn't mean that much".

I'm unmoved by most of the arguments that suggest competing as other universities do in college sports is somehow an affront to Stanford's core mission. But this argument here is by far the strongest that Stanford should "pack up its ball(s) and go home."

It is not enough for Andrew Luck and whomever the next Stanford football coach is to win 7+ games; they must also do so while putting butts in the seats, or the whole endeavor will be proven as truly unbefitting of Stanford.

I think this will be a high bar based on

1. the demographics I see at football games, it skews older and as some age out there do not appear to be replacements.

2. If we don't have wider appeal to non-alums, relying on alums to fill the stadium the will be challenging. In my class ('82) there are just under 400 alums who live within 50 miles of campus (as the crow flies) which is ~25% of the living members of the class. For the class of 2020 it is ~265 people, ~15% of the class. The alumni database shows ~17,000 living undergrad alums living within 50 miles of campus. If they all showed up at a game with one guest we'd still need to sell ~17,000 additional tickets for a sell out.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - needle - 01-17-2025

(01-17-2025, 11:18 AM)82lsju Wrote:
(01-17-2025, 10:25 AM)needle Wrote:
Quote: This board is very under representative of the Stanford community at large, which in many ways, is the anti-SEC: "it just doesn't mean that much".

I'm unmoved by most of the arguments that suggest competing as other universities do in college sports is somehow an affront to Stanford's core mission. But this argument here is by far the strongest that Stanford should "pack up its ball(s) and go home."

It is not enough for Andrew Luck and whomever the next Stanford football coach is to win 7+ games; they must also do so while putting butts in the seats, or the whole endeavor will be proven as truly unbefitting of Stanford.

I think this will be a high bar based on

1. the demographics I see at football games, it skews older and as some age out there do not appear to be replacements.

2. If we don't have wider appeal to non-alums, relying on alums to fill the stadium the will be challenging. In my class ('82) there are just under 400 alums who live within 50 miles of campus (as the crow flies) which is ~25% of the living members of the class. For the class of 2020 it is ~265 people, ~15% of the class. The alumni database shows ~17,000 living undergrad alums living within 50 miles of campus. If they all showed up at a game with one guest we'd still need to sell ~17,000 additional tickets for a sell out.

And don't forget the loss of marquee opponents UCLA and USC!

It's truly going to be a challenge. While the specific reasons for attendance struggles may be unique, it's tough for many small, private universities to attract fans, even for winning football:

Quote: Despite winning ten games in a season for just the sixth time in program history, Memphis Tigers football attendance dropped to its lowest point in twelve years.

Opponents matter, perhaps more than AD-types realize:

Quote: So what led to Tiger football attendance tanking this year? Right off the bat, part of it can be attributed to the renovations at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium which have led to the stadium being nicknamed (perhaps affectionately or perhaps derisively) the “Liberty Hole.”

But surely a missing press box and a few thousand seats removed from a 59,000-seat venue wouldn’t cause such a massive drop in attendance, would it?

Another possible explanation is the schedule. For the second time in three years, the Tigers did not play host to a power conference team at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. Additionally, the American Athletic Conference does not have as many teams that draw interest as they used to with Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston all now struggling for bowl-eligibility in the Big XII. To fill the void, the AAC added teams like Charlotte, UAB, and FAU.

https://bluffcitymedia.co/2024s-memphis-tigers-football-attendance-worst-since-2012/

EDIT: The University of Memphis is a lot bigger than I realized, with an enrolllment topping 20k. I was surprised to learn that it's also a public university, so there really aren't many parallels with Stanford, other than perhaps a perceived degradation in the quality of opponents.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - StanUSwagU - 01-17-2025

(01-16-2025, 05:43 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 04:11 PM)82lsju Wrote: while attendance was much better in the Rose/Orange/Fiesta bowl years let's not forget that for an awful lot of the "less interesting games" (e.g., OSU, WSU, UA, ASU, CU, UU, home games labor day weekend, and many non-conference games) the actual attendance in the stadium was still probably 25k-35k so I think the bandwagon fans outnumber the fans waiting for the team to be good.

Absolutely, I was trying to be generous. This board is very under representative of the Stanford community at large, which in many ways, is the anti-SEC: "it just doesn't mean that much".

BC

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - jacket3ree - 01-17-2025

This is very interesting discussion. I suspect once House is fully implemented, Stanford's ego (in my experience their prime concerns are money and image) will not allow it to prostrate itself before the ACC and not even two years later, just fold up the tent and crater the revenue program because keeping bigtime sports somehow sully academic standards, whatever those are. I could of course be wrong, but doing that isn't going to help Stanford's brand.

