[CTcard]

Would Stanford admit a certified genius in physics or chem who was indifferent to history or English and received C’s in those classes?

In general the answer is no, though it would depend upon just what the certification is and how many Cs.
However, seems off point as I hadn't seen any comments on admissions standards in this thread yet.

We can argue all we want about whether Stanford Football should evolve, but the reality is that as long as Shaw is the CEO Stanford Football is not going to materially change. Although maybe after we go 6-6 next year that could change...

Well, going 6-6 would be a material change to Stanford football.

[CTcard]

Would Stanford admit a certified genius in physics or chem who was indifferent to history or English and received C’s in those classes?

In general the answer is no, though it would depend upon just what the certification is and how many Cs.
However, seems off point as I hadn't seen any comments on admissions standards in this thread yet.

We can argue all we want about whether Stanford Football should evolve, but the reality is that as long as Shaw is the CEO Stanford Football is not going to materially change. Although maybe after we go 6-6 next year that could change...

Well, going 6-6 would be a material change to Stanford football.

[BostonCard]

I agree that our target recruitment every year should go up by a couple players.  Use the extra recruitment to either go after either a reach at a position of need, a highly rated player at a position where we might feel comfortable to upgrade overall quality, going after a high potential, but not polished player (an athletic freak who might have started football late), or maybe going after a tweener with a high motor.  These might be higher risk in terms of not panning out, but offer high reward.

BC

[BostonCard]

I agree that our target recruitment every year should go up by a couple players.  Use the extra recruitment to either go after either a reach at a position of need, a highly rated player at a position where we might feel comfortable to upgrade overall quality, going after a high potential, but not polished player (an athletic freak who might have started football late), or maybe going after a tweener with a high motor.  These might be higher risk in terms of not panning out, but offer high reward.

BC

[Goose]

I still can’t believe they redshirted Luck. For Tavita. That has to register the dumbest coaching decision in Stanford history.

You know the story. JH was thinking of burning the red shirt for Andrew Luck. Luck talked him out of it. That team was not good (I actually should say it was BAD). I watched the TCU game in person (in the rain), where Tavita wasn't even able to run for his life because they were on him so quick. It wasn't the playbook that kept Luck out. It was the desire to not be beat up. Would the team have been better with AL out there? Probably not much, IMHO, and risking an injury for effectively no benefit made no sense. Luck subsequently said he was "not ready". I suspect he simply was not stupid. I agree with Andrew that it was a good decision.

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  (By the way, I’ll never forget his actual first play. It was on the KO return team. He raced down the field and blew up the wedge. Players on the sidelines went nuts. Yelling “superstar”. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm. Obviously it wasn’t. They knew immediately.).  Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

It could be that mastering the playbook keeps a QB out for a year, but not a running back. The RB isn't making the reads and changing the play. Also, CMAC's redshirt was gone from special teams alone, so no benefit in not using him to the appropriate degree. You can take issue with the coaching staff for not using him enough early in the year. It may be that he hadn't practiced all the plays in the playbook by August, so he couldn't be expected to run all of them well. So I can see a significant start-up period where he wouldn't be seen as the best option as an "every down" back. That probably was a mistake, as CMAC running the 20 plays he did know well was a better option than anybody else we had running the full playbook. That may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

[Goose]

I still can’t believe they redshirted Luck. For Tavita. That has to register the dumbest coaching decision in Stanford history.

You know the story. JH was thinking of burning the red shirt for Andrew Luck. Luck talked him out of it. That team was not good (I actually should say it was BAD). I watched the TCU game in person (in the rain), where Tavita wasn't even able to run for his life because they were on him so quick. It wasn't the playbook that kept Luck out. It was the desire to not be beat up. Would the team have been better with AL out there? Probably not much, IMHO, and risking an injury for effectively no benefit made no sense. Luck subsequently said he was "not ready". I suspect he simply was not stupid. I agree with Andrew that it was a good decision.

