[msqueri]

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Yes, the ACC is going to implode. But we have to live to fight another day. Better to be at the table than on the menu. Such a dire position for us to be in if we're trying to navigate the next wave of this from a minor conference perch. Unless you think inevitable or desirable that Stanford no longer be major, in which case we just disagree.

[msqueri]

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Yes, the ACC is going to implode. But we have to live to fight another day. Better to be at the table than on the menu. Such a dire position for us to be in if we're trying to navigate the next wave of this from a minor conference perch. Unless you think inevitable or desirable that Stanford no longer be major, in which case we just disagree.

[OutsiderFan]

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

I will go do other things with my life than follow a team from the Pac-12 to the Pac Leftovers.

[OutsiderFan]

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

I will go do other things with my life than follow a team from the Pac-12 to the Pac Leftovers.

[Giants]

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

[Giants]

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

[chrisk]

SMU, Stanford, and Cal are all willing to buy votes, that's what their position on not taking any payouts means.

The ACC contract with ESPN mandates ESPN pay out a new share for each team added to the ACC. Last year that figure was about $40M per school. So if three schools are added, that would mean ESPN has to pay the ACC $120M more per year. If you were to divide equally between the 14 ACC members, that would be about $9M per school more than they would get otherwise.

But, the no votes are the ones that must be moved and in particular Clemson and Florida State want more money than say Wake Forest. That seems reasonable, so the question is does Wake and Pitt and Syracuse take less of that $9M to give more of it to Clemson, FSU, and North Carolina? Perhaps the ACC is working out a way to distribute more money based on performance, I don't know, but there is no doubt SMU, Stanford, and Cal would be buying votes with their willingness to go without media rights payments as condition of getting invited to ACC.

This conference expansion is the only way the ACC can get more money for its schools. But I would imagine the new members can't go for 13 more years getting absolutely nothing for their media rights, so that $9M bonus can't last forever. Eventually even SMU will have to get paid, and there is no mechanism to get the ACC more money for 13 more years unless there is some provision in the contract that ESPN must pay more if its ratings increase.

Maybe ESPN will force a merger between the ACC and SEC in the long run, but the ACC schools seem to be in a very rough spot for foreseeable future. Kind of perplexing why anyone would want in now. But who knows, maybe they have a plan to rescue themselves.

One correction $120/15 (don’t forget ND - they receive a share) = $8 million/existing member.

I don’t foresee a merger with the SEC but I never dreamed that Stanford would consider the ACC as a conference home.  If we haven’t learned anything else recently, I think we learned that anything is possible.  

When all the TV media contracts begin coming up for renewal again in the early-mid 30’s, I think we shall see another round of upheaval.  If so, maybe that will be the time for a move towards two super conferences.

The Notre Dame share is incorrect. They receive about $11M from the ACC, less than 1/3 of a full share. They have their own contract with NBC for about $22M per year.

[chrisk]

SMU, Stanford, and Cal are all willing to buy votes, that's what their position on not taking any payouts means.

The ACC contract with ESPN mandates ESPN pay out a new share for each team added to the ACC. Last year that figure was about $40M per school. So if three schools are added, that would mean ESPN has to pay the ACC $120M more per year. If you were to divide equally between the 14 ACC members, that would be about $9M per school more than they would get otherwise.

But, the no votes are the ones that must be moved and in particular Clemson and Florida State want more money than say Wake Forest. That seems reasonable, so the question is does Wake and Pitt and Syracuse take less of that $9M to give more of it to Clemson, FSU, and North Carolina? Perhaps the ACC is working out a way to distribute more money based on performance, I don't know, but there is no doubt SMU, Stanford, and Cal would be buying votes with their willingness to go without media rights payments as condition of getting invited to ACC.

This conference expansion is the only way the ACC can get more money for its schools. But I would imagine the new members can't go for 13 more years getting absolutely nothing for their media rights, so that $9M bonus can't last forever. Eventually even SMU will have to get paid, and there is no mechanism to get the ACC more money for 13 more years unless there is some provision in the contract that ESPN must pay more if its ratings increase.

Maybe ESPN will force a merger between the ACC and SEC in the long run, but the ACC schools seem to be in a very rough spot for foreseeable future. Kind of perplexing why anyone would want in now. But who knows, maybe they have a plan to rescue themselves.

One correction $120/15 (don’t forget ND - they receive a share) = $8 million/existing member.

I don’t foresee a merger with the SEC but I never dreamed that Stanford would consider the ACC as a conference home.  If we haven’t learned anything else recently, I think we learned that anything is possible.  

When all the TV media contracts begin coming up for renewal again in the early-mid 30’s, I think we shall see another round of upheaval.  If so, maybe that will be the time for a move towards two super conferences.

The Notre Dame share is incorrect. They receive about $11M from the ACC, less than 1/3 of a full share. They have their own contract with NBC for about $22M per year.

[Mudhead]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

We face a hard choice. Joining the ACC gives us a way out.  Not as good an out as we could have had if only we faced reality a year ago but far better than if we wait a year to face reality. Why in the world would SMU , Rice or Army want to join a conference far away with Stanford , Cal, .Washington .state and Oregon State? And if for some reason they did , who in the world would care want that conference did?  

SMU would far, far rather be in the ACC and would prefer staying in the AAC than join a “conference” with no history , no future and no standing .  I can’t imagine anyone else would want to join but I don’t have any insight into the others.    As for dignity, I’m not sure we can avoid that luxury now.  But I am sure that there is far more dignity in being a part of a Power 4 conference than being a part of conferences with no national standing whatsoever.  

It’s probably good that we aren’t making the call. Time for leadership to make the hard choice…I only hope Stanford has that choice to make.

[Mudhead]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

We face a hard choice. Joining the ACC gives us a way out.  Not as good an out as we could have had if only we faced reality a year ago but far better than if we wait a year to face reality. Why in the world would SMU , Rice or Army want to join a conference far away with Stanford , Cal, .Washington .state and Oregon State? And if for some reason they did , who in the world would care want that conference did?  

SMU would far, far rather be in the ACC and would prefer staying in the AAC than join a “conference” with no history , no future and no standing .  I can’t imagine anyone else would want to join but I don’t have any insight into the others.    As for dignity, I’m not sure we can avoid that luxury now.  But I am sure that there is far more dignity in being a part of a Power 4 conference than being a part of conferences with no national standing whatsoever.  

It’s probably good that we aren’t making the call. Time for leadership to make the hard choice…I only hope Stanford has that choice to make.

[Mick]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

No no no no no no no no no no no. This is so wrongheaded. Keeping the most minor teams of the Pac-12 together and adding minor teams is a minor conference. You may not like that this is a fact but it is a fact that conferences establish hierarchies in college sports. Revenue and recruiting, which both become self-reinforcing, flow from that. What you and many on this site have either advocated or expressed willingness to tolerate is death for athletics at Stanford. A Pacific coast conference is dead. We may not like that but it's where the world is in 2023. If we ignore that reality, we are consigning ourselves to minor status.

An athletics-aspiring university with dignity and self-respect must be in the Big 10, ACC, SEC, or Big 12. Period. That's it. You cannot play major college football outside of those conferences (unless you're Notre Dame, which we are not and which plays a half ACC schedule anyway) starting in five months. Nobody will care about you if you don't play major college football. If we try to sustain sports without football it will be embarrassing to the university and only possible with perennial subsidies to the athletics department unlike anything Stanford has ever done. Even if we try that the dynamics that link conference quality to recruiting will be profound headwinds for our other sports.

