[d4cohn]

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.

So why bend over backwards to get into the ACC and give up so much money to get your teeth kicked in? It makes absolutely zero sense. "We're going to make our players travel thousands of miles to be in a power conference for football, and give up tens of millions of dollars to do it, but we're not going to do what it takes to compete, are OK with being a punching bag, further de-valuing our brand, and when the next consolidation comes, we'll be OK being even more in the wilderness than we just were" is not a smart strategy.

If the "surrender monkey" mentality is ultimately going to prevail, why not just stay in a watered down Pac? But I've got news for you. Even IF Stanford were to stay with The Cougs and Beavs, if it doesn't raise its football game by making the yes, COMPROMISES it takes to win, Stanford would get its brains beat in by new Pac teams too.

IOW, if you play football, make the investments and adapt institutionally to be competitive, or drop the sport. 

What is amazing to me is I see no evidence anywhere that any Stanford fans have a clue what Stanford's BOT thinks about the importance of being a legit football program, and the compromises and adaptations it will make to have one. All we have is the scramble to get in the ACC to show it does place importance on it, but is that just to be in a power conference or to be in it to win in one.

We also have no idea what the new Provost thinks, or how she may or may not allow Muir to be more empowered to make things better, or if he even knows how.

We bent over backwards to get into the ACC so sports like softball, my favorite Stanford sport, remain the national championship contenders they have been (e.g. in the case women's tennis, women's soccer etc.), or have become (in case of softball). We would have suffered a coach and player exodus, even in the Olympic sports, had we gone independent, MW, WCC etc.

[d4cohn]

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.

So why bend over backwards to get into the ACC and give up so much money to get your teeth kicked in? It makes absolutely zero sense. "We're going to make our players travel thousands of miles to be in a power conference for football, and give up tens of millions of dollars to do it, but we're not going to do what it takes to compete, are OK with being a punching bag, further de-valuing our brand, and when the next consolidation comes, we'll be OK being even more in the wilderness than we just were" is not a smart strategy.

If the "surrender monkey" mentality is ultimately going to prevail, why not just stay in a watered down Pac? But I've got news for you. Even IF Stanford were to stay with The Cougs and Beavs, if it doesn't raise its football game by making the yes, COMPROMISES it takes to win, Stanford would get its brains beat in by new Pac teams too.

IOW, if you play football, make the investments and adapt institutionally to be competitive, or drop the sport. 

What is amazing to me is I see no evidence anywhere that any Stanford fans have a clue what Stanford's BOT thinks about the importance of being a legit football program, and the compromises and adaptations it will make to have one. All we have is the scramble to get in the ACC to show it does place importance on it, but is that just to be in a power conference or to be in it to win in one.

We also have no idea what the new Provost thinks, or how she may or may not allow Muir to be more empowered to make things better, or if he even knows how.

We bent over backwards to get into the ACC so sports like softball, my favorite Stanford sport, remain the national championship contenders they have been (e.g. in the case women's tennis, women's soccer etc.), or have become (in case of softball). We would have suffered a coach and player exodus, even in the Olympic sports, had we gone independent, MW, WCC etc.