As to brand, I'm still miffed that Stanford no longer runs the shopping center, because my trusty fallback was always 'if Stanford can run a Bloomingdale's it can run a fricken football program.' Stanford still does all sorts of things and owns all sorts of things that have nothing to do with a core academic mission. Remember the yacht? And let's not pretend she is pure as driven snow. (NB: where can you even go these days to have pure snow sans road sludge and other detritus driven in your face?)

The unfortunate answer is that Stanford will keep a football program but out of misplaced pretense (or more likely pure incompetence) let it continue to flounder into irrelevant oblivion. I don't think they will base their decision on how many students, alumni, or locals are into watching football on the Farm. Without football revenue, they need a massive paradigm shift to keep the rest of the program afloat.

Just anecdotally, but when have football players been just like the rest of us? Growing up and until my housemates dragged me to Gold's Gym in Mountain View, I had the Adonis-like body of a cross country runner. Yet my best mile time was only 4:53, leading a certain HS track coach to suggest that unless I could shave a minute off that time, I should find a better use for my time and more importantly, his time. So I was into music, skiing, mountaineering and kind of oddly depraved survivalist stuff. Oh, and unsuccessfully pining for girls. But I liked basketball and football well enough to throw my body around on the actual sandlot in our gentrifying rural-ish neighborhood, even in a non-walking cast after a depraved survivalist incident that kept me and my trumpet off the field my sophomore year for half the season.

My first football game as a spectator was in 1973 to watch Wheat Ridge Senior High School (home of the Fightin' Farmers) win a mythical national HS championship. Those guys were big! (I was 10.) Then when Dad was pursuing that perpetual doctorate he never got, this time at Colorado Mines, we went to a game in Golden. Division way down there. Stadium worse than Jeffco where Wheat Ridge played. Those guys were bigger! Then he moved on to CU Boulder (never got that degree there either) and had student section tickets. Right before high school I sat and watched the Buffs under Chuck Fairbanks lose for the millionth time against the Huskers. The football? Whatever. The coeds all around us? Holy smokes. I like football games. Right as I started high school, he and I drove down to the Springs to watch his beloved Jackets take on Air Force in a blizzard. Eddie Lee Ivory set the then NCAA record for rushing yards, and I got to sit next to some college women from Georgia. With honey-dripped accents. Oh my gosh, football is it. (Also a little kernal of maybe the coeds in Georgia are as good as the coeds in Boulder.) Well, and who is fooling whom? I grew up outside Denver with Bronco helmets for Christmas and there was always a neighborhood pickup game.

School choices: Mines, Ft. Collins, Boulder, and Atlanta, GA. They all played football at some level and presumably coeds would be at the games. Frankly I chose Tech to run away from some stuff until I told my chemistry, physics, and calculus teachers of my plans. And the father of one of the objects of (came dang close to success) pining. They informed me that, no, I was running toward something good. (They were all Southern.) Tech was at its absolute athletic nadir. (Joe Pettit openly considered dropping down or shuttering the program.) My dad and I visited Atlanta to be sure....there were coeds? School scouting trip. Tech played Clemson in hoops one night we were on campus and we checked it out. That year the team won 4 games (none D1) and there might have been 400 people in Alexander Memorial Coliseum, half of whom wore bags over their heads. They almost all uniformly wore untucked flannel shirts. Just like me! I'm going here. First football game was in Birmingham. A riveting 24-21 last minute upset of top ranked Alabama and Bear Bryant. Wow, this is easy and fun! Next ten games were progressively worse losses culminating in an absolute beat down by Georgia on national TV. But I am HOOKED. Road trips to B'ham and Knoxville, booze galore, and....coeds. The deal was football tickets were free to students and for $10 when you had your student ID picture taken, you would be in front of a gold background, which meant a "Date ID" that means you would hook up with random or non-random coeds or just a female person and she would get in free with you. (Or dudes could go in with coeds.) Women were not subject to full body searches, so your impromptu (or otherwise) date would hide the flask, you'd buy the cokes inside the stadium, and: instant party! My junior (?) year they started selling 7-Up inside which opened a pandora's box of alternative flask contents beyond So Co or Jack.

Alright, I completely got sidetracked there. The point is that it was social and while Tech defined mediocre Southern football, it was Southern football and during my four years, Tech managed to beat Alabama twice, Tennessee, Clemson, and Georgia when those names meant as much as they do now. Plus epic roadsters to Auburn, New Orleans, Chapel Thrill, and other places on a whim. More coeds! Part of our fabric of life. And Tech basketball? Some guy named Bobby Cremins had dinner at our house (that took courage) my freshman year begging us to come to games. By the time I left, Tech had gone from 4 wins to 4 points away from the Final Four against Patrick Ewing's Georgetown. So exciting; that ACC title became the defining thing of my graduating class, even at the 25th reunion. (Add: We played #1 UVA with Ralph Sampson my freshman year, with a team full of misfits. They lead at halftime. I thought the arena was going to collapse from the shear noise and all the jumping up and down. They lead going into the last minute. Bogus charge! Bogus charge! Lost by a point or something. Half the team was over at Chollies' after the game and we all drowned our sorrows in quarter beers. So, yeah, they were us.)

