[FarmBoy]

I'm not sure why everyone's so sure there's some elite bar for national championship winning success that Shaw doesn't reach. Gene Chizik has won a national championship. Les Miles has won a national championship. Mark Helfrich and Brian Kelly have reached the national championship game. Shaw is indisputably better than at least two of these coaches.

I'm not questioning whether Shaw can reach that bar. I'm questioning whether it's reasonable to criticize him for not having won one already at Stanford.

I do think there's a difference in Shaw being a NC caliber coach and Shaw being able to take Stanford to the promised land. Perhaps it's just the pessimistic Stanford fan in me, but I gotta think it's harder to take a group of kids from a narrow recruitment poll to the NC than it is to take kids that are recruited by Auburn, Oregon and ND.

[FarmBoy]

I'm not sure why everyone's so sure there's some elite bar for national championship winning success that Shaw doesn't reach. Gene Chizik has won a national championship. Les Miles has won a national championship. Mark Helfrich and Brian Kelly have reached the national championship game. Shaw is indisputably better than at least two of these coaches.

I'm not questioning whether Shaw can reach that bar. I'm questioning whether it's reasonable to criticize him for not having won one already at Stanford.

I do think there's a difference in Shaw being a NC caliber coach and Shaw being able to take Stanford to the promised land. Perhaps it's just the pessimistic Stanford fan in me, but I gotta think it's harder to take a group of kids from a narrow recruitment poll to the NC than it is to take kids that are recruited by Auburn, Oregon and ND.