Major sports retrospective 1982-present - Printable Version
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Major sports retrospective 1982-present (/thread-24814.html)
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Major sports retrospective 1982-present (/thread-24814.html)
Major sports retrospective 1982-present - msqueri - 02-25-2024
With talk of whether this is the lowest our major sports have ever been, I thought it might be interesting (and also nice to think of better times) to take a look at how we've done each year in our four biggest sports. Since the women's basketball tournament started in 1982 I'll start the analysis there. I thought about whether to do it in academic years or calendar years and decided to do calendar years to make it a bit easier for myself.
In the interest of turning this into a ranking, as is my wont, I wanted to find some way to quantify/compare across sports. Since what I'm interested in is what years have been most special by our standards, I think it makes sense to grade each sport on a bit of a curve relative to how they normally do. That is, a top 16 season in football or men's basketball is quite a bit more special to us than it is in many other sports. Of course, figuring out how to quantify/set the curve is totally subjective and everybody on this board would probably do it somewhat differently. For what it's worth, my stab at this is to view each sport like so:
Football: Dividing football into four levels of success based on computer rankings during this timeframe, approximately the top quarter of teams have been top 15, the next segment is 15-39, the third is 40-69, and the worst quartile is 70th or worse. I will award four points to the legendary top five teams, three points to the elite top 15 teams, two to the good top 39 teams, one to the mediocre teams, and zero to the ones so crappy they couldn't even do better than 70th.
Men's Basketball: Dividing men's basketball into four levels of success based on postseason accomplishments, the top tier made it to the Round of 32 or further, the next tier lost in the first round or made it to the NIT, the third tier finished better than eighth in the conference but missed out on the NIT, and the worst group finished eighth or worse in the conference and didn't make the postseason. I will award four points to the Elite 8 teams, three points to the Round of 32 or beyond teams, two to the other postseason teams, one to the mediocre teams, and zero to the ones so crappy they couldn't even do better than eighth in the conference and/or a postseason bid.
Women's Basketball: Dividing women's basketball into four levels of success based on postseason accomplishments, the top tier made it to the Final Four or further, the second group made it to the Elite 8, the third group made it to the Sweet 16, and the worst group made it the second round of the tournament or worse. [This is obviously hard to classify for an exercise like this as there's no such thing as mediocre or crappy with our women's basketball program, but at the same time being a bit simplistic/ruthless about judging teams based on which round of the tournament they got to makes sense for an exercise like this aimed at looking at relative satisfaction/payoffs of seasons.] I will award four points to the national champions, three points to the Final Four team, two points to the Elite 8 teams, one point to the Sweet Sixteen teams, and zero points to the teams that couldn't get past the second round of the tournament.
Baseball: Dividing baseball into four levels of success based on postseason accomplishments, the top tier made it to the College World Series, the second group made the Super Regional, the third group made the Regional, and the worst group failed to make the postseason. I will award four points to the national champions, three points to the other College World Series teams, two points to the Super Regional teams, one point to the Regional teams, and zero to the ones so crappy they couldn't even make the postseason.
1982: 2 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 5
1983: 0 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 3
1984: 1 point for football, 1 point for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 3
1985: 1 point for football, 0 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 4
1986: 3 points for football, 1 point for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 5
1987: 1 point for football, 1 point for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 4 points for baseball - 6
1988: 1 point for football, 2 points for MBB, 1 point for WBB, 4 points for baseball - 8
1989: 0 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 4
1990: 2 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 4 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 11
1991: 2 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 8
1992: 3 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 4 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 10
1993: 1 point for football, 0 points for MBB, 1 point for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 2
1994: 1 point for football, 2 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 6
1995: 2 points for football, 3 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 11
1996: 2 points for football, 3 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 9
1997: 2 points for football, 3 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 11
1998: 0 points for football, 4 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 5
1999: 2 points for football, 3 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 8
2000: 1 point for football, 3 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 7
2001: 3 points for football, 4 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 10
2002: 0 points for football, 3 points for MBB, 1 point for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 7
2003: 1 point for football, 3 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 7
2004: 1 point for football, 3 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 7
2005: 1 point for football, 2 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 6
2006: 0 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 5
2007: 0 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 2
2008: 1 point for football, 3 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 10
2009: 2 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 7
2010: 4 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 8
2011: 3 points for football, 1 point for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 2 points for baseball - 9
2012: 3 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 2 points for baseball - 10
2013: 4 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 1 point for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 7
2014: 2 points for football, 3 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 2 points for baseball - 10
2015: 4 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 1 point for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 7
2016: 2 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 0 points for baseball - 4
2017: 3 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 7
2018: 2 points for football, 2 points for MBB, 1 point for WBB, 1 point for baseball - 6
2019: 0 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 2 points for WBB, 2 points for baseball - 4
2020: 0 points for football, 1 point for MBB, postseason cancelled and impossible to know how far WBB would have gone, aborted baseball season - year should be disregarded due to COVID but wasn't looking good
2021: 0 points for football, 1 point for MBB, 4 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 8
2022: 0 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 3 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 6
2023: 0 points for football, 0 points for MBB, 0 points for WBB, 3 points for baseball - 3
Most of 2024 is still to be written but football will likely be a zero, MBB is guaranteed to be a zero, WBB is TBD, and baseball is looking like it may be a zero.