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  (By the way, I’ll never forget his actual first play. It was on the KO return team. He raced down the field and blew up the wedge. Players on the sidelines went nuts. Yelling “superstar”. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm. Obviously it wasn’t. They knew immediately.).  Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

It could be that mastering the playbook keeps a QB out for a year, but not a running back. The RB isn't making the reads and changing the play. Also, CMAC's redshirt was gone from special teams alone, so no benefit in not using him to the appropriate degree. You can take issue with the coaching staff for not using him enough early in the year. It may be that he hadn't practiced all the plays in the playbook by August, so he couldn't be expected to run all of them well. So I can see a significant start-up period where he wouldn't be seen as the best option as an "every down" back. That probably was a mistake, as CMAC running the 20 plays he did know well was a better option than anybody else we had running the full playbook. That may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

[82lsju]

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  (By the way, I’ll never forget his actual first play. It was on the KO return team. He raced down the field and blew up the wedge. Players on the sidelines went nuts. Yelling “superstar”. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm. Obviously it wasn’t. They knew immediately.).  Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

It could be that mastering the playbook keeps a QB out for a year, but not a running back. The RB isn't making the reads and changing the play. Also, CMAC's redshirt was gone from special teams alone, so no benefit in not using him to the appropriate degree. You can take issue with the coaching staff for not using him enough early in the year. It may be that he hadn't practiced all the plays in the playbook by August, so he couldn't be expected to run all of them well. So I can see a significant start-up period where he wouldn't be seen as the best option as an "every down" back. That probably was a mistake, as CMAC running the 20 plays he did know well was a better option than anybody else we had running the full playbook. That may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

hasn't Shaw also said in the past that playing time for RBs is influenced by their ability to pick up blitzes?

[82lsju]

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  (By the way, I’ll never forget his actual first play. It was on the KO return team. He raced down the field and blew up the wedge. Players on the sidelines went nuts. Yelling “superstar”. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm. Obviously it wasn’t. They knew immediately.).  Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

It could be that mastering the playbook keeps a QB out for a year, but not a running back. The RB isn't making the reads and changing the play. Also, CMAC's redshirt was gone from special teams alone, so no benefit in not using him to the appropriate degree. You can take issue with the coaching staff for not using him enough early in the year. It may be that he hadn't practiced all the plays in the playbook by August, so he couldn't be expected to run all of them well. So I can see a significant start-up period where he wouldn't be seen as the best option as an "every down" back. That probably was a mistake, as CMAC running the 20 plays he did know well was a better option than anybody else we had running the full playbook. That may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

hasn't Shaw also said in the past that playing time for RBs is influenced by their ability to pick up blitzes?

[Goose]

hasn't Shaw also said in the past that playing time for RBs is influenced by their ability to pick up blitzes?

Indeed he has. It requires both the ability to block when necessary, and even more important, the ability to recognize when/who to block. CMAC often made blitzes risky for the defense because he could take a quick dump-off to the house. However, lots of times he had to recognize the blitz and stay in to block. I have no idea to what extent that recognition held him out his freshman year. It also required a while for Hogan to see him as the first option on quick pass patterns. While those plays were always in the play book, CMAC made them much more prominent because of his skill in running the pattern and YAC.

[Goose]

hasn't Shaw also said in the past that playing time for RBs is influenced by their ability to pick up blitzes?

Indeed he has. It requires both the ability to block when necessary, and even more important, the ability to recognize when/who to block. CMAC often made blitzes risky for the defense because he could take a quick dump-off to the house. However, lots of times he had to recognize the blitz and stay in to block. I have no idea to what extent that recognition held him out his freshman year. It also required a while for Hogan to see him as the first option on quick pass patterns. While those plays were always in the play book, CMAC made them much more prominent because of his skill in running the pattern and YAC.

