[BostonCard]

Shaw achieved that success with teams Harbaugh built.  After Harbaugh left, the question was whether Shaw could continue his predecessor's success.  He did, for a while - until last year.  Then the question became whether Shaw's players could sustain the success achieved by Harbaugh's players.  Saturday's game was certainly not promising.

Fact of the matter is nobody has any idea whether Shaw can be successful with a program he built himself.  This season will go a long way toward answering that question.

Over the last 30 years, there have been 10 seasons as good or better than our 8-5 record of last year, and Shaw has three of them (Harbaugh has two, Willingham two, Walsh, Green, and Elway each have one).  An 8-5 season looks like it is the "end of success" because we have recallibrated success to mean 10-win seasons, something that prior to Harbaugh (who did it once) and Shaw (who got there three times) had been accomplished exactly three times in the history of Stanford football [to be fair, they played fewer games back then, but the number of seasons with three or fewer losses could be counted on one hand since Ralston].  By almost any historical measure, an 8-5 season would be considered very good.

BC

[BostonCard]

Shaw achieved that success with teams Harbaugh built.  After Harbaugh left, the question was whether Shaw could continue his predecessor's success.  He did, for a while - until last year.  Then the question became whether Shaw's players could sustain the success achieved by Harbaugh's players.  Saturday's game was certainly not promising.

Fact of the matter is nobody has any idea whether Shaw can be successful with a program he built himself.  This season will go a long way toward answering that question.

Over the last 30 years, there have been 10 seasons as good or better than our 8-5 record of last year, and Shaw has three of them (Harbaugh has two, Willingham two, Walsh, Green, and Elway each have one).  An 8-5 season looks like it is the "end of success" because we have recallibrated success to mean 10-win seasons, something that prior to Harbaugh (who did it once) and Shaw (who got there three times) had been accomplished exactly three times in the history of Stanford football [to be fair, they played fewer games back then, but the number of seasons with three or fewer losses could be counted on one hand since Ralston].  By almost any historical measure, an 8-5 season would be considered very good.

BC