I get that it sucks that we are where we are but we will undermine Stanford as an athletics department and university if we lie to ourselves any further that West Coast sports are sustainable without partnership with the parts of the country that give a damn or that we can band together with all the misfits (this latter option is so depressing to me....why the hell is allying with SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army/UConn more desirable than playing in a major conference?).

Just want to make sure I read you correctly. It would be far preferable to be 2-10 every year in the ACC than, say, 11-2 in an MWC or AAC?

---

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

And if Stanford finishes 2-10 year after year?  That's the success?

[Mick]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

No no no no no no no no no no no. This is so wrongheaded. Keeping the most minor teams of the Pac-12 together and adding minor teams is a minor conference. You may not like that this is a fact but it is a fact that conferences establish hierarchies in college sports. Revenue and recruiting, which both become self-reinforcing, flow from that. What you and many on this site have either advocated or expressed willingness to tolerate is death for athletics at Stanford. A Pacific coast conference is dead. We may not like that but it's where the world is in 2023. If we ignore that reality, we are consigning ourselves to minor status.

An athletics-aspiring university with dignity and self-respect must be in the Big 10, ACC, SEC, or Big 12. Period. That's it. You cannot play major college football outside of those conferences (unless you're Notre Dame, which we are not and which plays a half ACC schedule anyway) starting in five months. Nobody will care about you if you don't play major college football. If we try to sustain sports without football it will be embarrassing to the university and only possible with perennial subsidies to the athletics department unlike anything Stanford has ever done. Even if we try that the dynamics that link conference quality to recruiting will be profound headwinds for our other sports.

I get that it sucks that we are where we are but we will undermine Stanford as an athletics department and university if we lie to ourselves any further that West Coast sports are sustainable without partnership with the parts of the country that give a damn or that we can band together with all the misfits (this latter option is so depressing to me....why the hell is allying with SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army/UConn more desirable than playing in a major conference?).

Just want to make sure I read you correctly. It would be far preferable to be 2-10 every year in the ACC than, say, 11-2 in an MWC or AAC?

---

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

And if Stanford finishes 2-10 year after year?  That's the success?

[Goose]

Time for leadership to make the hard choice…I only hope Stanford has that choice to make.

I too hope that Stanford has a choice to make. I also do agree with Msqueri that being in a Power 4 conference is orders of magnitude better than being an Independent. I do not consider a PCA-4+ as an available option. There are too many variables to create such a thing in the 6 months or so we would have to do it. However, that said, I emphatically do NOT believe joining the ACC on any terms, however bad, is necessarily better than spending some time in the wilderness. If Stanford has to join the ACC and receive no share at all of the media rights profits while being fully bound by the GOR until 2035 (or some other cataclysmic event), I do not think it is a good choice. I would rather roll the dice as an Independent hoping for a better deal to come along. Lots of things can happen in 12 years. If Stanford has an "earn out" period of a few years after which they are full members of the ACC, fine. If Stanford is always to receive nothing, we will have to spend our own money to do what it takes to participate in the ACC for 12 years. We would also always be viewed as "not really equal", which will not help the "brand" at all. IMO it isn't worth it if those are the terms.

During that 12 year period, Stanford would have to figure out how to fund it's Athletic Department with no media deal revenue. That is the great evil we face as an Independent. Being in the ACC would greatly help recruiting for football, but bring along massive travel expenses for everything else that could be mitigated as an Independent. We would be stuck with this arrangement for 12 years. Frankly, I think there is ZERO chance we could fund that choice. For a few years, yes. For 12, with no way out, no.

[Goose]

Time for leadership to make the hard choice…I only hope Stanford has that choice to make.

I too hope that Stanford has a choice to make. I also do agree with Msqueri that being in a Power 4 conference is orders of magnitude better than being an Independent. I do not consider a PCA-4+ as an available option. There are too many variables to create such a thing in the 6 months or so we would have to do it. However, that said, I emphatically do NOT believe joining the ACC on any terms, however bad, is necessarily better than spending some time in the wilderness. If Stanford has to join the ACC and receive no share at all of the media rights profits while being fully bound by the GOR until 2035 (or some other cataclysmic event), I do not think it is a good choice. I would rather roll the dice as an Independent hoping for a better deal to come along. Lots of things can happen in 12 years. If Stanford has an "earn out" period of a few years after which they are full members of the ACC, fine. If Stanford is always to receive nothing, we will have to spend our own money to do what it takes to participate in the ACC for 12 years. We would also always be viewed as "not really equal", which will not help the "brand" at all. IMO it isn't worth it if those are the terms.

During that 12 year period, Stanford would have to figure out how to fund it's Athletic Department with no media deal revenue. That is the great evil we face as an Independent. Being in the ACC would greatly help recruiting for football, but bring along massive travel expenses for everything else that could be mitigated as an Independent. We would be stuck with this arrangement for 12 years. Frankly, I think there is ZERO chance we could fund that choice. For a few years, yes. For 12, with no way out, no.

[Softball Fan]

I can't envision Stanford accepting a 12 year deal with no media distribution for 12 years and the same exit fee as the other schools have.  I have to believe Stanford will only agree to a minimal exit fee. Stanford might offer a proposal they can live with and then give enough money to one of the no votes to change their vote. I expect the answer to all our speculation will materialize some time next week.

[Softball Fan]

I can't envision Stanford accepting a 12 year deal with no media distribution for 12 years and the same exit fee as the other schools have.  I have to believe Stanford will only agree to a minimal exit fee. Stanford might offer a proposal they can live with and then give enough money to one of the no votes to change their vote. I expect the answer to all our speculation will materialize some time next week.

[Card10Fan]

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

[Card10Fan]

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

[Vandelay]

Has the Stanford Band been reconstituted?  Perhaps they can come up with some sort of Ode to NC State for one of their halftime performances.  I know that NC State thinks that their fate is tied to that of North Carolina.  Someone should tell them that flagship schools don't care about Little Brother.  Just ask Oklahoma State, Washington State, Oregon State, Texas Tech, etc..

---

I'm suspicious of North Carolina's motivations here.  Directors Cup envy?

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

[Vandelay]

Has the Stanford Band been reconstituted?  Perhaps they can come up with some sort of Ode to NC State for one of their halftime performances.  I know that NC State thinks that their fate is tied to that of North Carolina.  Someone should tell them that flagship schools don't care about Little Brother.  Just ask Oklahoma State, Washington State, Oregon State, Texas Tech, etc..

---

I'm suspicious of North Carolina's motivations here.  Directors Cup envy?

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

[Giants]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

No no no no no no no no no no no. This is so wrongheaded. Keeping the most minor teams of the Pac-12 together and adding minor teams is a minor conference. You may not like that this is a fact but it is a fact that conferences establish hierarchies in college sports. Revenue and recruiting, which both become self-reinforcing, flow from that. What you and many on this site have either advocated or expressed willingness to tolerate is death for athletics at Stanford. A Pacific coast conference is dead. We may not like that but it's where the world is in 2023. If we ignore that reality, we are consigning ourselves to minor status.