[Spiny_Norman]

There is one trend in the game that Stanford really cannot mitigate - the focus on head trauma and lifetime injuries. We don't know if any of the retirements are related to that. But we have seen some alumni careers ended due to these factors. AJ Tarpley retired from the NFL because of too many concussions. Coby Fleener sat out the season after being cut by New Orleans because of lingering concussion symptoms.

Football is a violent game. At some point, players (especially those with good options for their post-college career) may say "enough." Insurance companies are close to that point now according to this ESPN story.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/2577...leges-espn

[Spiny_Norman]

There is one trend in the game that Stanford really cannot mitigate - the focus on head trauma and lifetime injuries. We don't know if any of the retirements are related to that. But we have seen some alumni careers ended due to these factors. AJ Tarpley retired from the NFL because of too many concussions. Coby Fleener sat out the season after being cut by New Orleans because of lingering concussion symptoms.

Football is a violent game. At some point, players (especially those with good options for their post-college career) may say "enough." Insurance companies are close to that point now according to this ESPN story.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/2577...leges-espn

[CTcard]

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  ... Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

When it works, that freaking playbook has given Stanford good to great offenses (which by most any advanced stats have generally better than the average fan seems to think), but it seems the thick playbook is at least a part of the problem when the offense hasn't been good.

But, I don't think the playbook is the reason that McCaffrey didn't play more in 2014. I really think that the staff didn't really realize what they had in him until 2015, really even until a few games into 2015.

... That [McCarrey's abilities] may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

McCaffrey's role in the offense picked up as of the Utah game, which meant the last three games of the regular season plus the Foster Farms Bowl, but it still was way too little.
Over the first nine games, McCaffrey averaged 1.4 carries per game and 1.1 receptions per game.
Over the final four games, McCaffrey averaged 7.25 carries per game and 1.75 receptions per game. 
Those 7 carries did make McCaffrey the number two back (just ahead of Young in carries), but well behind Wright (14+ carries per game over the same games).

[CTcard]

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  ... Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

When it works, that freaking playbook has given Stanford good to great offenses (which by most any advanced stats have generally better than the average fan seems to think), but it seems the thick playbook is at least a part of the problem when the offense hasn't been good.

But, I don't think the playbook is the reason that McCaffrey didn't play more in 2014. I really think that the staff didn't really realize what they had in him until 2015, really even until a few games into 2015.

... That [McCarrey's abilities] may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

McCaffrey's role in the offense picked up as of the Utah game, which meant the last three games of the regular season plus the Foster Farms Bowl, but it still was way too little.
Over the first nine games, McCaffrey averaged 1.4 carries per game and 1.1 receptions per game.
Over the final four games, McCaffrey averaged 7.25 carries per game and 1.75 receptions per game. 
Those 7 carries did make McCaffrey the number two back (just ahead of Young in carries), but well behind Wright (14+ carries per game over the same games).

[OutsiderFan]

There is one trend in the game that Stanford really cannot mitigate - the focus on head trauma and lifetime injuries. We don't know if any of the retirements are related to that. But we have seen some alumni careers ended due to these factors. AJ Tarpley retired from the NFL because of too many concussions. Coby Fleener sat out the season after being cut by New Orleans because of lingering concussion symptoms.

Football is a violent game. At some point, players (especially those with good options for their post-college career) may say "enough." Insurance companies are close to that point now according to this ESPN story.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/2577...leges-espn

OK, I haven't finished reading this ESPN story, but O-M-G is it serious. I've always downplayed the predictions of football's demise as some sort of Chicken Little exercise in hyperbole, but when insurers are refusing to underwrite football operations and others involved in the sport, yikes.

The NFL may have to get into the insurance business to save itself, and it it won't, then the sport very well may be in trouble.

[OutsiderFan]

There is one trend in the game that Stanford really cannot mitigate - the focus on head trauma and lifetime injuries. We don't know if any of the retirements are related to that. But we have seen some alumni careers ended due to these factors. AJ Tarpley retired from the NFL because of too many concussions. Coby Fleener sat out the season after being cut by New Orleans because of lingering concussion symptoms.