Were these guys students? Sure. Some were smart, some were not. Some worked hard, some did not. Did I care? Only to the extent that Ken Whisenhunt (career in NFL culminating in a Super Bowl appearance as a head coach) was my lab partner in a reinforced concrete class and I'll be pissed if he doesn't hold up his end. He did, even if he was there to play football over becoming a civil engineer. Did it bother me when half the football and basketball teams received preferential scheduling into Drownproofing while I never got that graduation requirement out of the way until my graduating quarter because I receive no preferential scheduling? Nope. I need this to graduate. I was a good swimmer and remember that depraved survivalist instinct? Loved that class. The athletes waded in the shallow end for credit while we practiced survival techniques hogtied in Salvation Army suits. ('Your plane might go down in shark infested waters on the way to that big business meeting.' 'Wait, there are sharks?') Why should I care? Should have shaved that minute off the mile time and I'd be wading.... No, I would not. I could swim and do the ridiculous stuff. Swim the length of the pool underwater with no air as part of the midterm? I saw that and raised it to two full lengths of the pool. The guy was actually impressed. Where did you learn to swim? In cold mountain lakes and uncomfortably warm reservoirs.

I had buddies who were managers for football and basketball. Lots of perks with those relationships including a few shootarounds at 2 a.m. and an invitation or three to the dining hall. Yeah, these guys aren't subsisting on Pop Tarts, Cap'n Crunch, Top Ramen, and fried bologna. Why the heck should they? That was freaking spectacular, but they are destroying their bodies for my Jack and Coke fueled boozy Saturdays with flask partner Kate who drove a stick (and I can drive stick) who needed help getting back to Emory and that was a good night and that doesn't happen without the guys who need the training table.

Stanford can do what it wants for whom it wants to please. In our most honest moments we know that keeping high level athletes on campus won't shred whatever an academic standard is. Does the fact that highly desired athletes have essays written for them (first hand account from recruited athlete) diminish anything anyone else is doing on campus? Did the fact I went through grad school with a faculty brat with no business having a seat in that program bother me in the least? No, even if he duped me into breaking and entering a place in Tahoe. (Good story though.) Worry about what your own person is doing, I say.

The only coed that matters these days is over on the couch 20 feet away and she is a rabid football fan. Do not interrupt while Cal or the Niners are on. Football was a thing for our family and our son played and coached collegiately. He let me know today that he just signed an NDA to pour over the finances of UVA's AD as part of his graduate education. He is stoked beyond words. I hope football stays and I hope it returns to something better than what it's been these past four years, even at the expense of Calfanwife's temporal happiness. If not, I'll deal.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - StanUSwagU - 01-18-2025

(01-17-2025, 10:11 PM)jacket3ree Wrote: This is very interesting discussion. I suspect once House is fully implemented, Stanford's ego (in my experience their prime concerns are money and image) will not allow it to prostrate itself before the ACC and not even two years later, just fold up the tent and crater the revenue program because keeping bigtime sports somehow sully academic standards, whatever those are. I could of course be wrong, but doing that isn't going to help Stanford's brand.

As to brand, I'm still miffed that Stanford no longer runs the shopping center, because my trusty fallback was always 'if Stanford can run a Bloomingdale's it can run a fricken football program.' Stanford still does all sorts of things and owns all sorts of things that have nothing to do with a core academic mission. Remember the yacht? And let's not pretend she is pure as driven snow.

The unfortunate answer is that Stanford will keep a football program but out of misplaced pretense (or more likely pure incompetence) let it continue to flounder into irrelevant oblivion. I don't think they will base their decision on how many students, alumni, or locals are into watching football on the Farm. Without football revenue, they need a massive paradigm shift to keep the rest of the program afloat.

Just anecdotally, but when have football players been just like the rest of us? Growing up and until my housemates dragged me to Gold's Gym in Mountain View, I had the Adonis-like body of a cross country runner. Yet my best mile time was only 4:53, leading a certain HS track coach to suggest that unless I could shave a minute off that time, I should find a better use for my time and more importantly, his time. So I was into music, skiing, mountaineering and kind of oddly depraved survivalist stuff. Oh, and unsuccessfully pining for girls. But I liked basketball and football well enough to throw my body around on the actual sandlot in our gentrifying rural-ish neighborhood, even in a non-walking cast after a depraved survivalist incident that kept me and my trumpet off the field my sophomore year for half the season.