Our median season is a 7. 2024 is going to be the third consecutive subpar major sports year. 2013 was Muir's first full calendar year as our athletic director and since then we've had two good years, three median years, six bad years, and a wiped out COVID year. That doesn't seem like a very good tenure.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - msqueri - 02-25-2024
Best Overall Major Sports Seasons
1990 (WBB national championship, CWS appearance, NIT appearance, Denny Green's second year)
1995 (WBB Final Four, CWS appearance, MBB second round, Liberty Bowl)
1997 (MBB Sweet 16, WBB Final Four, CWS appearance, mediocre football team)
1992 (WBB national championship, Blockbuster Bowl, MBB tournament appearance, baseball regional appearance)
2001 (CWS runner-up, MBB Elite 8, Seattle Bowl, WBB second round knockout)
2008 (WBB runner-up, MBB Sweet 16, CWS appearance, Harbaugh's second year)
2012 (Rose Bowl win, WBB Final Four, MBB NIT champion, baseball Super Regional appearance)
2014 (MBB Sweet 16, WBB Final Four, Foster Farms Bowl win, baseball Super Regional appearance)
Those were eight sweet, sweet years. Obviously the 90s were a great time to be Cardinal. Personally, when I think of Stanford sports I think of that 2001 year. Think about how much Stanford sports would have been on top of the college sports universe if the 2014 football team didn't take the year off on offense.
Worst Overall Major Sports Seasons
1993 (Walsh II starting to come undone, only time in Montgomery's last 17 years of his 18 year tenure we didn't make the postseason, WBB couldn't make it past the Sweet 16, one of only two times in a 27 year period we didn't make the baseball postseason)
2007 (Harbaugh's first year, MBB made it to first round of tournament, WBB bounced in the second round, one of only four times in a 32 year period we didn't make the baseball postseason)
1983 (a contender for worst football season in history, Tom Davis' first season, mediocre WBB season, made the CWS)
1984 (Jack Elway's first year, Tom Davis' second year, an abysmal 5 win WBB season, baseball only made it to the regional after making the CWS the previous two years)
2023 (Troy Taylor's first year, crappy 14 win Haase team, WBB bounced in the second round, baseball made CWS)
1985 (Jack Elways' second year, crappy 11 win Davis team, crappy 9 win WBB to end McCrea tenure, baseball made CWS)
1989 (Denny Green's first year, MBB made first round of the tournament, WBB made Elite 8, one of those super rare times the baseball team missed the postseason)
2016 (Sun Bowl win, Dawkin's last season, WBB made Elite 8, baseball missed postseason)
2019 (first time in over a decade football missed a bowl, Haase losing record, WBB made Elite 8, baseball made Super Regional)
Less sweet times. Considering the likelihood of 2024 joining this list, what jumps out to me is that 1983-1985 and 2023-? jump out as the dark ages in this span. Hopefully the 2030s rock like the 1990s did, and hopefully we have some things to celebrate before then.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - qwerty49 - 02-25-2024
Nice analysis Matt! I know I speak for many of us longtime fans who appreciate the time and effort you put into arrays like this. It really adds a lot of interesting perspective.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - gailtate - 02-26-2024
Bernard's teflon mastery of administrative survival should be studied by all would-be apparatchiks. He's a survivor for all seasons.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - Mick - 02-26-2024
(02-26-2024, 09:45 AM)gailtate Wrote: Bernard's teflon mastery of administrative survival should be studied by all would-be apparatchiks. He's a survivor for all seasons.
Completely agree. I grudgingly admire the capacity of mediocre talents who have finagled their way into senior roles and thrive. Bernard, for sure. Farhan Zaidi is another. Objectively speaking, the SF Giants' first round draft picks over the last 10 years have the worst WAR of all 30 big league teams. And yet...Farhan not only keeps his job, but he gets a two-year extension. And he proves his rank incompetence by hiring Jerod Haase, excuse me, I mean Bob Melvin, a career underperformer. I've seen it in my own business many times. Grim.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - ColoradoTree - 02-26-2024
While it might be a down year for baseball and WBB compared to recent expectations, what's the general sense of the board as to whether those are blips or signs of a downward trajectory? My relatively uninformed sense of those two programs is that they're in pretty good health, and that we can expect them to be competing at a high level for the foreseeable future. But I'm curious as to what closer followers of those programs (and their recruiting) think.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - cctop - 02-26-2024
Thanks Matt, this is cool!
I might quibble that the analysis gives too much weight to baseball. Sure it's a major pro sport but outside of the College World Series it's virtually ignored at the collegiate level.