An athletics-aspiring university with dignity and self-respect must be in the Big 10, ACC, SEC, or Big 12. Period. That's it. You cannot play major college football outside of those conferences (unless you're Notre Dame, which we are not and which plays a half ACC schedule anyway) starting in five months. Nobody will care about you if you don't play major college football. If we try to sustain sports without football it will be embarrassing to the university and only possible with perennial subsidies to the athletics department unlike anything Stanford has ever done. Even if we try that the dynamics that link conference quality to recruiting will be profound headwinds for our other sports.

I get that it sucks that we are where we are but we will undermine Stanford as an athletics department and university if we lie to ourselves any further that West Coast sports are sustainable without partnership with the parts of the country that give a damn or that we can band together with all the misfits (this latter option is so depressing to me....why the hell is allying with SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army/UConn more desirable than playing in a major conference?).

Just want to make sure I read you correctly. It would be far preferable to be 2-10 every year in the ACC than, say, 11-2 in an MWC or AAC?

---

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

And if Stanford finishes 2-10 year after year?  That's the success?

If Stanford joins the ACC AND finishes 2-10 year after year, it would have nothing to do with conference placement, it would have everything to do with a coaching and talent deficit. 

Since the odds are extraordinarily slim the Cardinal would finish 2-10 even once let alone year after year, I think the benefits of moving to the ACC far outweigh the benefits of moving to a minor conference.

[Giants]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

No no no no no no no no no no no. This is so wrongheaded. Keeping the most minor teams of the Pac-12 together and adding minor teams is a minor conference. You may not like that this is a fact but it is a fact that conferences establish hierarchies in college sports. Revenue and recruiting, which both become self-reinforcing, flow from that. What you and many on this site have either advocated or expressed willingness to tolerate is death for athletics at Stanford. A Pacific coast conference is dead. We may not like that but it's where the world is in 2023. If we ignore that reality, we are consigning ourselves to minor status.

An athletics-aspiring university with dignity and self-respect must be in the Big 10, ACC, SEC, or Big 12. Period. That's it. You cannot play major college football outside of those conferences (unless you're Notre Dame, which we are not and which plays a half ACC schedule anyway) starting in five months. Nobody will care about you if you don't play major college football. If we try to sustain sports without football it will be embarrassing to the university and only possible with perennial subsidies to the athletics department unlike anything Stanford has ever done. Even if we try that the dynamics that link conference quality to recruiting will be profound headwinds for our other sports.

I get that it sucks that we are where we are but we will undermine Stanford as an athletics department and university if we lie to ourselves any further that West Coast sports are sustainable without partnership with the parts of the country that give a damn or that we can band together with all the misfits (this latter option is so depressing to me....why the hell is allying with SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army/UConn more desirable than playing in a major conference?).

Just want to make sure I read you correctly. It would be far preferable to be 2-10 every year in the ACC than, say, 11-2 in an MWC or AAC?

---

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

And if Stanford finishes 2-10 year after year?  That's the success?

If Stanford joins the ACC AND finishes 2-10 year after year, it would have nothing to do with conference placement, it would have everything to do with a coaching and talent deficit. 

Since the odds are extraordinarily slim the Cardinal would finish 2-10 even once let alone year after year, I think the benefits of moving to the ACC far outweigh the benefits of moving to a minor conference.

[dabigv13]

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

Ignore that account. Just a bullshit artist.

[dabigv13]

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

Ignore that account. Just a bullshit artist.

[Softball Fan]

https://dailyprogress.com/sports/college...2959a.html

"Four ACC presidents and one athletic director, each of whom backs expansion, attended Stanford or Cal."

[Softball Fan]

https://dailyprogress.com/sports/college...2959a.html

"Four ACC presidents and one athletic director, each of whom backs expansion, attended Stanford or Cal."

[BigJohn043]

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

How about the B1G?

[BigJohn043]

https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1693103871558643889

If this is true, what conference would Olympics be apart of?

How about the B1G?

[grendalor]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

The ACC is the least worst option for Stanford right now.  Trying to cobble together a new conference with all of the other misfit schools would be a sub-par outcome, because in college athletics in 2023, you're either in one of those conferences, or you're irrelevant (ND is halfway in one of them as well, and is an outlier as a football independent that Stanford has no possibility of coming close to emulating).  The impact on the non-money sports is likely even worse in a non-ACC scenario than in any other one, even if the price of joining the ACC is extremely steep, as has been reported so far.

Sure, it's suboptimal.  But we're in the realm of "least worst option" at this point in time.  There was no optimal option, really, for Stanford because it became clear to the rest of college football that the Western US is not a viable standalone region for the sport, for the most part, on a revenue/interest/support basis, apart from the large LA market.  When USC essentially agreed with this perspective (I am fairly certain many SC boosters have had this perspective for quite some time, but leaving the Pac was difficult to imagine until recently), that was going to be the end of the Pac, or any successor Pacific conference that could be "bigtime", because the main market left the building.  The rest of the conference ex the LA schools had some value, but nothing close to the value of the other big 4, despite the weakness in the Big-12.  It really just became clear that a regional Western conference could not compete, revenue-wise, with any conference that has roots in Texas, the South, or the Midwest.  

For Stanford this was a completely disastrous turn of events given our practice of fielding a massive set of champion-caliber teams that are funded by our football team, essentially.  It forced us into a world of suboptimal options.  Going to the ACC under the conditions reported doesn't solve the fundamental problem of how to fund the other sports.  We will have to find a solution to that problem.  But it does prevent the other sports from being decimated in their ability to recruit as they would be if they were in a newly-constructed misfit conference.  So it's a way to stop that aspect of the suboptimal while kicking the can a bit on the funding side -- longer term we will need to either accept that these other sports will be funded long term by the university, or we will need to find some other funding coming from football in a way that the reported arrangements with the ACC won't.  And perhaps that "bet" is that the current arrangements are not stable, and that everyone will be playing roulette again in another few years for more definitive arrangements, and we would prefer to be an ACC member at that stage than a member of a newfangled conference on the outside of the new P4 structure.  

It's all suboptimal at this point, unfortunately.  Kicking the can is not necessarily the worst approach given the exigency, but I think we should realize that it is kicking the can nonetheless.  At some point the fundamental issues will need to be addressed, one way or another, because there is no real plan for Stanford's AD where the football media revenue isn't there long term.

[grendalor]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

The ACC is the least worst option for Stanford right now.  Trying to cobble together a new conference with all of the other misfit schools would be a sub-par outcome, because in college athletics in 2023, you're either in one of those conferences, or you're irrelevant (ND is halfway in one of them as well, and is an outlier as a football independent that Stanford has no possibility of coming close to emulating).  The impact on the non-money sports is likely even worse in a non-ACC scenario than in any other one, even if the price of joining the ACC is extremely steep, as has been reported so far.

Sure, it's suboptimal.  But we're in the realm of "least worst option" at this point in time.  There was no optimal option, really, for Stanford because it became clear to the rest of college football that the Western US is not a viable standalone region for the sport, for the most part, on a revenue/interest/support basis, apart from the large LA market.  When USC essentially agreed with this perspective (I am fairly certain many SC boosters have had this perspective for quite some time, but leaving the Pac was difficult to imagine until recently), that was going to be the end of the Pac, or any successor Pacific conference that could be "bigtime", because the main market left the building.  The rest of the conference ex the LA schools had some value, but nothing close to the value of the other big 4, despite the weakness in the Big-12.  It really just became clear that a regional Western conference could not compete, revenue-wise, with any conference that has roots in Texas, the South, or the Midwest.  

