Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford

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RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - BostonCard - 11-22-2022

(11-22-2022, 10:27 PM)Jamesy Wrote: Our recruiting classes the last 4 years have been (per 24/7)
2022: 19th
2021: 43rd
2020: 21st
2019: 19th

These rankings take into account both number of recruits and average rating. This means that from a sheer talent perspective, we should at least be more talented than the median college football team. You say the transfer portal hurts us, but the 2019-2021 teams didn't have of immense proportions numbers of outgoing transfers and still the team significantly underperformed. I'm less worried than others about the impact of NIL on recruiting. Both FB and MBB are recruiting at historical norms or even better, in the case of MBB. It's on the coaching, development, and game day planning/adjustments. Muir, Shaw and Haase all need to go.

Agree, the raw ingredients going in have been fine (though we've been hurt by having unbalanced recruitment; like, for example, who is going to play inside linebacker next year? Average ranking can mask imbalances)

The issue really is development. Guys that come in and make a splash as freshmen aren't noticeably better as juniors or seniors. There are few guys who "emerge" their junior or senior years. Players regress. It's bad, and I think it is fair to blame the coaching staff for it.

BC

I suppose there are two ways of looking at this.

A statement like this is very unusual from Shaw, who knows how the game is played. I can't imagine that he would leak anything about discussions unless they were a) pretty much already decided or b) he was desperate. Who knows what the shape of the changes he has been discussing are. I am not in favor of major changes in terms of admissions and funneling money to players; I may be in the minority here, but that's ok. I'd be surprised if Shaw was paving the way for major changes to happen, but we have seen it before (eg early enrollment). The bigger picture, though, is that he clearly recognizes that there is a problem. Step 1 is to recognize there is a problem.

But as others have noted, if he thinks he can fix it by arranging some institutional changes in terms of NILs and the transfer portal, then we are likely looking at more disappointment. If he is throwing this out to buy himself time, I wish him luck, but I'm not sanguine, and I fear that this place will become a very unpleasant site to visit.

BC

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - Snorlax94 - 11-22-2022

Wow, I have been surprised by the response on the Cardboard. After reading the announcement, I would have thought FANS of the Stanford Cardinal would be doing cartwheels over this news.

First, this is good news for football. I am still deciding whether I think this was the right move for the university, but I think it probably was. I don’t see why people think admitting transfers necessarily compromises or lowers admission standards. A lot of football student athletes arrive at college, study hard, and realize what they want for their life is to get a degree and get a great education. Some of them might arrive at a party school and realize Stanford’s culture was a better fit for realizing their life goals. If they’ve been taking challenging college classes, studying hard, and getting good grades, why not let some of them transfer in? Would it have been a mistake or a compromise to have let Patrick Fields or Isaiah Sanders arrive earlier? In fact, I bet those two model student athletes influenced the administration’s thinking about transfers.

2. Second, just because Shaw is fighting like crazy now to make these changes doesn’t necessarily mean he will be around to inherit any new policies for any amount of time. This is a change for the entire AD, regardless of who is coaching football next year or the year after.

This is good news, people. It means the university wants to succeed in football and is willing to listen and adapt when necessary.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - CardinalSagehen - 11-22-2022

(11-22-2022, 11:28 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: This is good news, people. It means the university wants to succeed in football and is willing to listen and adapt when necessary.

To be clear, I wouldn’t call it “news” yet, unless I missed the news. It was more like a teaser PR.

Nothing specific has been decided or announced. These were just Shaw’s vague musings about discussions with the administration on “a lot of things we can do.” Just because a desperate coach thinks some people are open to doing some things doesn’t mean they know what they are actually going to do or how they will do it.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - Snorlax94 - 11-22-2022

(11-22-2022, 11:47 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote:
(11-22-2022, 11:28 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: This is good news, people. It means the university wants to succeed in football and is willing to listen and adapt when necessary.

To be clear, I wouldn’t call it “news” yet, unless I missed the news. It was more like a teaser PR.

Nothing specific has been decided or announced. These were just Shaw’s vague musings about discussions with the administration on “a lot of things we can do.” Just because a desperate coach thinks some people are open to doing some things doesn’t mean they know what they are actually going to do or how they will do it.

This is how the Season Ticket Member newsletter worded it:
STANFORD WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE PORTAL

David Shaw shares the news that Stanford will institutionally support active participation in transfer recruiting, and why being active in the transfer portal has become a necessity in college football today.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - CardinalSagehen - 11-23-2022

(11-22-2022, 11:53 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote:
(11-22-2022, 11:47 PM)CardinalSagehen Wrote:
(11-22-2022, 11:28 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: This is good news, people. It means the university wants to succeed in football and is willing to listen and adapt when necessary.

To be clear, I wouldn’t call it “news” yet, unless I missed the news. It was more like a teaser PR.

Nothing specific has been decided or announced. These were just Shaw’s vague musings about discussions with the administration on “a lot of things we can do.” Just because a desperate coach thinks some people are open to doing some things doesn’t mean they know what they are actually going to do or how they will do it.

This is how the Season Ticket Member newsletter worded it:
STANFORD WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE PORTAL

David Shaw shares the news that Stanford will institutionally support active participation in transfer recruiting, and why being active in the transfer portal has become a necessity in college football today.