My first football game as a spectator was in 1973 to watch Wheat Ridge Senior High School (home of the Fightin' Farmers) win a mythical national HS championship. Those guys were big! (I was 10.) Then when Dad was pursuing that perpetual doctorate he never got, this time at Colorado Mines, we went to a game in Golden. Division way down there. Stadium worse than Jeffco where Wheat Ridge played. Those guys were bigger! Then he moved on to CU Boulder (never got that degree there either) and had student section tickets. Right before high school I sat and watched the Buffs under Chuck Fairbanks lose for the millionth time against the Huskers. The football? Whatever. The coeds all around us? Holy smokes. I like football games. Right as I started high school, he and I drove down to the Springs to watch his beloved Jackets take on Air Force in a blizzard. Eddie Lee Ivory set the then NCAA record for rushing yards, and I got to sit next to some college women from Georgia. With honey-dripped accents. Oh my gosh, football is it. (Also a little kernal of maybe the coeds in Georgia are as good as the coeds in Boulder.) Well, and who is fooling whom? I grew up outside Denver with Bronco helmets for Christmas and there was always a neighborhood pickup game.

Alright, I completely got sidetracked there. The point is that it was social and while Tech defined mediocre Southern football, it was Southern football and during my four years, Tech managed to beat Alabama twice, Tennessee, Clemson, and Georgia when those names meant as much as they do now. Plus epic roadsters to Auburn, New Orleans, Chapel Thrill, and other places on a whim. More coeds! Part of our fabric of life. And Tech basketball? Some guy named Bobby Cremins had dinner at our house (that took courage) my freshman year begging us to come to games. By the time I left, Tech had gone from 4 wins to 4 points away from the Final Four against Patrick Ewing's Georgetown. So exciting; that ACC title became the defining thing of my graduating class, even at the 25th reunion. (Add: We played #1 UVA with Ralph Sampson my freshman year, with a team full of misfits. They lead at halftime. I thought the arena was going to collapse from the shear noise and all the jumping up and down. They lead going into the last minute. Bogus charge! Bogus charge! Lost by a point or something. Half the team was over at Chollies' after the game and we all drowned our sorrows in quarter beers. So, yeah, they were us.)

Were these guys students? Sure. Some were smart, some were not. Some worked hard, some did not. Did I care? Only to the extent that Ken Whisenhunt (career in NFL culminating in a Super Bowl appearance as a head coach) was my lab partner in a reinforced concrete class and I'll be pissed if he doesn't hold up his end.

I had buddies who were managers for football and basketball. Lots of perks with those relationships including a few shootarounds at 2 a.m. and an invitation or three to the dining hall. Yeah, these guys aren't subsisting on Pop Tarts, Cap'n Crunch, Top Ramen, and fried bologna. Why the heck should they? That was freaking spectacular, but they are destroying their bodies for my Jack and Coke fueled boozy Saturdays with flask partner Kate who drove a stick (and I can drive stick) who needed help getting back to Emory and that was a good night and that doesn't happen without the guys who need the training table.

Stanford can do what it wants for whom it wants to please. In our most honest moments we know that keeping high level athletes on campus won't shred whatever an academic standard is. Does the fact that highly desired athletes have essays written for them (first hand account from recruited athlete) diminish anything anyone else is doing on campus? Did the fact I went through grad school with a faculty brat with no business having a seat in that program bother me in the least? No, even if he duped me into breaking and entering a place in Tahoe. (Good story though.) Worry about what your own person is doing, I say.

The only coed that matters these days is over on the couch 20 feet away and she is a rabid football fan. Do not interrupt while Cal or the Niners are on. Football was a thing for our family and our son played and coached collegiately. He let me know today that he just signed an NDA to pour over the finances of UVA's AD as part of his graduate education. He is stoked beyond words. I hope football stays and I hope it returns to something better than what it's been these past four years, even at the expense of Calfanwife's temporal happiness. If not, I'll deal.

***********************

Jacket3ree,

(1). Extremely well articulated points, you beat me to the punch on much of what I was going to say, darn-it !

(2). On this notion of 'oh if we change a little bit to be more like Duke, NotreDame, or GaTech', that that means 'the athletes will become different than the rest of the student body', or that 'at some point in the recent past the athletes slept in the same dorms & ate the same crappy-food that the rest of us (regular schmuck students) ate ...I think this was mostly some halcyonic fiction borne out of some 'professional nerds abstractions' rather than the reality on the ground.

Not withstanding the reality & fact that many Athletes at Stanford have (for a very long time) eaten at 'training tables', had nutritionists, and PTs & physios ...that I dont think the run of the mill regular Stanford students have ....there are many 'affluent Non-athlete Stanford Students' who have chosen from their 2nd undergraduate year on 'not to live on campus dormitories & who live in posh apartments in Menlo Park/PaloAlto/Atherton/SharonPark etc, and whose affluent-parents have hired chefs & house-help to cook very good food for them & keep their accommodations clean & tidy. I knew 2 such students when I was an undergrad at Stanford. These students did not live in the same dorms & eat the same food as the rest of us students, and they were not Athletes.