For Stanford this was a completely disastrous turn of events given our practice of fielding a massive set of champion-caliber teams that are funded by our football team, essentially.  It forced us into a world of suboptimal options.  Going to the ACC under the conditions reported doesn't solve the fundamental problem of how to fund the other sports.  We will have to find a solution to that problem.  But it does prevent the other sports from being decimated in their ability to recruit as they would be if they were in a newly-constructed misfit conference.  So it's a way to stop that aspect of the suboptimal while kicking the can a bit on the funding side -- longer term we will need to either accept that these other sports will be funded long term by the university, or we will need to find some other funding coming from football in a way that the reported arrangements with the ACC won't.  And perhaps that "bet" is that the current arrangements are not stable, and that everyone will be playing roulette again in another few years for more definitive arrangements, and we would prefer to be an ACC member at that stage than a member of a newfangled conference on the outside of the new P4 structure.  

It's all suboptimal at this point, unfortunately.  Kicking the can is not necessarily the worst approach given the exigency, but I think we should realize that it is kicking the can nonetheless.  At some point the fundamental issues will need to be addressed, one way or another, because there is no real plan for Stanford's AD where the football media revenue isn't there long term.

[OutsiderFan]

Conferences are not going to last much longer. College Football needs a national league like the NFL with 60-70 members divided by region, separate from the NCAA and conferences. It's NFL lite, and yes, players are going to be paid in this structure. It's only a matter of time. What will be interesting if this organization requires players to qualify for school and attend it. There is no guarantee they will, and it may be up to the school teams participating to decide themselves if school matters for them.

Maybe conferences as we have known them can work for basketball and other sports, but football has clearly outgrown them. 

The focus is national now, not regional. Just like the AFL merged with the NFL, there is ultimately only going to be one college league. ACC and Big 12 members are ultimately going to be absorbed into the Big Ten and SEC.  If you don't have a valuable program you will be left behind. Donors aren't gonna pay for weak programs to be in it. Stanford may ultimately beg out, but if it wants to be included and not lose its chair in the big time, it better take football much more seriously over the next 5 years than the last 5.

[OutsiderFan]

Conferences are not going to last much longer. College Football needs a national league like the NFL with 60-70 members divided by region, separate from the NCAA and conferences. It's NFL lite, and yes, players are going to be paid in this structure. It's only a matter of time. What will be interesting if this organization requires players to qualify for school and attend it. There is no guarantee they will, and it may be up to the school teams participating to decide themselves if school matters for them.

Maybe conferences as we have known them can work for basketball and other sports, but football has clearly outgrown them. 

The focus is national now, not regional. Just like the AFL merged with the NFL, there is ultimately only going to be one college league. ACC and Big 12 members are ultimately going to be absorbed into the Big Ten and SEC.  If you don't have a valuable program you will be left behind. Donors aren't gonna pay for weak programs to be in it. Stanford may ultimately beg out, but if it wants to be included and not lose its chair in the big time, it better take football much more seriously over the next 5 years than the last 5.

[Goose]

Sure, it's suboptimal.  But we're in the realm of "least worst option" at this point in time.  There was no optimal option, really, for Stanford because it became clear to the rest of college football that the Western US is not a viable standalone region for the sport, for the most part, on a revenue/interest/support basis, apart from the large LA market.  When USC essentially agreed with this perspective (I am fairly certain many SC boosters have had this perspective for quite some time, but leaving the Pac was difficult to imagine until recently), that was going to be the end of the Pac, or any successor Pacific conference that could be "bigtime", because the main market left the building.  The rest of the conference ex the LA schools had some value, but nothing close to the value of the other big 4, despite the weakness in the Big-12.  It really just became clear that a regional Western conference could not compete, revenue-wise, with any conference that has roots in Texas, the South, or the Midwest.

I agree that the "PAC-10" without the LA schools was never going to be as lucrative as the B1G or the SEC. However, supposedly there was a 30 million dollar per school on offer from ESPN. That is on a par with the Big-12 at the moment. Had that offer simply been accepted, it is probable that a western region conference could have gone ahead "just fine". It was far from "impossible". When it wasn't accepted, several PAC-10 members became concerned about the stability of the conference. They had no confidence that they could trust their compatriots to stay, and they had no confidence the PAC-10 could sign a media deal for a purported 51 million per team. If there was an offer available from another conference that was better managed (and therefore more stable, at least for now), most schools would take it. Colorado went first, but after that it was hard to imagine anybody staying. It is like any bank "run". The bank may actually be viable economically, but nobody wants to be left holding the bag in case it isn't. Get what you can while you can. Stanford and Cal were caught flat-footed. They had done nothing to prepare a landing spot. The poster child for hoping for the best but preparing for the worst was UofA. They knew they weren't a "hot property" and did what it took to 1) be able to join a P-4 conference, and 2) do so with a full share. Oregon and UW were also not really prepared, and ended up accepting a pretty low "valuation" for their media rights. They were saved by the fact their media rights were intrinsically more valuable than Stanford's.

 
For Stanford this was a completely disastrous turn of events given our practice of fielding a massive set of champion-caliber teams that are funded by our football team, essentially.  It forced us into a world of suboptimal options.  Going to the ACC under the conditions reported doesn't solve the fundamental problem of how to fund the other sports.  We will have to find a solution to that problem.  But it does prevent the other sports from being decimated in their ability to recruit as they would be if they were in a newly-constructed misfit conference.  So it's a way to stop that aspect of the suboptimal while kicking the can a bit on the funding side -- longer term we will need to either accept that these other sports will be funded long term by the university, or we will need to find some other funding coming from football in a way that the reported arrangements with the ACC won't.  And perhaps that "bet" is that the current arrangements are not stable, and that everyone will be playing roulette again in another few years for more definitive arrangements, and we would prefer to be an ACC member at that stage than a member of a newfangled conference on the outside of the new P4 structure.  

It's all suboptimal at this point, unfortunately.  Kicking the can is not necessarily the worst approach given the exigency, but I think we should realize that it is kicking the can nonetheless.  At some point the fundamental issues will need to be addressed, one way or another, because there is no real plan for Stanford's AD where the football media revenue isn't there long term.

I agree with the fact that the absence of football media rights income at anywhere near the present level is going to be a problem. The sport obviously consuming the majority of that revenue is football. That is the sport that right now provides significant revenue and also has significant costs. It isn't a matter of canceling some "Olympic" sports and otherwise continuing normally. Football itself needs the revenue. We have lots of estimates on this board about how much "profit" football returns to the AD. As far as I can tell, it isn't really a lot compared to the football budget, but the accounting is unclear.

Kicking the can down the road isn't going to be free, but one has to compare it to the alternative approaches of joining the ACC as some kind of very junior member, trying to hang on with a rump PAC-X and "grow the brand". These both promise some kind of revenue, but at least initially greatly diminished from what we have been receiving. They also have some significant associated risks, one of which is a "significant" period of commitment to said approach would be inevitable. It will need to be looked at very closely. Does anybody on this board have confidence that Stanford can do this kind of "due diligence" objectively and accurately? I for one do not. The good news might be there are so many elements that are basically not quantifiable (or have such a big variance they might as well be) random chance may be the best choice :(.