It's interesting that 2007 was objectively bad but subjectively I wouldn't have ranked it in the top 10. Football was obviously on the upswing after a terrible season and MBB made the tournament even if they lost on the first round.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - Nan3cy - 02-26-2024
I look at these “worst years” and notice WBB made the Elite 8, and once again it makes me realize what a treasure it has been to have Tara coaching for Stanford all these years.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - Spiny_Norman - 02-26-2024
During the period covered by Matt's analysis, Stanford has had 4 full time ADs (not counting interims) - Andy Geiger (1979-1990), Ted Leland (1991-2005), Bob Bowlsby (2006-2012) and Bernard Muir (2013-present).
For how much of Stanford's success in the "major sports" over their terms do they deserve credit or blame?
Geiger hired Tara Vanderveer, Mike Montgomery, Denny Green and Jack Elway (as well as Rod Dowhower and Paul Wiggin).
Leland hired Tyrone Willingham and Trent Johnson (as well as Bill Walsh, Buddy Teevens and Wlat Harris).
Bowlsby hired Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw (as well as Johnny Dawkins).
Muir hired David Esquer, Jerod Haase and Troy Taylor.
Geiger and Bowlsby made program-changing hires in basketball and football. Leland and Muir less so. Geiger and Leland fired coaches during their tenure. Bowlsby did not need to do so during the relatively short time he was at Stanford. Muir has sat on his hands as performance stagnated or deteriorated.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - 82lsju - 02-26-2024
while the objective measures are good, to me any year we went to The Rose Bowl was a good year....
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - msqueri - 02-26-2024
(02-26-2024, 11:43 AM)ColoradoTree Wrote: While it might be a down year for baseball and WBB compared to recent expectations, what's the general sense of the board as to whether those are blips or signs of a downward trajectory? My relatively uninformed sense of those two programs is that they're in pretty good health, and that we can expect them to be competing at a high level for the foreseeable future. But I'm curious as to what closer followers of those programs (and their recruiting) think.
Esquer built a ton of goodwill from me by going to Omaha three years in a row but his recruiting has been iffy and I have some concern that as a result he’s peaked. I hope not. CWS three years in a row is so great and speaks to an ability to coach up a given level of talent, so maybe he doesn’t need great recruiting. But I’m concerned his recruiting isn’t great.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - gailtate - 02-26-2024
(02-26-2024, 11:25 AM)Mick Wrote:(02-26-2024, 09:45 AM)gailtate Wrote: Bernard's teflon mastery of administrative survival should be studied by all would-be apparatchiks. He's a survivor for all seasons.
Completely agree. I grudgingly admire the capacity of mediocre talents who have finagled their way into senior roles and thrive. Bernard, for sure. Farhan Zaidi is another. Objectively speaking, the SF Giants' first round draft picks over the last 10 years have the worst WAR of all 30 big league teams. And yet...Farhan not only keeps his job, but he gets a two-year extension. And he proves his rank incompetence by hiring Jerod Haase, excuse me, I mean Bob Melvin, a career underperformer. I've seen it in my own business many times. Grim.
Spot-on. Farhan's a fraud and Greg Johnson operates in the shadow of his own question mark. As a former A's fan since the white-shoes '70s, however, I'll give Bo-Mel a temporary wait-and-see pass. The situation in San Diego seemed fraught with clubhouse intrigue. A better measure of his field chops was having nimbly navigated Wolfe/FisherLand -- until it was untenable. Still, the NL West is Dodger territory in the foreseeable future and I had higher expectations of Melvin in San Diego. We'll know more by late September.
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - bbm233 - 02-26-2024
Having been on campus from '83-85, I can agree that the major sports were generally awful, with the exception of baseball. There certainly were some individual talents like Elway, White, Muster, Veris, K Jones and Revelli who made it worthwhile to go to games for this sports nut in the fall and winter. Football was still widely supported, but Maples was empty. Spring was amazing with almost guaranteed championships in tennis and future superstars at Sunken (Bonds, McGwire, the Big Unit, IIRC).
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - BobK - 02-26-2024
Actually if you look at 2025 2026 2027 recruiting is quite good.
The problem is Esquer had too many great Jr plsyers. Drafted and gone.
The Frosh and Soph pitchers based on ranking is very good. Reynolds was a top recruit and played his first game yesterday Hit a HR.
Down years happen
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - BostonCard - 02-26-2024
For what it is worth, here are the average scores by AD:
Geiger 5.4 (min 3, max 11)
Leland 7.6 (min 2, max 11)
Bowlsby 6.8 (min 2, max 10)
Muir 6.6 (min 3, max 10)
By average major sport score, our best AD was.... Ted Leland(?!). However, for every AD, their first few years probably was partly or largely due to what they inherited from their predecessors. If you just look at the average over their last three years:
Geiger 7.7
Leland 6.7
Bowlsby 8
Muir 5.7
It does suggest that Bowlsby and Geiger were our best ADs, which tracks with the fact that both of them (re)built the department over their tenures. The rolling average over Muir's long tenure looks pretty bad, even taking out 2020.
BC
RE: Major sports retrospective 1982-present - norcard10 - 02-26-2024
All good to win the director's cup trophy year after year, but it is a shame Stanford doesn't have a national championship in any of the above men's sports since the 80s.