Then (leaving athletes out of the equation) there was the big disparity & the vastly different 'requirements/burdens/experiences' of modest Stanford students who had to work 15-20hrs a week (albeit in campus jobs) as part of their financial-tuition requirements, and students who came from more financially affluent backgrounds, who didn't have to do this. So its not like Athletes would be 'privileged' in any way that other affluent students are not normally already privileged.

(3). I only say this to illustrate that we sometimes have an 'abstract view of Stanford' thinking it is somehow 'better or higher' than NotreDame, Duke, or GaTech ...but I think this is fallacy.

(4) BC makes some very valid points, and I am not advocating for us to turn into 'Oklahoma of the 1980s' or 'the U of Miami of the 1990s', or Jim or Larry from the 'Paul Finebaum Show' ...all I am saying is lets look at NotreDame for a model for Football & Duke for a model for Mens Basketball, and adopt as much as we can of what they do, so that when the musical-chairs of Conference Realignment happen again, we dont have the Big10 & other conferences & their MediaPartners saying 'Stanford Football & Mens Basketball, bring little to no value to us' and then we become like WSU or OSU, and the other Stanford olympic sports dont have any High Power D1 conference to compete in, which almost just happened.

(5). By the way I loved watching BobbyCremins GaTech teams of the 1990s (e.g DrewBarry, KennyAnderson, etc ) & I love watching the 'Ramblin Wreck' come Falls on the Gridiron, and Whisenhunt was a Great OC for the PittsburghSteelers, who Tomlin should re-hire now. I think our Stanford leadership could learn a lot from GaTechs leadership !

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - jacket3ree - 01-18-2025

I'm with you StanUSwagU, but I wouldn't go so far as saying Stanford could learn much from Tech's leadership. Vastly different institutions. Tech only sponsors 17 sports and is awash in debt, which affects much of what they do. But if you want to learn how to hire a string of mediocre coaches and give them ridiculous one-sided contracts that affect the hiring of subsequent coaches so much they can hamstring sports for decades (looking at you men's basketball), we're your team. Recent changes at the top (President Angel Cabrera and his faculty wife are massive college sports fans and supporters) do give some hope. 8 overtimes.....incoherent mumbling......

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - StanUSwagU - 01-19-2025

(01-16-2025, 05:43 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 04:11 PM)82lsju Wrote: while attendance was much better in the Rose/Orange/Fiesta bowl years let's not forget that for an awful lot of the "less interesting games" (e.g., OSU, WSU, UA, ASU, CU, UU, home games labor day weekend, and many non-conference games) the actual attendance in the stadium was still probably 25k-35k so I think the bandwagon fans outnumber the fans waiting for the team to be good.

Absolutely, I was trying to be generous. This board is very under representative of the Stanford community at large, which in many ways, is the anti-SEC: "it just doesn't mean that much".

BC

*********************************

Good points, I suppose we all have a different 'interpretation or reading of the data'

(1). As I have said a few times, I dont see changing/modernizing our Admissions Criteria to be more like Duke's or NotreDame's as 'lowering our standards' (as differentials between standardized test scores and differentials between 3.7 and 3.9 GPAs dont have too much meaning when it comes to a students well rounded knowledge, servant-leadership, or intellect). Actually I would see it as 'a long overdue broadening/improving of our far too narrow admissions criteria' that seems to filter in way too many 'narrow minded professional nerds' and potentially filter out far too many smart undergrads who enjoy the marquee sports of Football & Mens Basketball , especially...into the undergraduate level of the university. Leave that 'large percentage-makeup' of 'professional nerds' for the 'graduate programs at Stanford'. I know I am in the minority with this viewpoint.

(2). There are a few comments about 'our low attendance' to Football Games' on this Board.

I think this is in large part due to Stanford, being stuck in its old mindset, the narrow demographics & smaller enrollment-size of the undergraduate student-body, the Athletic Department of Stanford doing a subpar job of Marketing outside the ’Stanford enclave/bubble’, and Stanford being somewhat of an isolated 'ivory tower' type institution, whose ‘culture’ the more ‘regular-folk BayArea at large’, just dont relate to.

(3) Again, NotreDame’s undergraduate enrollment is not that much bigger than ours, yet they fill their Football Stadium, most Saturdays !

(4) Assuming we could get our Football Team to be a perennial 8win Team, if we took the following measures (again, I dont expect this to happen, since Stanford doesn't do 'innovative social/cultural change' very well), I think we could get our Football Attendance on Saturdays to be about at 80+% capacity:

(A) Give all 49ers Season Ticket holders 'free season tickets to Stanford Football'

Tell 49ers Season Ticket Fans, & 49ers Fans:

--View StanfordFootball & StanfordCampus as your Home 'Venue for Saturday College Football !" & your Home Venue for "Big Time Saturday Football Tailgaiting !"
--Come on campus Saturday Morning for HomeGames early & Tailgate to your hearts content, if you are at the Stadium Entrance gate 30minutes before KickOff, you not only get in free, you get '1 free hot dog & soda-pop' for each 49er single-ticket or season ticket proof
--John Lynch, as 49ers GM & StanfordAlum would make this outreach between Stanford Football & the 49ers Fanbase, a natural fit.