[Goose]

Sure, it's suboptimal.  But we're in the realm of "least worst option" at this point in time.  There was no optimal option, really, for Stanford because it became clear to the rest of college football that the Western US is not a viable standalone region for the sport, for the most part, on a revenue/interest/support basis, apart from the large LA market.  When USC essentially agreed with this perspective (I am fairly certain many SC boosters have had this perspective for quite some time, but leaving the Pac was difficult to imagine until recently), that was going to be the end of the Pac, or any successor Pacific conference that could be "bigtime", because the main market left the building.  The rest of the conference ex the LA schools had some value, but nothing close to the value of the other big 4, despite the weakness in the Big-12.  It really just became clear that a regional Western conference could not compete, revenue-wise, with any conference that has roots in Texas, the South, or the Midwest.

I agree that the "PAC-10" without the LA schools was never going to be as lucrative as the B1G or the SEC. However, supposedly there was a 30 million dollar per school on offer from ESPN. That is on a par with the Big-12 at the moment. Had that offer simply been accepted, it is probable that a western region conference could have gone ahead "just fine". It was far from "impossible". When it wasn't accepted, several PAC-10 members became concerned about the stability of the conference. They had no confidence that they could trust their compatriots to stay, and they had no confidence the PAC-10 could sign a media deal for a purported 51 million per team. If there was an offer available from another conference that was better managed (and therefore more stable, at least for now), most schools would take it. Colorado went first, but after that it was hard to imagine anybody staying. It is like any bank "run". The bank may actually be viable economically, but nobody wants to be left holding the bag in case it isn't. Get what you can while you can. Stanford and Cal were caught flat-footed. They had done nothing to prepare a landing spot. The poster child for hoping for the best but preparing for the worst was UofA. They knew they weren't a "hot property" and did what it took to 1) be able to join a P-4 conference, and 2) do so with a full share. Oregon and UW were also not really prepared, and ended up accepting a pretty low "valuation" for their media rights. They were saved by the fact their media rights were intrinsically more valuable than Stanford's.

 
For Stanford this was a completely disastrous turn of events given our practice of fielding a massive set of champion-caliber teams that are funded by our football team, essentially.  It forced us into a world of suboptimal options.  Going to the ACC under the conditions reported doesn't solve the fundamental problem of how to fund the other sports.  We will have to find a solution to that problem.  But it does prevent the other sports from being decimated in their ability to recruit as they would be if they were in a newly-constructed misfit conference.  So it's a way to stop that aspect of the suboptimal while kicking the can a bit on the funding side -- longer term we will need to either accept that these other sports will be funded long term by the university, or we will need to find some other funding coming from football in a way that the reported arrangements with the ACC won't.  And perhaps that "bet" is that the current arrangements are not stable, and that everyone will be playing roulette again in another few years for more definitive arrangements, and we would prefer to be an ACC member at that stage than a member of a newfangled conference on the outside of the new P4 structure.  

It's all suboptimal at this point, unfortunately.  Kicking the can is not necessarily the worst approach given the exigency, but I think we should realize that it is kicking the can nonetheless.  At some point the fundamental issues will need to be addressed, one way or another, because there is no real plan for Stanford's AD where the football media revenue isn't there long term.

I agree with the fact that the absence of football media rights income at anywhere near the present level is going to be a problem. The sport obviously consuming the majority of that revenue is football. That is the sport that right now provides significant revenue and also has significant costs. It isn't a matter of canceling some "Olympic" sports and otherwise continuing normally. Football itself needs the revenue. We have lots of estimates on this board about how much "profit" football returns to the AD. As far as I can tell, it isn't really a lot compared to the football budget, but the accounting is unclear.

Kicking the can down the road isn't going to be free, but one has to compare it to the alternative approaches of joining the ACC as some kind of very junior member, trying to hang on with a rump PAC-X and "grow the brand". These both promise some kind of revenue, but at least initially greatly diminished from what we have been receiving. They also have some significant associated risks, one of which is a "significant" period of commitment to said approach would be inevitable. It will need to be looked at very closely. Does anybody on this board have confidence that Stanford can do this kind of "due diligence" objectively and accurately? I for one do not. The good news might be there are so many elements that are basically not quantifiable (or have such a big variance they might as well be) random chance may be the best choice :(.

[Mick]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

No no no no no no no no no no no. This is so wrongheaded. Keeping the most minor teams of the Pac-12 together and adding minor teams is a minor conference. You may not like that this is a fact but it is a fact that conferences establish hierarchies in college sports. Revenue and recruiting, which both become self-reinforcing, flow from that. What you and many on this site have either advocated or expressed willingness to tolerate is death for athletics at Stanford. A Pacific coast conference is dead. We may not like that but it's where the world is in 2023. If we ignore that reality, we are consigning ourselves to minor status.

An athletics-aspiring university with dignity and self-respect must be in the Big 10, ACC, SEC, or Big 12. Period. That's it. You cannot play major college football outside of those conferences (unless you're Notre Dame, which we are not and which plays a half ACC schedule anyway) starting in five months. Nobody will care about you if you don't play major college football. If we try to sustain sports without football it will be embarrassing to the university and only possible with perennial subsidies to the athletics department unlike anything Stanford has ever done. Even if we try that the dynamics that link conference quality to recruiting will be profound headwinds for our other sports.

I get that it sucks that we are where we are but we will undermine Stanford as an athletics department and university if we lie to ourselves any further that West Coast sports are sustainable without partnership with the parts of the country that give a damn or that we can band together with all the misfits (this latter option is so depressing to me....why the hell is allying with SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army/UConn more desirable than playing in a major conference?).

Just want to make sure I read you correctly. It would be far preferable to be 2-10 every year in the ACC than, say, 11-2 in an MWC or AAC?

---

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

And if Stanford finishes 2-10 year after year?  That's the success?

If Stanford joins the ACC AND finishes 2-10 year after year, it would have nothing to do with conference placement, it would have everything to do with a coaching and talent deficit. 

Since the odds are extraordinarily slim the Cardinal would finish 2-10 even once let alone year after year, I think the benefits of moving to the ACC far outweigh the benefits of moving to a minor conference.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but we are already there. We're already minor league.

 - Stanford finished 3-9 in each of the last two seasons, and 4-8 two seasons prior to that. 
 - Stanford hasn't figured out the NIL issue
 - Stanford was decimated by the transfer portal. They lost four-fifths of a not-very-good offensive line through the portal. Their starting left tackle (likely) will have played last year in the Ivy League. Their four incoming transfers from the portal were the Harvard and Penn LTs, an LB from FIU and a QB from Syracuse who had a season ending injury his frosh year and didn't appear in his redshirt frosh year. By all accounts, looked like a stud QB in HS. Stanford lost sixteen players who have enrolled at their new schools, along with four others who haven't been taken yet. Stanford ranks #76 in transfer portal rankings.
 - Their coach is 55 years old, and his coaching bio is mainly position assistant, Head coach at Folsom, and OC/QB coach at Utah where he was dismissed after a year, then Sacto State as head coach...he was Big Sky coach of the year twice, and man, do I hope it carries over. 
 - This is the last year of the Pac-12, and five of the 12 opponents are ranked in the top 18. Then UCLA (28th in votes), Colorado and Deion Sanders on the road, Cal, WSU and Hawaii on the road, with Sac State...the only likely win, IMHO.
 - They're joining a tougher league with much more challenging travel for much less (maybe zero) money.

