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Joined: Nov 2021
08-26-2025, 06:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-26-2025, 06:39 PM by
jacket3ree.)
Hey Calfan,
I root for Cal because happy wife, happy.....endings sometimes. And it is a fun place to watch football although we rarely go any more. If fact, my most recent game at Memorial was with a work friend and his wife (both Old Blues). I remember Cal beat a pretty bad Colorado team in the light rain and my friends had swanky access to the club area, so that was nice.
I do agree with you that Stanford and Cal are, or should try to be, tied at the realignment hip, the way USC and UCLA did it, and Oregon and Washington. A Bay Area axis with 7.7 million people in it, even if getting one percent of that interested in college football seems to be a chore. I'm cool if Cal and Stanford want to lead a west coast football conference renaissance (pointedly not inviting LA to join). That's better than wandering the land and ending up playing most games along the Atlantic Piedmont.
Garbage football is no way to get people interested in college football. I hope Luck and Rivera are truly successful because I think they are the two most important people to turn the clock back 10-15 years for Stanford and 15-20 years for Cal and making this all fun again. I mean, look at what you guys did at Gameday last year. I think you are a decent offensive caller away from really taking off. Fans are ready for it. Not sure about the fanbase to the southeast of you, but it could start with a fun team that wins.
Stanford, unfortunately, is about 60 decent transfers away from anything noteworthy anytime soon. The roster seems limiting from what we've seen so far. So, we can compete with Hawaii, I guess. What would Hawaii do against the rest of our schedule? All that matters is what Luck thinks about lowering transfer restrictions and can convince upper management, which as far as I can tell is only Martinez and Levin. This is largely Luck's call.
Personally as an alum, I have zero problem with transfers. They sully nothing. My 40-year-old degree is still on the wall in my office (yep, just checked - furniture at this point). Maybe those transfers in are better players AND students AND people than the ones who transferred out. Maybe not. I don't care. I'm not hiring them to do anything; they aren't my friends; they aren't my family. If Stanford continues to suck, they will no longer be worth my time and effort ($), and there is plenty else to do on warm, sunny, fall weekends.*
My perception of the university won't change with a different "bar" for transfers. That perception was formed a long time ago, including catching a couple of football players cheating on tests I was grading, and I am still appreciative of what happened at the giant Taco Bell all those years ago no matter where Stanford sits in the power rankings. Like being rescued from a career start in Midland, Texas, a job, and a free education - things Cal did not offer btw, so here we are. At present, Stanford has far worse perception problems than a handful of transfers needed to keep the entertainment/branding arm viable.
But like I say, this is about what Luck thinks is the way forward and what he can convince the two people (I think) who are above him in matters of the field and locker room. I really hope he is up to this. Tough job.
*Speaking of tough jobs, I spent the weekend trying to eradicate bamboo from a maybe 5-foot strip between our driveway and the neighbor's fence. I might have removed three full linear feet in 15 hours of work. I forgot Stanford played in Week 0. My wife came out wondering if I wanted to watch or she'd keep watching baseball. So Stanford football or another four hours of back breaking bamboo removal, which both involve a lot of blood, sweat, tears, dirt-smeared sunscreen and ruining fences that need to be rebuilt before nightfall because Dan and Tracy next door have dogs and I don't want to be that a-hole? I had been at it for hours. Stanford won out, but I had some regrets about squandering some daylight after the fact. I thought a lot about a tortured bamboo removal analogy to Stanford football, but can't think of how to represent the key to it all, which is massive compound lopers because losing a limb shoving the business end of a chainsaw into the mix of live shoots, fossilized bamboo wood, dirt, rocks, concrete and God knows what else is down there, while badass in a way, is actually pretty scary. Bamboo must be removed by the root, rhizomes and all. There is no easy chemical substitute and I tried them all. Anyway, if anyone does know of a dump and die miracle (doesn't even need to be safe for animals), let me know. Thank you for your attention to this matter! JT