06-07-2012, 01:13 PM
Virginia is a great pick.
They play in the ACC, and have been generally competitive in the conference. By all accounts the ACC is a weak BCS AQ conference, and will get weaker thanks to recent developments. So Virginia is like a nourishing banana, not too hard, not too soft, nutritious and delicious. No one will list Virginia as a cupcake, which is a problem with Vanderbilt and Duke types.
But the real value, IMHO, is that this officially puts the team into the South. Seems as if we recruit great players out of the region, and a game or two on the schedule in the region could keep the parents in our camp.
Duke basketball used to play in every players home state at least once over the 4 year window. That was a very useful recruiting tool for them. While Stanford football can't make that promise to every player, I like the idea that Stanford is playing teams from different regions that are likely to not be too strong or too weak. That approach should help our regional recruiting, so it is all good IMHO.
The true value of the agreement probably won't be known until Stanford gets to February 2014 & 2015, but it is better than trying to schedule some WAC or MWC likely to drop us if they need to adjust their schedule to move to a better conference.
They play in the ACC, and have been generally competitive in the conference. By all accounts the ACC is a weak BCS AQ conference, and will get weaker thanks to recent developments. So Virginia is like a nourishing banana, not too hard, not too soft, nutritious and delicious. No one will list Virginia as a cupcake, which is a problem with Vanderbilt and Duke types.
But the real value, IMHO, is that this officially puts the team into the South. Seems as if we recruit great players out of the region, and a game or two on the schedule in the region could keep the parents in our camp.
Duke basketball used to play in every players home state at least once over the 4 year window. That was a very useful recruiting tool for them. While Stanford football can't make that promise to every player, I like the idea that Stanford is playing teams from different regions that are likely to not be too strong or too weak. That approach should help our regional recruiting, so it is all good IMHO.
The true value of the agreement probably won't be known until Stanford gets to February 2014 & 2015, but it is better than trying to schedule some WAC or MWC likely to drop us if they need to adjust their schedule to move to a better conference.