I don't see a lot of success in Stanford's football future, if they tie themselves to the B1G, the ACC or the Big 12.

[Mick]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

No no no no no no no no no no no. This is so wrongheaded. Keeping the most minor teams of the Pac-12 together and adding minor teams is a minor conference. You may not like that this is a fact but it is a fact that conferences establish hierarchies in college sports. Revenue and recruiting, which both become self-reinforcing, flow from that. What you and many on this site have either advocated or expressed willingness to tolerate is death for athletics at Stanford. A Pacific coast conference is dead. We may not like that but it's where the world is in 2023. If we ignore that reality, we are consigning ourselves to minor status.

An athletics-aspiring university with dignity and self-respect must be in the Big 10, ACC, SEC, or Big 12. Period. That's it. You cannot play major college football outside of those conferences (unless you're Notre Dame, which we are not and which plays a half ACC schedule anyway) starting in five months. Nobody will care about you if you don't play major college football. If we try to sustain sports without football it will be embarrassing to the university and only possible with perennial subsidies to the athletics department unlike anything Stanford has ever done. Even if we try that the dynamics that link conference quality to recruiting will be profound headwinds for our other sports.

I get that it sucks that we are where we are but we will undermine Stanford as an athletics department and university if we lie to ourselves any further that West Coast sports are sustainable without partnership with the parts of the country that give a damn or that we can band together with all the misfits (this latter option is so depressing to me....why the hell is allying with SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army/UConn more desirable than playing in a major conference?).

Just want to make sure I read you correctly. It would be far preferable to be 2-10 every year in the ACC than, say, 11-2 in an MWC or AAC?

---

A conference schedule of OSU, WSU, SMU, Rice, Tulane, and Army would have an immediate negative impact on recruiting for almost all, if not all, of Stanford's Olympic sports.    In the end it might turn out to be the only option.   

FWIW all those schools are great institutions.  They're just not the right combination for keeping Stanford at national prominence in college sports.  I understand anything Stanford does right now should be viewed as possibly a temporary fix.   However the damage to recruiting with this conference schedule would have a longer lasting effect on recruiting.

Those in charge at Stanford think the ACC is their best choice right now.  The head football coach thinks the ACC is Stanford's best choice right now.  I would bet most Stanford Olympic sports athletes would choose the ACC with the travel implications over conference teams like Army and Tulane.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree with you, to the extent the conference evolved no further. But I seriously doubt that group of eight would be the end of it, or the only eight for long. The entire market is in flux. I would project that before the 2025 season even begins, there would already be new members, or an entirely new college landscape. I am concerned that the ACC will implode, leaving Stanford in the same situation it faces now, within a few years.

Anything less than membership in an existing P4 conference should be considered a complete and total disaster.  There is no satisfactory alternative to a scenario that includes Stanford among the top 68 (this figure assumes Stanford, Cal and SMU receive invitations to the ACC).  

As for the future, the ACC may lose Florida State, UNC and/or Clemson, but I think the balance of the membership would hold firm thus allowing the ACC to remain a power conference. Hopefully, by early next week, we will see a positive resolution to this issue…..

And if Stanford finishes 2-10 year after year?  That's the success?

If Stanford joins the ACC AND finishes 2-10 year after year, it would have nothing to do with conference placement, it would have everything to do with a coaching and talent deficit. 

Since the odds are extraordinarily slim the Cardinal would finish 2-10 even once let alone year after year, I think the benefits of moving to the ACC far outweigh the benefits of moving to a minor conference.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but we are already there. We're already minor league.

 - Stanford finished 3-9 in each of the last two seasons, and 4-8 two seasons prior to that. 
 - Stanford hasn't figured out the NIL issue
 - Stanford was decimated by the transfer portal. They lost four-fifths of a not-very-good offensive line through the portal. Their starting left tackle (likely) will have played last year in the Ivy League. Their four incoming transfers from the portal were the Harvard and Penn LTs, an LB from FIU and a QB from Syracuse who had a season ending injury his frosh year and didn't appear in his redshirt frosh year. By all accounts, looked like a stud QB in HS. Stanford lost sixteen players who have enrolled at their new schools, along with four others who haven't been taken yet. Stanford ranks #76 in transfer portal rankings.
 - Their coach is 55 years old, and his coaching bio is mainly position assistant, Head coach at Folsom, and OC/QB coach at Utah where he was dismissed after a year, then Sacto State as head coach...he was Big Sky coach of the year twice, and man, do I hope it carries over. 
 - This is the last year of the Pac-12, and five of the 12 opponents are ranked in the top 18. Then UCLA (28th in votes), Colorado and Deion Sanders on the road, Cal, WSU and Hawaii on the road, with Sac State...the only likely win, IMHO.
 - They're joining a tougher league with much more challenging travel for much less (maybe zero) money.

I don't see a lot of success in Stanford's football future, if they tie themselves to the B1G, the ACC or the Big 12.

[msqueri]

Mick, you've badly misread Stanford football's prospects going forward. It's not all sunshine and rainbows and we do face significant challenges, but you're over-reacting to a low point, just as many associated with Stanford did following the 1983, 1988, 1994, 2004, and 2006 seasons. Taylor may or may not be the coach to bring Stanford out of the doldrums but it certainly isn't the case that outlier bad seasons represent the ceiling for Stanford football. To address some of your points:

* Yes, we were bad the last couple of years. But turnarounds do happen. I've previously come up with 50 examples. There are probably 2-3 new coaches a year who go on to execute a turnaround of a flailing Power Five program. Given the significant advantages Power Five programs have, it averages about to about a 50/50 chance an attempted turnaround works to some extent. To me there is no question that if Stanford remains in a major conference there is a chance we can return to football relevance. It's a tossup whether Taylor can do it, but if he can't and Stanford can manage to stay in a power conference, the post-Taylor coach would have a chance too.

* I wonder if you know what you're talking about in saying Stanford hasn't figured out NIL. I think there's an important extent to which nobody has figured NIL out because it's new and evolving and, coupled with the transfer portal, creates retention and attrition dynamics that are very hard to navigate. We aren't the only school that sees contributors transfer out. I also wonder how much you know about the operations of Lifetime Cardinal. The press reports on it, at least, suggest significant and arguably competitive NIL efforts. In our current 2024 class we have a commitment from a player with a $190,000 NIL valuation. Going forward it remains to be seen what NIL deals Stanford players get, how this gets regulated by Congress, and other factors, and I don't think we (at least I) have enough information to say what it means for our competitive prospects going forward.

