(11-01-2012, 03:30 AM)JPRI link Wrote:.....
I certainly agree that our offensive production needs to improve.
However the notion that if it doesn't happen tout de suite the program is headed for the shoals of disaster strikes me as a bit much. Especially when we are winning 75% of our games.
Also, I can remember when 7-5 was considered a pretty decent season. The fact people are now looking in horror at the prospects of it shows you how much expectations have changed post-Luck.
I am jacketree and I approve this message.
The offense does need to improve because an improved offense gives Stanford a much better chance of winning games the rest of this year, all else equal.
I think some of Teejers' concerns about the long-term ramifications of an el stinko offense despite W/L have a real basis in history, at least the history I remember.
Stanford football has an interesting past. Lots of ups and lots of downs - often with the auto-correlation you'd expect. A good stretch from Chuck Taylor, then a bad one from Cactus Jack. The Ralston through Walsh era was perhaps the golden age of Stanford football where winning 57 percent of your games gets you fired. Then an era of, well 'mediocrity' seems generous; from Dowhower, Wiggin, Elway and Green. The last guy at least started an upswing before bailing. Walsh came back to kill the upswing, W.i.l.l.i.n.g.h.a.m took the program from the ash heap to Pasadena; then Buddy Harris presented Jim Harbaugh with a nice way to impress the NFL folks. Are we in a Harbaugh-Shaw era or will it really be known as the Gerhart-Luck era? If David Shaw somehow maintains his current pace with respect to winning, he'd absolutely blow away every post-war coach in Stanford history. He actually has a lot of wiggle room to do so.
But I digress. I mentioned a golden era of Stanford football. That golden era had plenty of the dreaded 6-5 and 7-4 type seasons sprinkled throughout, but they seem to be years fondly remembered and attendance was good from what everyone says. I believe the record shows that attendance peaked immediately after Elway's senior season, when the team went 1-10. Why did people show up despite pretty crappy football in terms of W/L? Because they remembered Elway's aerial circus, beating an occasional big shot (UW, Oklahoma), and some miracle 70 yard pass over Ronnie Lott's head. (Never mind they lost the game.)
Then a slow decline in both team performance and butts in seats. I showed up during that decline (correlation is not necessarily causation!) and distinctly remember sitting in the Terman mezzanine reading an article in the Daily. This would be the 1985 season. An absolutely horrific display of football; the only decent team they beat was Arizona. I remember the sports editor bemoaning not the record so much, but the absolute boredom of Jack Elway's one-more-swing-pass-and-I'm-gouging-my-eyes-out offense. Or perhaps he was criticizing anyone pining for Michigan and Ohio State style winning. I don't remember that exactly, but I do remember his opinion: 'I'd rather lose 42-45 than win 6-3.' I thought this guy was nuts, but more and more I think he was right as far as Stanford fans generally go. There simply aren't enough no-matter-what-I'll-show-up diehards. To regularly fill even the downsized stadium is going to take bread and circuses I'm afraid. WSU, even with passes flung all over the place and a 7-0 record isn't going to do it. It's the nature of Bay Area sports really. Yeah, the Giants sold out every game this year; but obviously many came dressed as empty green chairs. I simply cannot explain the Golden State Warriors. They are a total anomaly.
P.S. Re: Bread and circuses. I work at Powell and Market. I think 6 billion were trying to board Caltrain at 5:27 yesterday.