This would easily add 25,000+ fans to our Saturday Attendance, each Home Saturday !
Yes, you are giving them 'free season tickets to StanfordFootball', but Stanford will make some money when they buy from the Food & Concessions.

(B) As someone said, do better Outreach, outside the 'Stanford Community'; Much of our 'tepid interest in Football' is due to the University & Athletic Department thinking their target constituents & audience for Football is the 'Stanford Community' or folks in & around PaloAlto/Atherton/MenloPark. Rather refocus & expand StanfordFootball Marketing to:

• 49ers Fans
• 49ers Season Ticket Holders
•.Rabid College Football fans who live in the BayArea (but who may not be Stanford Alums). I know quite a few Big10 alums who work in the area who are RabidCollegeFootball fans, but just think the StanfordStadium college football experience & atmosphere is too antiseptic, boring, 'stuffy' & 'old-fogey-ish' ...compared to what they were used to as far as 'Saturday Afternoons in the Big10' ...and so they consider it 'not worth their time' to get their 'live college football experience fix' down at Stanford on Saturdays )
• High School Football Players within 45 miles of Campus
* Holding the SpringGame in KezarStadium (San Francisco) with a Concert of a BigMusicArtist & Letting this Event be Marketed & Promoted for 2months before it happens with banners all over the city of SF, so that 'NonStanfordAlum-SanFranciscans' get excited about maybe becoming Stanford Season Ticket Holders or Attending Saturday Stanford Football Games

Again, get them to think 'Stanford IS THE FUN PLACE TO BE for':

• 49ers fans to gather for Saturday Tailgating /Partying
• Enjoying a Fun CollegeFootball Experience
• General "NonStanford" SanFranciscan SportsFans (eg Giants or Warriors fans) to spend Saturday Afternoons Tailgating & Enjoying Live College Football

('C') How to Make Saturdays on the Farm, more Exciting & Compelling for 'Non Stanford Folks in the BayArea' to come down at go into the StanfordStadium on Saturdays =

• Music Concerts (artists paid by the University) that take place after the game in the Stadium, but whose admission to attend is partially based on you 'having been in the stadium attending the Stanford Football game); As big great Stanford (with lots of smart people & lots of MONEY according to BC) work out with the 49ers & LevisStadium, and the City of SantaClara to Have BigArtists like BC said like TaylorSwift, KennyChesney, BradPaisley, U2, Usher, CarlosSantanas, just play at Stanford Stadium after the FootballGame, rather than at Levis Stadium, but the gate proceeds go to Levis & the City of Santa Clara & the 49ers
• These Music concerts by BigArtists at Stanford Stadium after the FootballGame, will drag lots of 'Non-Stanford, Non-Football fans' into Stanford Stadium for the football game, maybe 7500+ fans

(D) With these 3 large 'groups' coming down to Stanford Campus on HomeGame Saturdays into the Stadium, we would add in our Stadium
• 25,000 49ers Fans
• 7,500 BigArtist Concertgoer Fans
• 2,500 NonStanford San Franciscan Sports Fans (maybe Giants or Warriors Fans() , who just realize "Saturday Tailgaiting & Football can be fun & welcoming these 3 large groups..getting free admission into the StanfordFootball Games this would be ADDING to the Saturday inside the stadium attendance 35,000 each game !

(E) Possibly 35,000 Fans added to our normal attendance each Saturday; As we all know 'when stuff is free, people come in the door'; Attendance Problem Solved !

[To offset any costs associated with above, as well developing an NIL WarChest like no other University, Stanford could sell sign-age & branding deals with the local BayArea Corporate Tech Billionaires for posting their Corporate Sign-age all over Campus; Stanford could literally cover all its Football Improvement Costs by selling sign-age space & turn all of Campus into a TechCorporate Sign-age bonanza till on campus looked like a NASCAR Car; Relocate the College Football Hall of Fame Museum to StanfordCampus, so that any sheltered nerdy students could become more educated & aware of the 'history and relationship between CollegeFootball & Universities & AmericanHistory, and therefore maybe appreciate college football more ...so 'it wouldn't just mean more in the SEC or BIG10'; Renew the playing of the Shriners Hospital College All-Star Game at StanfordStadium !, etc ]

I am largely jesting & speaking in tongue & cheek & hyperbole, with my take in this last paragraph above, ..but I just state it to say NotreDame hasn't gone to these excesses I mention in the paragraph directly above but is fielding Top20Football Teams, ...so we needn't clutch our pearls at the thought of 'adopting some of the NotreDame model for College Football.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - paloalto - 01-20-2025

If you have to rely on gimmicks to get people who are not Stanford football fans to come into the stadium for reasons other than watching the football team, count me out.

