[GK3]

Stanford simply has to be more flexible. It can't:

- Refuse JC transfers
- Limit itself to a few undergrad transfers (even Cal has like 27 transfers)*
- Require the highest admissions standards of everyone with whom it competes
- Require Grad School admission to stay for a 5th year and push guys to graduate in 4 years
- Look down on or not fully embrace NIL collectives, and paying players

A football-first school can't do those things.  Stanford should never become a football-first school.

Has there been any (good, non-self selecting) survey of football importance to the Stanford's 16,000+ students?

Outsider Fan and MT make excellent points.  What used to be is gone, most likely forever.  We have to learn to live with the new realities as outlined by OF.  Will Stanford change, maybe a little, but my guess we have pretty much changed as much as we are going to change in terms of transfers.  If we change we become more like Colorado and USC, which are academic institutions for the majority of their students but for athletes they are just a factory whose standards bear no resemblance to those of the parent institution.  Football is the one sport that suffers the most in the rules of the new world we are in.  It takes a LOT of players and a good number of very good players to be successful year in and year out. There will always be a few qualified players in the portal, but not USC or Colorado numbers. There may be a lot of 50/50 years coming up.
Stanford has always had challenging standards, it is partially what made it what it is. I don't see those standards changing much just to support athletics.

[GK3]

Stanford simply has to be more flexible. It can't:

- Refuse JC transfers
- Limit itself to a few undergrad transfers (even Cal has like 27 transfers)*
- Require the highest admissions standards of everyone with whom it competes
- Require Grad School admission to stay for a 5th year and push guys to graduate in 4 years
- Look down on or not fully embrace NIL collectives, and paying players

A football-first school can't do those things.  Stanford should never become a football-first school.

Has there been any (good, non-self selecting) survey of football importance to the Stanford's 16,000+ students?

Outsider Fan and MT make excellent points.  What used to be is gone, most likely forever.  We have to learn to live with the new realities as outlined by OF.  Will Stanford change, maybe a little, but my guess we have pretty much changed as much as we are going to change in terms of transfers.  If we change we become more like Colorado and USC, which are academic institutions for the majority of their students but for athletes they are just a factory whose standards bear no resemblance to those of the parent institution.  Football is the one sport that suffers the most in the rules of the new world we are in.  It takes a LOT of players and a good number of very good players to be successful year in and year out. There will always be a few qualified players in the portal, but not USC or Colorado numbers. There may be a lot of 50/50 years coming up.
Stanford has always had challenging standards, it is partially what made it what it is. I don't see those standards changing much just to support athletics.