Football is a violent game. At some point, players (especially those with good options for their post-college career) may say "enough." Insurance companies are close to that point now according to this ESPN story.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/2577...leges-espn

OK, I haven't finished reading this ESPN story, but O-M-G is it serious. I've always downplayed the predictions of football's demise as some sort of Chicken Little exercise in hyperbole, but when insurers are refusing to underwrite football operations and others involved in the sport, yikes.

The NFL may have to get into the insurance business to save itself, and it it won't, then the sport very well may be in trouble.

[qwerty49]

There is one trend in the game that Stanford really cannot mitigate - the focus on head trauma and lifetime injuries. We don't know if any of the retirements are related to that. But we have seen some alumni careers ended due to these factors. AJ Tarpley retired from the NFL because of too many concussions. Coby Fleener sat out the season after being cut by New Orleans because of lingering concussion symptoms.

Football is a violent game. At some point, players (especially those with good options for their post-college career) may say "enough." Insurance companies are close to that point now according to this ESPN story.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/2577...leges-espn

OK, I haven't finished reading this ESPN story, but O-M-G is it serious. I've always downplayed the predictions of football's demise as some sort of Chicken Little exercise in hyperbole, but when insurers are refusing to underwrite football operations and others involved in the sport, yikes.

The NFL may have to get into the insurance business to save itself, and it it won't, then the sport very well may be in trouble.

There’s no doubt that this is a big factor in “retirements.”  All the more reason to re-evaluate our expectations that a player staying for 4 or 5 years should be the basis for our recruiting numbers. Getting back to the title of this thread, “adapt or suffer the consequences.”

[qwerty49]

There is one trend in the game that Stanford really cannot mitigate - the focus on head trauma and lifetime injuries. We don't know if any of the retirements are related to that. But we have seen some alumni careers ended due to these factors. AJ Tarpley retired from the NFL because of too many concussions. Coby Fleener sat out the season after being cut by New Orleans because of lingering concussion symptoms.

Football is a violent game. At some point, players (especially those with good options for their post-college career) may say "enough." Insurance companies are close to that point now according to this ESPN story.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/2577...leges-espn

OK, I haven't finished reading this ESPN story, but O-M-G is it serious. I've always downplayed the predictions of football's demise as some sort of Chicken Little exercise in hyperbole, but when insurers are refusing to underwrite football operations and others involved in the sport, yikes.

The NFL may have to get into the insurance business to save itself, and it it won't, then the sport very well may be in trouble.

There’s no doubt that this is a big factor in “retirements.”  All the more reason to re-evaluate our expectations that a player staying for 4 or 5 years should be the basis for our recruiting numbers. Getting back to the title of this thread, “adapt or suffer the consequences.”

[Phogge]

Well Tarpley is in camp for the new spring league. Not sure which team.

[Phogge]

Well Tarpley is in camp for the new spring league. Not sure which team.

[SamuelMcF]

Well Tarpley is in camp for the new spring league. Not sure which team.

Tarpley is joining Daniel Marx and Francis Owusu in San Diego.
Ed Reynolds in Atlanta.

Each AAF team is linked to a bunch of colleges in the region to pull from, in addition to 4 NFL teams and a CFL team. San Diego is linked to Stanford, so I'm not quite sure why Reynolds is in Atlanta unless there was a trade or something.

[SamuelMcF]

Well Tarpley is in camp for the new spring league. Not sure which team.

Tarpley is joining Daniel Marx and Francis Owusu in San Diego.
Ed Reynolds in Atlanta.

Each AAF team is linked to a bunch of colleges in the region to pull from, in addition to 4 NFL teams and a CFL team. San Diego is linked to Stanford, so I'm not quite sure why Reynolds is in Atlanta unless there was a trade or something.

[Spiny_Norman]

Well Tarpley is in camp for the new spring league. Not sure which team.

Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.
https://www.si.com/mmqb/2016/04/12/nfl-a...retirement

[Spiny_Norman]

Well Tarpley is in camp for the new spring league. Not sure which team.

Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.
https://www.si.com/mmqb/2016/04/12/nfl-a...retirement

[lex24]

He has. And it’s another poor excuse. you need your play makers on the field. Particularly when it’s somebody like McCaffrey who from the day he started at Stanford was their best play maker. If he has trouble picking up blitzes early on – then you take them out on max protection plays and you use them on screen passes and swing passes etc. to slow down the blitz.

Having McCaffrey hardly play the first half of the year was gross negligence. And I am a big Shaw fan.

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  (By the way, I’ll never forget his actual first play. It was on the KO return team. He raced down the field and blew up the wedge. Players on the sidelines went nuts. Yelling “superstar”. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm. Obviously it wasn’t. They knew immediately.).  Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

It could be that mastering the playbook keeps a QB out for a year, but not a running back. The RB isn't making the reads and changing the play. Also, CMAC's redshirt was gone from special teams alone, so no benefit in not using him to the appropriate degree. You can take issue with the coaching staff for not using him enough early in the year. It may be that he hadn't practiced all the plays in the playbook by August, so he couldn't be expected to run all of them well. So I can see a significant start-up period where he wouldn't be seen as the best option as an "every down" back. That probably was a mistake, as CMAC running the 20 plays he did know well was a better option than anybody else we had running the full playbook. That may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

hasn't Shaw also said in the past that playing time for RBs is influenced by their ability to pick up blitzes?

[lex24]

He has. And it’s another poor excuse. you need your play makers on the field. Particularly when it’s somebody like McCaffrey who from the day he started at Stanford was their best play maker. If he has trouble picking up blitzes early on – then you take them out on max protection plays and you use them on screen passes and swing passes etc. to slow down the blitz.

Having McCaffrey hardly play the first half of the year was gross negligence. And I am a big Shaw fan.

It took one offensive touch to see that McCaffrey was special.  (By the way, I’ll never forget his actual first play. It was on the KO return team. He raced down the field and blew up the wedge. Players on the sidelines went nuts. Yelling “superstar”. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm. Obviously it wasn’t. They knew immediately.).  Yet he hardly saw the field the first half of the year. Incredible.  If you have to delay putting generational talent on the field because your playbook is the size of War and Peace then change the freaking playbook. Rip the damn thing in half.

It could be that mastering the playbook keeps a QB out for a year, but not a running back. The RB isn't making the reads and changing the play. Also, CMAC's redshirt was gone from special teams alone, so no benefit in not using him to the appropriate degree. You can take issue with the coaching staff for not using him enough early in the year. It may be that he hadn't practiced all the plays in the playbook by August, so he couldn't be expected to run all of them well. So I can see a significant start-up period where he wouldn't be seen as the best option as an "every down" back. That probably was a mistake, as CMAC running the 20 plays he did know well was a better option than anybody else we had running the full playbook. That may not have been initially obvious to the staff, so that is on them. However, they eventually did recognize it, and/or by the middle of the season, CMAC had demonstrated he could run whatever they called.

hasn't Shaw also said in the past that playing time for RBs is influenced by their ability to pick up blitzes?

[OutsiderFan]

OK, I read the full OTL story re: insurance and contact sports, and it focus on football in particular. It’s quite eye-opening and paints a potentially grim picture.

I think the best way to characterize the seriousness of what is going on, is that some people believe virtually all youth contact team sports could be at risk in the future. Football, hockey, soccer, and water polo are all mentioned in the story. 

What is a bit confusing to me is how do sports like racing and the “extreme sports” avoid this insurance coverage crisis? It seems the answer might be the sheer volume of former athletes who have played contact sports in the past without adequate safety standards, who might be threats to file lawsuits at some point in the future. 

