[scorecard]

I'm going to go with option #2.  It is a young team and things will get better, just a matter of how fast this will happen.  What I hope is that Shaw was just giving some of the older guys a shot due to seniority and as a reward for time served in the program, but really knows that we have to get the talent on the field sooner rather than later.  We have more young outstanding talent and depth across the board than I can remember, but they need playing time and experience.  I am hoping that it is like USC last year who barely squeaked by Minnesota early in the year, but then became one of the best teams in the nation by the end of the year.  Next year I expect we will be an upper echelon team again, but I am hoping that this happens in time for the guys with one year left like Chase Thomas or Stepfan Taylor (and maybe guys like Skov or Ertz who could leave with remaining eligibility).  If on the other hand, we have a down year AND the young guys don't play much, I worry about what this would do to our recruiting momentum.  I can already hear the negative recruiting pitches from other schools ("see, you won't get to play right away if these 5 star guys didn't", "you know it was just Luck and Harbaugh that got them to the BCS, it's back to the old Stanford now").  The worst part about the SJS game in my view was that if we had a comfortable lead, then we could have put in some of the young guys for more game experience.  Unfortunately, my hopes for the USC game have dropped tremendously, especially given the play of our secondary and o-line against SJS.  So I am saving my hopes for the Oregon game down the road (although this game is probably an even worse matchup for us), and payback for the last 2 years where they cost us a shot at the national title, as well as likely costing Luck the Voldemort. 

[scorecard]

I'm going to go with option #2.  It is a young team and things will get better, just a matter of how fast this will happen.  What I hope is that Shaw was just giving some of the older guys a shot due to seniority and as a reward for time served in the program, but really knows that we have to get the talent on the field sooner rather than later.  We have more young outstanding talent and depth across the board than I can remember, but they need playing time and experience.  I am hoping that it is like USC last year who barely squeaked by Minnesota early in the year, but then became one of the best teams in the nation by the end of the year.  Next year I expect we will be an upper echelon team again, but I am hoping that this happens in time for the guys with one year left like Chase Thomas or Stepfan Taylor (and maybe guys like Skov or Ertz who could leave with remaining eligibility).  If on the other hand, we have a down year AND the young guys don't play much, I worry about what this would do to our recruiting momentum.  I can already hear the negative recruiting pitches from other schools ("see, you won't get to play right away if these 5 star guys didn't", "you know it was just Luck and Harbaugh that got them to the BCS, it's back to the old Stanford now").  The worst part about the SJS game in my view was that if we had a comfortable lead, then we could have put in some of the young guys for more game experience.  Unfortunately, my hopes for the USC game have dropped tremendously, especially given the play of our secondary and o-line against SJS.  So I am saving my hopes for the Oregon game down the road (although this game is probably an even worse matchup for us), and payback for the last 2 years where they cost us a shot at the national title, as well as likely costing Luck the Voldemort.