11-10-2025, 01:56 PM
The solution is money, lots of money, and the brains to spend it wisely, but out of ignorance and a desire to think more robustly on this, let me ask:
1. If we get a transformational QB for $4 million, how many English professors lose their jobs? Are these even connected?
2. I understand the University is subsidizing the AD due to the crappy ACC payouts. What percent of the AD's operating budget does that represent? What percent of the University's operating budget?
3. If Bradford Freeman wasn't giving $50 million to the football program, would he give it instead to the English Department? Or maybe the Econ Department?
4. How many Bradford Freeman are out there? My impression is that the donor class floats the boat, not the University.
5. Aside from me caring about football more than any other sport, is there a model for Stanford to be good at sports without football? I really don't want football just there doing whatever only so that Stanford avoids the WCC.
These are not intended to be snarky or defensive questions. I honestly don't know and this might get to the question of whether not semi-pro but pro-pro sports are sustainable at Stanford. Stanford seems to have access to enough money to make it work and protestations of poverty won't fly with the rest of college football fanbases, not that it matters. A common refrain on other boards is that if Stanford's billionaire class ever decided to do it, Stanford could bury everyone else.
But our academic standards! I've never thought that 25 guys a year with maybe less than perfect SAT scores or high school GPAs was somehow ruining Stanford's academic reputation. I don't know why, but I recently came across the 2010 Stanford Notre Dame game when Stanford ran Brian Kelley's first team out of the stadium. I don't think that made people think Notre Dame was a better school because they couldn't compete against Stanford.
You can always find 'regular' students with lower scores just given the relative numbers and Stanford isn't that hard to survive. Stanford doesn't publish the all-undergraduate GPA. I don't think that is because it is embarrassingly low. Granted, my experience as a TA is 40 years old but Stanford had the same genius rep back then, and I wasn't teaching geniuses. Also, I wasn't a genius and they let me in.
If Stanford chucks football, it won't be that difficult for me to live without it, especially now. I have other teams to follow that are at least trying to be competitive, and while unfathomable only ten years ago, it's gotten so terrible that I honestly might not miss it at all. Fall Saturdays in the Bay Area are insanely gorgeous (like most of the country) and there is plenty else to do (like most of the country). It would be a real shame though and might open cans of down sliding worms the university doesn't want to open.
1. If we get a transformational QB for $4 million, how many English professors lose their jobs? Are these even connected?
2. I understand the University is subsidizing the AD due to the crappy ACC payouts. What percent of the AD's operating budget does that represent? What percent of the University's operating budget?
3. If Bradford Freeman wasn't giving $50 million to the football program, would he give it instead to the English Department? Or maybe the Econ Department?
4. How many Bradford Freeman are out there? My impression is that the donor class floats the boat, not the University.
5. Aside from me caring about football more than any other sport, is there a model for Stanford to be good at sports without football? I really don't want football just there doing whatever only so that Stanford avoids the WCC.
These are not intended to be snarky or defensive questions. I honestly don't know and this might get to the question of whether not semi-pro but pro-pro sports are sustainable at Stanford. Stanford seems to have access to enough money to make it work and protestations of poverty won't fly with the rest of college football fanbases, not that it matters. A common refrain on other boards is that if Stanford's billionaire class ever decided to do it, Stanford could bury everyone else.
But our academic standards! I've never thought that 25 guys a year with maybe less than perfect SAT scores or high school GPAs was somehow ruining Stanford's academic reputation. I don't know why, but I recently came across the 2010 Stanford Notre Dame game when Stanford ran Brian Kelley's first team out of the stadium. I don't think that made people think Notre Dame was a better school because they couldn't compete against Stanford.
You can always find 'regular' students with lower scores just given the relative numbers and Stanford isn't that hard to survive. Stanford doesn't publish the all-undergraduate GPA. I don't think that is because it is embarrassingly low. Granted, my experience as a TA is 40 years old but Stanford had the same genius rep back then, and I wasn't teaching geniuses. Also, I wasn't a genius and they let me in.
If Stanford chucks football, it won't be that difficult for me to live without it, especially now. I have other teams to follow that are at least trying to be competitive, and while unfathomable only ten years ago, it's gotten so terrible that I honestly might not miss it at all. Fall Saturdays in the Bay Area are insanely gorgeous (like most of the country) and there is plenty else to do (like most of the country). It would be a real shame though and might open cans of down sliding worms the university doesn't want to open.