You constantly refer in a derogatory manner to Stanford students/alums as "narrow minded" and "professional nerds." I resent that. Continually trying to put down Stanford alums is not going to help sway those viewers of this thread over to your way of thinking.

Your posts are making me think it might be better for Stanford to get out of the race for big-time football and focus more on bringing in student athletes who play their sport for the love of it.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - BostonCard - 01-20-2025

Notre Dame is particularly popular despite its comparable student size because it has historically attracted a very large non-alum following, particularly amongst Catholics in the US, which number 52 million in the U.S. Stanford does not have a similar non-alum base to appeal to. The Bay Area region is a particularly difficult area to draw fans from because a large share of residents (2/3 if you Google it) were born outside the area and thus did not "grow up" rooting for Stanford.

I don't Stanford can wish itself into being Notre Dame, and the things you suggest, aside from being expensive, probably won't make a difference. If you price the product like it is not worth much because you give it away, it turns out that many people will treat it like a product that is not worth much. I think you pine for a Stanford to be a school that simply isn't. Nothing wrong with that, and I hate to be a wet noodle, but you will likely be disappointed. I expect the pattern that we've seen for as long as I've been a fan will continue. Occasional periods of being good (sometimes, as in 2011 - 2015), really good, punctuating long periods of mediocrity or worse. And even those periods of "being good" seem like they are going to be increasingly scarce going forward.

BC

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - martyup - 01-20-2025

(01-20-2025, 06:33 PM)BostonCard Wrote: If you price the product like it is not worth much because you give it away, it turns out that many people will treat it like a product that is not worth much.

I would say that the tens of thousands of empty seats at our games tells us that many people already treat it like it is not worth much.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - chrisk - 01-20-2025

Levin appears to be highly supportive of athletics at Stanford. But if Stanford does not get to 8 wins in the next three years, I don't think he will EITHER deemphasize football OR dump many more millions into the athletic budget over and above what has been added recently. I'm pretty sure he looks at the situation from a long-term perspective and not the short-term emergency some posters think it is. Stanford will keep its options open. If the Power 4 splinters further, Stanford will have to choose which fork in the road to take. In the meantime, Stanford will be making incremental adjustments toward being competitive in the new landscape. From the administration's perspective, football is not one of the top 5 or even top 10 issues.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - M T - 01-21-2025

Extending BC's comment regarding Bay Area interest in (American) football: The Census Bureau reports that 42.2% of the residents of Santa Clara County are foreign-born. 10.6% of the Notre Dame Census Designated Place are foreign-born. I'm sure there are foreign-born residents that acquire an interest in American football, but probably considerably fewer than US-born residents that grew up with football.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - fullmetal - 01-21-2025

(01-21-2025, 11:28 AM)branner Wrote: Even though I lived in Texas, Stanford became my team.

Another one from Texas! :) I think that makes at least four? of us that I remember on this board...

This is not an obscure solution: winning brings fans, winning brings exposure, and winning is all that matters in football. And that takes talented young men and insightful, effective coaches. Stanford Football already has everything else.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - gailtate - 01-21-2025

(01-21-2025, 11:28 AM)branner Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 03:57 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 01:51 PM)paloalto Wrote: About 30 people post on Cardboard football threads. This is a very small echo chamber. The prevailing attitude seems to be. “I’m interested in football so all students should be interested in football”. Do a handful of 70 year old, die-hard football fans know what 18 year old students are interested in?

There is a website College Confidential about college topics. It has a very big message board. I’ve frequently posted on this board for twenty years; particularly on threads involving Stanford. Many threads are discussions by students about what top colleges they will be applying to. I’ve never seen a post, “I’m thinking of applying to Stanford but I’m concerned about how many games the football team will win”.

...
The other argument that has been made is that while no one will say “I am considering applying to Stanford due to its football team”, a successful football team with a rabid fanbase contributes to the overall environment, which contributes to the “gestalt” as to how people feel about the school, which does drive how people apply or decide to go to the school. I think Mick has provided some data to back up the fact that schools see a bump in applicants after successful sports seasons.
...
BC

Funny, because I first considered applying to Stanford because of its football team. To be more more specific, I fell in love with the '71 Rose Bowl team with Jim Plunkett at quarterback. Even though I lived in Texas, Stanford became my team. I loved the uniforms, the style of play, the California setting, Prince Lightfoot...you name it. I never wanted to go to school anywhere else. Only later did I learn the academics were solid. But it was football that won me over.

I did always wonder about the band, though.

Based on the number of LSJU alums I've known, you are not alone in what you value. It's just that you're honest enough to say so.