* Yes, we were decimated by the transfer portal. But that's something that affects our 2024 one year prospects, not something that should be used to cite whether we're major or minor going forward. We had the convergence of a bottoming out in football, transfer-conducive national environment, previous coach who built a program that encouraged individualism/40 year decisions/graduate degrees at the expense of team and football goals, and a coaching transition. Stanford's susceptibility to transfers going forward is another thing that remains to be seen, as does the ability to recruit higher quality transfers. Of course a losing program didn't get high quality transfers. But if you took the current national transfer environment and Stanford's current receptivity/admissions leeway for transfers and paired it with a football program at the level of where Stanford was from 2010-2017, the quality of transfers would have been much higher. If Taylor can start to turn around the program, transfers will look better than they did in 2023. I don't think we will ever rank high in transfer portal rankings, but if we can be #40 or #50 and pair that with top 20 (or even top 40) high school recruiting, that is very much major conference-competitive talent. And keep in mind that high school recruiting is easier now that so many programs are focused on transfers. The transfer portal is no more of a guaranteed death knell than NIL is. [By the way, it's incidental to the larger point but you had several factual errors in your logic. For example, our starting LT actually is poised to be a former 4-star recruit who looks quite promising. I assume you are talking about Alec Bank, who at no point has been a starter in camp last I heard.]

* Taylor will have a chance to prove Stanford made a good call with his hire. We'll see. I strongly believe that it was the type of budget hire Stanford always makes and shows less commitment to competing as a major college program than I think would be optimal or that the vast majority of power programs demonstrate. At the same time, Taylor has a resume, staff, and personal approach that very well could succeed. Jim Harbaugh is an obvious example of the right mentality and staff succeeding even with no prior major college football head coaching experience.

* It deserves a separate post but you are too defeatist about our 2023 schedule. I ran the numbers earlier and David Shaw’s crappy, demoralized, joyless, bad QB play, zero running backs by the end of the season, hapless defense with overmatched linemen 2022 abomination of a team would have been expected to win 3.59 games against this 2023 schedule. Three to five wins is not some radical exercise in optimism. It's common sense confronted with a schedule this favorable. Much more I can say about this and we can go there if you'd like, but predicting one win is radically pessimistic. To start, we are touchdown favorites for a game you're counting as a loss!

* Granted we'd be joining a tougher league with more challenging travel, but joining a tougher league with much closer proximity to football talent bases would very significantly boost our recruiting.

[msqueri]

Mick, you've badly misread Stanford football's prospects going forward. It's not all sunshine and rainbows and we do face significant challenges, but you're over-reacting to a low point, just as many associated with Stanford did following the 1983, 1988, 1994, 2004, and 2006 seasons. Taylor may or may not be the coach to bring Stanford out of the doldrums but it certainly isn't the case that outlier bad seasons represent the ceiling for Stanford football. To address some of your points:

* Yes, we were bad the last couple of years. But turnarounds do happen. I've previously come up with 50 examples. There are probably 2-3 new coaches a year who go on to execute a turnaround of a flailing Power Five program. Given the significant advantages Power Five programs have, it averages about to about a 50/50 chance an attempted turnaround works to some extent. To me there is no question that if Stanford remains in a major conference there is a chance we can return to football relevance. It's a tossup whether Taylor can do it, but if he can't and Stanford can manage to stay in a power conference, the post-Taylor coach would have a chance too.

* I wonder if you know what you're talking about in saying Stanford hasn't figured out NIL. I think there's an important extent to which nobody has figured NIL out because it's new and evolving and, coupled with the transfer portal, creates retention and attrition dynamics that are very hard to navigate. We aren't the only school that sees contributors transfer out. I also wonder how much you know about the operations of Lifetime Cardinal. The press reports on it, at least, suggest significant and arguably competitive NIL efforts. In our current 2024 class we have a commitment from a player with a $190,000 NIL valuation. Going forward it remains to be seen what NIL deals Stanford players get, how this gets regulated by Congress, and other factors, and I don't think we (at least I) have enough information to say what it means for our competitive prospects going forward.

* Yes, we were decimated by the transfer portal. But that's something that affects our 2024 one year prospects, not something that should be used to cite whether we're major or minor going forward. We had the convergence of a bottoming out in football, transfer-conducive national environment, previous coach who built a program that encouraged individualism/40 year decisions/graduate degrees at the expense of team and football goals, and a coaching transition. Stanford's susceptibility to transfers going forward is another thing that remains to be seen, as does the ability to recruit higher quality transfers. Of course a losing program didn't get high quality transfers. But if you took the current national transfer environment and Stanford's current receptivity/admissions leeway for transfers and paired it with a football program at the level of where Stanford was from 2010-2017, the quality of transfers would have been much higher. If Taylor can start to turn around the program, transfers will look better than they did in 2023. I don't think we will ever rank high in transfer portal rankings, but if we can be #40 or #50 and pair that with top 20 (or even top 40) high school recruiting, that is very much major conference-competitive talent. And keep in mind that high school recruiting is easier now that so many programs are focused on transfers. The transfer portal is no more of a guaranteed death knell than NIL is. [By the way, it's incidental to the larger point but you had several factual errors in your logic. For example, our starting LT actually is poised to be a former 4-star recruit who looks quite promising. I assume you are talking about Alec Bank, who at no point has been a starter in camp last I heard.]

* Taylor will have a chance to prove Stanford made a good call with his hire. We'll see. I strongly believe that it was the type of budget hire Stanford always makes and shows less commitment to competing as a major college program than I think would be optimal or that the vast majority of power programs demonstrate. At the same time, Taylor has a resume, staff, and personal approach that very well could succeed. Jim Harbaugh is an obvious example of the right mentality and staff succeeding even with no prior major college football head coaching experience.

* It deserves a separate post but you are too defeatist about our 2023 schedule. I ran the numbers earlier and David Shaw’s crappy, demoralized, joyless, bad QB play, zero running backs by the end of the season, hapless defense with overmatched linemen 2022 abomination of a team would have been expected to win 3.59 games against this 2023 schedule. Three to five wins is not some radical exercise in optimism. It's common sense confronted with a schedule this favorable. Much more I can say about this and we can go there if you'd like, but predicting one win is radically pessimistic. To start, we are touchdown favorites for a game you're counting as a loss!

* Granted we'd be joining a tougher league with more challenging travel, but joining a tougher league with much closer proximity to football talent bases would very significantly boost our recruiting.

[BigJohn043]

Mick, you've badly misread Stanford football's prospects going forward. It's not all sunshine and rainbows and we do face significant challenges, but you're over-reacting to a low point, just as many associated with Stanford did following the 1983, 1988, 1994, 2004, and 2006 seasons. Taylor may or may not be the coach to bring Stanford out of the doldrums but it certainly isn't the case that outlier bad seasons represent the ceiling for Stanford football. To address some of your points:

* Yes, we were bad the last couple of years. But turnarounds do happen. I've previously come up with 50 examples. There are probably 2-3 new coaches a year who go on to execute a turnaround of a flailing Power Five program. Given the significant advantages Power Five programs have, it averages about to about a 50/50 chance an attempted turnaround works to some extent. To me there is no question that if Stanford remains in a major conference there is a chance we can return to football relevance. It's a tossup whether Taylor can do it, but if he can't and Stanford can manage to stay in a power conference, the post-Taylor coach would have a chance too.

* I wonder if you know what you're talking about in saying Stanford hasn't figured out NIL. I think there's an important extent to which nobody has figured NIL out because it's new and evolving and, coupled with the transfer portal, creates retention and attrition dynamics that are very hard to navigate. We aren't the only school that sees contributors transfer out. I also wonder how much you know about the operations of Lifetime Cardinal. The press reports on it, at least, suggest significant and arguably competitive NIL efforts. In our current 2024 class we have a commitment from a player with a $190,000 NIL valuation. Going forward it remains to be seen what NIL deals Stanford players get, how this gets regulated by Congress, and other factors, and I don't think we (at least I) have enough information to say what it means for our competitive prospects going forward.

