(11-03-2024, 10:01 AM)cctop Wrote: Vanderbilt is 6-3 and just beat Auburn. They’re bowl-eligible for the first time since 2018
It feels like a Vanderbilt that is even mildly successful in the SEC can out-Stanford Stanford as the place for academically-minded football players.
So-called "academic" universities actually do quite well on the football field.
There's an interesting correlation between academic quality and football success, outside of Stanford, Purdue and UCLA. Check it out, here's the Top 51 National Universities (according to US News & World Report, a flawed but common measuring stick) that have D1 FBS football programs, and I threw in the service academies and BYU, which have uniquely challenging recruiting requirements apart from academics:
Army and BYU are 8-0
Notre Dame, Ohio State, Georgia and Texas are 7-1
Texas A&M is 7-2
Duke, Illinois and Vanderbilt are 6-3
Navy is 6-2
Washington, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Michigan are 5-4
Virginia, Cal, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Maryland, Florida and Boston College are 4-4
Northwestern and USC are 4-5
All are in the Top 51/USNWR. Stanford, Purdue and UCLA are the only "academic" teams with poor W/L records. Somehow, we need to be able to recruit better than our history. Harbaugh figured it out, as he said, you can find 22 excellent football players a year who can matriculate at Stanford. I don't think Taylor is going to figure it out, but whoever succeeds Taylor
needs to be able to recruit at a high level.