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - 82lsju - 01-21-2025

(01-21-2025, 01:24 PM)gailtate Wrote:
(01-21-2025, 11:28 AM)branner Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 03:57 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 01:51 PM)paloalto Wrote: About 30 people post on Cardboard football threads. This is a very small echo chamber. The prevailing attitude seems to be. “I’m interested in football so all students should be interested in football”. Do a handful of 70 year old, die-hard football fans know what 18 year old students are interested in?

There is a website College Confidential about college topics. It has a very big message board. I’ve frequently posted on this board for twenty years; particularly on threads involving Stanford. Many threads are discussions by students about what top colleges they will be applying to. I’ve never seen a post, “I’m thinking of applying to Stanford but I’m concerned about how many games the football team will win”.

...
The other argument that has been made is that while no one will say “I am considering applying to Stanford due to its football team”, a successful football team with a rabid fanbase contributes to the overall environment, which contributes to the “gestalt” as to how people feel about the school, which does drive how people apply or decide to go to the school. I think Mick has provided some data to back up the fact that schools see a bump in applicants after successful sports seasons.
...
BC

Funny, because I first considered applying to Stanford because of its football team. To be more more specific, I fell in love with the '71 Rose Bowl team with Jim Plunkett at quarterback. Even though I lived in Texas, Stanford became my team. I loved the uniforms, the style of play, the California setting, Prince Lightfoot...you name it. I never wanted to go to school anywhere else. Only later did I learn the academics were solid. But it was football that won me over.

I did always wonder about the band, though.

Based on the number of LSJU alums I've known, you are not alone in what you value. It's just that you're honest enough to say so.

how many of those alums are under 50 years old?

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - gailtate - 01-22-2025

(01-21-2025, 01:40 PM)82lsju Wrote:
(01-21-2025, 01:24 PM)gailtate Wrote:
(01-21-2025, 11:28 AM)branner Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 03:57 PM)BostonCard Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 01:51 PM)paloalto Wrote: About 30 people post on Cardboard football threads. This is a very small echo chamber. The prevailing attitude seems to be. “I’m interested in football so all students should be interested in football”. Do a handful of 70 year old, die-hard football fans know what 18 year old students are interested in?

There is a website College Confidential about college topics. It has a very big message board. I’ve frequently posted on this board for twenty years; particularly on threads involving Stanford. Many threads are discussions by students about what top colleges they will be applying to. I’ve never seen a post, “I’m thinking of applying to Stanford but I’m concerned about how many games the football team will win”.

...
The other argument that has been made is that while no one will say “I am considering applying to Stanford due to its football team”, a successful football team with a rabid fanbase contributes to the overall environment, which contributes to the “gestalt” as to how people feel about the school, which does drive how people apply or decide to go to the school. I think Mick has provided some data to back up the fact that schools see a bump in applicants after successful sports seasons.
...
BC

Funny, because I first considered applying to Stanford because of its football team. To be more more specific, I fell in love with the '71 Rose Bowl team with Jim Plunkett at quarterback. Even though I lived in Texas, Stanford became my team. I loved the uniforms, the style of play, the California setting, Prince Lightfoot...you name it. I never wanted to go to school anywhere else. Only later did I learn the academics were solid. But it was football that won me over.

I did always wonder about the band, though.

Based on the number of LSJU alums I've known, you are not alone in what you value. It's just that you're honest enough to say so.

how many of those alums are under 50 years old?

None. So?

RE: What can Stanford learn from NotreDame regarding creating a Top20 Football Program ? - 82lsju - 01-22-2025

(01-22-2025, 09:45 AM)gailtate Wrote:
(01-21-2025, 01:40 PM)82lsju Wrote:
(01-21-2025, 01:24 PM)gailtate Wrote:
(01-21-2025, 11:28 AM)branner Wrote:
(01-16-2025, 03:57 PM)BostonCard Wrote: ...
The other argument that has been made is that while no one will say “I am considering applying to Stanford due to its football team”, a successful football team with a rabid fanbase contributes to the overall environment, which contributes to the “gestalt” as to how people feel about the school, which does drive how people apply or decide to go to the school. I think Mick has provided some data to back up the fact that schools see a bump in applicants after successful sports seasons.
...
BC

Funny, because I first considered applying to Stanford because of its football team. To be more more specific, I fell in love with the '71 Rose Bowl team with Jim Plunkett at quarterback. Even though I lived in Texas, Stanford became my team. I loved the uniforms, the style of play, the California setting, Prince Lightfoot...you name it. I never wanted to go to school anywhere else. Only later did I learn the academics were solid. But it was football that won me over.

I did always wonder about the band, though.

Based on the number of LSJU alums I've known, you are not alone in what you value. It's just that you're honest enough to say so.

how many of those alums are under 50 years old?

None. So?

more recent alums might have a different viewpoint