* Yes, we were decimated by the transfer portal. But that's something that affects our 2024 one year prospects, not something that should be used to cite whether we're major or minor going forward. We had the convergence of a bottoming out in football, transfer-conducive national environment, previous coach who built a program that encouraged individualism/40 year decisions/graduate degrees at the expense of team and football goals, and a coaching transition. Stanford's susceptibility to transfers going forward is another thing that remains to be seen, as does the ability to recruit higher quality transfers. Of course a losing program didn't get high quality transfers. But if you took the current national transfer environment and Stanford's current receptivity/admissions leeway for transfers and paired it with a football program at the level of where Stanford was from 2010-2017, the quality of transfers would have been much higher. If Taylor can start to turn around the program, transfers will look better than they did in 2023. I don't think we will ever rank high in transfer portal rankings, but if we can be #40 or #50 and pair that with top 20 (or even top 40) high school recruiting, that is very much major conference-competitive talent. And keep in mind that high school recruiting is easier now that so many programs are focused on transfers. The transfer portal is no more of a guaranteed death knell than NIL is. [By the way, it's incidental to the larger point but you had several factual errors in your logic. For example, our starting LT actually is poised to be a former 4-star recruit who looks quite promising. I assume you are talking about Alec Bank, who at no point has been a starter in camp last I heard.]

* Taylor will have a chance to prove Stanford made a good call with his hire. We'll see. I strongly believe that it was the type of budget hire Stanford always makes and shows less commitment to competing as a major college program than I think would be optimal or that the vast majority of power programs demonstrate. At the same time, Taylor has a resume, staff, and personal approach that very well could succeed. Jim Harbaugh is an obvious example of the right mentality and staff succeeding even with no prior major college football head coaching experience.

* It deserves a separate post but you are too defeatist about our 2023 schedule. I ran the numbers earlier and David Shaw’s crappy, demoralized, joyless, bad QB play, zero running backs by the end of the season, hapless defense with overmatched linemen 2022 abomination of a team would have been expected to win 3.59 games against this 2023 schedule. Three to five wins is not some radical exercise in optimism. It's common sense confronted with a schedule this favorable. Much more I can say about this and we can go there if you'd like, but predicting one win is radically pessimistic. To start, we are touchdown favorites for a game you're counting as a loss!

* Granted we'd be joining a tougher league with more challenging travel, but joining a tougher league with much closer proximity to football talent bases would very significantly boost our recruiting.

Why do people think the ACC will be tough?  Per Sagarin, the P12 North was the 5th best division ahead of the ACC Atlantic at 6 and the Coastal at 10.  In moving to the ACC we are going to an easier conference not a harder one.

Outside of Clemson, who exactly is good at football in the ACC?

[BigJohn043]

Mick, you've badly misread Stanford football's prospects going forward. It's not all sunshine and rainbows and we do face significant challenges, but you're over-reacting to a low point, just as many associated with Stanford did following the 1983, 1988, 1994, 2004, and 2006 seasons. Taylor may or may not be the coach to bring Stanford out of the doldrums but it certainly isn't the case that outlier bad seasons represent the ceiling for Stanford football. To address some of your points:

* Yes, we were bad the last couple of years. But turnarounds do happen. I've previously come up with 50 examples. There are probably 2-3 new coaches a year who go on to execute a turnaround of a flailing Power Five program. Given the significant advantages Power Five programs have, it averages about to about a 50/50 chance an attempted turnaround works to some extent. To me there is no question that if Stanford remains in a major conference there is a chance we can return to football relevance. It's a tossup whether Taylor can do it, but if he can't and Stanford can manage to stay in a power conference, the post-Taylor coach would have a chance too.

* I wonder if you know what you're talking about in saying Stanford hasn't figured out NIL. I think there's an important extent to which nobody has figured NIL out because it's new and evolving and, coupled with the transfer portal, creates retention and attrition dynamics that are very hard to navigate. We aren't the only school that sees contributors transfer out. I also wonder how much you know about the operations of Lifetime Cardinal. The press reports on it, at least, suggest significant and arguably competitive NIL efforts. In our current 2024 class we have a commitment from a player with a $190,000 NIL valuation. Going forward it remains to be seen what NIL deals Stanford players get, how this gets regulated by Congress, and other factors, and I don't think we (at least I) have enough information to say what it means for our competitive prospects going forward.

* Yes, we were decimated by the transfer portal. But that's something that affects our 2024 one year prospects, not something that should be used to cite whether we're major or minor going forward. We had the convergence of a bottoming out in football, transfer-conducive national environment, previous coach who built a program that encouraged individualism/40 year decisions/graduate degrees at the expense of team and football goals, and a coaching transition. Stanford's susceptibility to transfers going forward is another thing that remains to be seen, as does the ability to recruit higher quality transfers. Of course a losing program didn't get high quality transfers. But if you took the current national transfer environment and Stanford's current receptivity/admissions leeway for transfers and paired it with a football program at the level of where Stanford was from 2010-2017, the quality of transfers would have been much higher. If Taylor can start to turn around the program, transfers will look better than they did in 2023. I don't think we will ever rank high in transfer portal rankings, but if we can be #40 or #50 and pair that with top 20 (or even top 40) high school recruiting, that is very much major conference-competitive talent. And keep in mind that high school recruiting is easier now that so many programs are focused on transfers. The transfer portal is no more of a guaranteed death knell than NIL is. [By the way, it's incidental to the larger point but you had several factual errors in your logic. For example, our starting LT actually is poised to be a former 4-star recruit who looks quite promising. I assume you are talking about Alec Bank, who at no point has been a starter in camp last I heard.]

* Taylor will have a chance to prove Stanford made a good call with his hire. We'll see. I strongly believe that it was the type of budget hire Stanford always makes and shows less commitment to competing as a major college program than I think would be optimal or that the vast majority of power programs demonstrate. At the same time, Taylor has a resume, staff, and personal approach that very well could succeed. Jim Harbaugh is an obvious example of the right mentality and staff succeeding even with no prior major college football head coaching experience.

* It deserves a separate post but you are too defeatist about our 2023 schedule. I ran the numbers earlier and David Shaw’s crappy, demoralized, joyless, bad QB play, zero running backs by the end of the season, hapless defense with overmatched linemen 2022 abomination of a team would have been expected to win 3.59 games against this 2023 schedule. Three to five wins is not some radical exercise in optimism. It's common sense confronted with a schedule this favorable. Much more I can say about this and we can go there if you'd like, but predicting one win is radically pessimistic. To start, we are touchdown favorites for a game you're counting as a loss!

* Granted we'd be joining a tougher league with more challenging travel, but joining a tougher league with much closer proximity to football talent bases would very significantly boost our recruiting.

Why do people think the ACC will be tough?  Per Sagarin, the P12 North was the 5th best division ahead of the ACC Atlantic at 6 and the Coastal at 10.  In moving to the ACC we are going to an easier conference not a harder one.

Outside of Clemson, who exactly is good at football in the ACC?