While having injury lawyers be a force to improve safety is a good thing, it seems a bit over the top to have everyone be able to sue sports entities because someone who played sports eventually acquired a brain malady. If you could make a case that without sports there would be no brain disease, maybe it makes sense, but even then, not everyone who plays contact sports will be so damaged. So you put sports at risk that provide much more good than bad in terms of teaching life skills, so everyone can avoid possible future brain problems and all lawsuits, when many of those who would sue would have those brain problems later in life anyway even without playing contact sports?

Everything carries some risk. I question if the human desire to eliminate it is misplaced, and if it makes more sense to just accept your situation without blaming and trying to have others pay for your misfortune, especially in situations where there is no clear and certain cause/effect. I mean there is a big difference between being injured as a result of provable negligence in the case of many cases of companies willingly cutting safety or knowingly putting something on market that causes harm, like say the Ford Pinto situation, where people are put at risk for a profit motive, and youth sports organizations just providing sports opportunities for kids. Right?

Perhaps there is some legislative solution to this that puts a statute of limitations on bring lawsuits for injuries caused by playing sports. This would ostensibly allow only the most serious cases to be litigated, that might well be a product of negligence. Then insurance companies would have less risk and give the sports operations more money for safety equipment and better trained coaches, etc. 

Not everyone can be 100% protected and not everyone can blame others for their misfortune, but there probably is some middle ground we can agree on as a society that allows maybe not a perfect solution but one good enough to preserve youth contact sports for future generations.

[OutsiderFan]

OK, I read the full OTL story re: insurance and contact sports, and it focus on football in particular. It’s quite eye-opening and paints a potentially grim picture.

I think the best way to characterize the seriousness of what is going on, is that some people believe virtually all youth contact team sports could be at risk in the future. Football, hockey, soccer, and water polo are all mentioned in the story. 

What is a bit confusing to me is how do sports like racing and the “extreme sports” avoid this insurance coverage crisis? It seems the answer might be the sheer volume of former athletes who have played contact sports in the past without adequate safety standards, who might be threats to file lawsuits at some point in the future. 

While having injury lawyers be a force to improve safety is a good thing, it seems a bit over the top to have everyone be able to sue sports entities because someone who played sports eventually acquired a brain malady. If you could make a case that without sports there would be no brain disease, maybe it makes sense, but even then, not everyone who plays contact sports will be so damaged. So you put sports at risk that provide much more good than bad in terms of teaching life skills, so everyone can avoid possible future brain problems and all lawsuits, when many of those who would sue would have those brain problems later in life anyway even without playing contact sports?

Everything carries some risk. I question if the human desire to eliminate it is misplaced, and if it makes more sense to just accept your situation without blaming and trying to have others pay for your misfortune, especially in situations where there is no clear and certain cause/effect. I mean there is a big difference between being injured as a result of provable negligence in the case of many cases of companies willingly cutting safety or knowingly putting something on market that causes harm, like say the Ford Pinto situation, where people are put at risk for a profit motive, and youth sports organizations just providing sports opportunities for kids. Right?

Perhaps there is some legislative solution to this that puts a statute of limitations on bring lawsuits for injuries caused by playing sports. This would ostensibly allow only the most serious cases to be litigated, that might well be a product of negligence. Then insurance companies would have less risk and give the sports operations more money for safety equipment and better trained coaches, etc. 

Not everyone can be 100% protected and not everyone can blame others for their misfortune, but there probably is some middle ground we can agree on as a society that allows maybe not a perfect solution but one good enough to preserve youth contact sports for future generations.

[Goose]

Back "in the day", players had a mandatory redshirt year (freshman football), played three years, and then either went pro or were done with football. We are seeing a reversion to something more like that model. Back then, after playing two years of (not freshman) football, players pretty much knew if the had a future in pro football. If they didn't, playing the third year was often not attractive. Lots of guys wanted to give up football and move on. However, having the scholarship was either necessary or very convenient, so they played the third year, graduated, and moved on with life.
    Today, we have a similar situation but with some different parameters. If you are a really good player, everything moves up a year. you play your three years of "real" football and  go pro. If you are a more "normal" player, you redshirt a year, then play your two years. If you improve enough, you can go pro. If you either don't want a pro career, or aren't good enough, you are in the same situation guys were back in the day. You play because you need/want the scholarship. That may/may not be coupled with a real desire to play football, but you pretty much know you are done when you graduate, just like "back in the day".
    The difference today is that the players who redshirted can play another year post the year that they nominally would have graduated. While there are some players who want to do so, it is not as attractive as year three. You maybe needed the money for year three, and those were "your guys". If a pro career isn't available/desired after year three and you have graduated, it is at best a long shot you keep playing year four. Playing a fourth year after a redshirt should be regarded as an improbability. It happens, but don't count on it.
     Getting a masters degree while playing another year of football isn't  all that attractive. Finding summer classes that will count is hard and you don't want to take a big load during football season. You will have to cram a lot of classes into winter/spring. Lots of sequences start fall quarter, so that may just not work. It may be possible, but it is much less attractive than being just a student, especially if you will not be playing any more football. Some guys may benefit from taking five years to graduate. If you know your future isn't in playing football, there is no reason to continue to do so if you either have the money or can get financial aid for the fifth year. You are "done" soon anyway, so why take the risk and accept the limitations unless you absolutely must?
     What I think we are seeing is a reversion to the previous structure. For most players, three years of football is all that they will play, either because they are good enough and go pro or because they graduate and move on. The main difference is that for really good players, those years may be their first three at Stanford, not the last three. Some guys will play four years, for their own reasons, but those guys will be rare. If college was generally designed to take five years, things might be a bit different. As it is currently designed, three years of football is probably all you can expect to get from anyone.

[Goose]

Back "in the day", players had a mandatory redshirt year (freshman football), played three years, and then either went pro or were done with football. We are seeing a reversion to something more like that model. Back then, after playing two years of (not freshman) football, players pretty much knew if the had a future in pro football. If they didn't, playing the third year was often not attractive. Lots of guys wanted to give up football and move on. However, having the scholarship was either necessary or very convenient, so they played the third year, graduated, and moved on with life.
    Today, we have a similar situation but with some different parameters. If you are a really good player, everything moves up a year. you play your three years of "real" football and  go pro. If you are a more "normal" player, you redshirt a year, then play your two years. If you improve enough, you can go pro. If you either don't want a pro career, or aren't good enough, you are in the same situation guys were back in the day. You play because you need/want the scholarship. That may/may not be coupled with a real desire to play football, but you pretty much know you are done when you graduate, just like "back in the day".
    The difference today is that the players who redshirted can play another year post the year that they nominally would have graduated. While there are some players who want to do so, it is not as attractive as year three. You maybe needed the money for year three, and those were "your guys". If a pro career isn't available/desired after year three and you have graduated, it is at best a long shot you keep playing year four. Playing a fourth year after a redshirt should be regarded as an improbability. It happens, but don't count on it.
     Getting a masters degree while playing another year of football isn't  all that attractive. Finding summer classes that will count is hard and you don't want to take a big load during football season. You will have to cram a lot of classes into winter/spring. Lots of sequences start fall quarter, so that may just not work. It may be possible, but it is much less attractive than being just a student, especially if you will not be playing any more football. Some guys may benefit from taking five years to graduate. If you know your future isn't in playing football, there is no reason to continue to do so if you either have the money or can get financial aid for the fifth year. You are "done" soon anyway, so why take the risk and accept the limitations unless you absolutely must?
     What I think we are seeing is a reversion to the previous structure. For most players, three years of football is all that they will play, either because they are good enough and go pro or because they graduate and move on. The main difference is that for really good players, those years may be their first three at Stanford, not the last three. Some guys will play four years, for their own reasons, but those guys will be rare. If college was generally designed to take five years, things might be a bit different. As it is currently designed, three years of football is probably all you can expect to get from anyone.

[martyup]

[martyup]