Yeah, just saw that after writing my post. It helps a little. But I can tell you, having listened to the conference, that it sounded like a plan to make a plan. It did not sound well defined, and Shaw basically admitted as much. (In fairness, I suppose Shaw wouldn’t want to divulge that he has clearance to pull, for example, up to 10 players with 3.0 college GPAs from the portal.) It also takes NIL money to pull many of the better players from the portal.

Let’s see what happens. It feels to me like we’re more than a year behind the curve on this, so we have a lot of ground to cover this off-season if we’re going to benefit.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - Mick - 11-23-2022

(11-22-2022, 04:53 PM)paloalto Wrote: claims to be having "a lot of great talks with our administration" and our admissions team as part of the solution.

I have mixed feelings about this. If Shaw is talking about substantially lowering admissions requirements to bring in nationally elite transfers, I don't want that to happen.

If its about looking at a new and creative set of admissions criteria for transfers, I would be on board to consider that. If it were to happen there should be some transparency about it to the public.

BTW, I agree if all this is true, it sure looks like Shaw is planning to be around for a long time. If he can work with admissions there's probably no one in power planning to end his Stanford coaching career.

He's forced into change, he doesn't necessarily want it. And personally, I think the first move he needs to do is get rid of his coordinators and get an amazing set of young, up and coming coaches, top to bottom.

And still...I'm not bothered by the conversations with admissions...at this point, we're just haggling over price. Not too many 1560 SATs on the football team, I suspect. No, I don't want an athlete who can't do the work. But the coaching staff needs better athletes. And I think that Shaw is the only one who can realistically have that conversation...a new coach wouldn't have the power base to legitimize that conversation and would be brought in to say "sure, we can compete with these oppressive academic boundaries strangling us..."

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - cardcrimson - 11-23-2022

https://memes.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/9cc84016-e413-48cb-958f-096bb7b7e292/embed?autoplay=false&responsive=true

Wish I could figure out how to post these things directly. . . ..

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - OutsiderFan - 11-23-2022

This is the most interesting thread I've seen on this board since the Covid board, and it even has to do with Stanford Football. A lot to unpack here.

The announcement that Stanford will no longer use SAT/ACT in admissions decisions can't do anything but help Stanford recruiting in all sports, and this would seem to have a downstream effect on the ability to accept transfers from the portal.

This suggests the portal participation announcement goes hand-in-hand with eliminating the SAT/ACT from admissions. Like others have said, NIL plays a role in portal transfers if you want the best players. David Shaw certainly knows this, and if he has been talking to administration about this, the administration does too. Stanford fans and boosters from all sports are going to be clamoring to know how Stanford plans to implement transfer portal participation.

David Shaw bringing up all this stuff in a presser when 3-8 and facing enormous heat from his flagging performance, does beg the question about why he didn't raise this stuff as an issue in the off season when USC and Oregon were rebuilding their rosters overnight with cold blooded killer coaches backed by massive booster money. The devil's advocate position might be that Shaw had his focus on the program derailed because he was having to spend so much time he should have been coaching the team, on meeting with his bosses and influencers on the portal and NIL issues, which impact football more than any other sport. And he could claim he's falling on his sword for Stanford Football to save Stanford Athletics writ large. IF this is actually is the case, Shaw can claim victory on the portal/NIL stuff, he can say NOW I can really focus on turning our football program around, and have at least one solid leg to stand on. Because IF David Shaw is the one responsible for pushing Stanford to evolve to compete in the new college sports landscape, having one terrible football season will have been worth it, IMO.

At the same time, if Shaw did in fact lead Stanford to participate in this brave new world, it could also be a perfect opportunity to move him into a role where he actually is a liaison between the business of college sports and the university. He could represent Stanford Athletics in marketing agencies and board rooms across the country, learn what the market wants, bring that information to Stanford for its athletes, develop relationships for Stanford student athletes to cash in on vis-a-vis NIL, internships, staying on top of all things recruiting and NCAA regulations. He could even take on a prominent role developing the recruiting rules for the NCAA. Sounds like a more fun job than football coaching to me!

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - winflop - 11-23-2022

(11-22-2022, 11:28 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: Wow, I have been surprised by the response on the Cardboard. After reading the announcement, I would have thought FANS of the Stanford Cardinal would be doing cartwheels over this news.

First, this is good news for football. I am still deciding whether I think this was the right move for the university, but I think it probably was. I don’t see why people think admitting transfers necessarily compromises or lowers admission standards. A lot of football student athletes arrive at college, study hard, and realize what they want for their life is to get a degree and get a great education. Some of them might arrive at a party school and realize Stanford’s culture was a better fit for realizing their life goals. If they’ve been taking challenging college classes, studying hard, and getting good grades, why not let some of them transfer in? Would it have been a mistake or a compromise to have let Patrick Fields or Isaiah Sanders arrive earlier? In fact, I bet those two model student athletes influenced the administration’s thinking about transfers.

2. Second, just because Shaw is fighting like crazy now to make these changes doesn’t necessarily mean he will be around to inherit any new policies for any amount of time. This is a change for the entire AD, regardless of who is coaching football next year or the year after.

This is good news, people. It means the university wants to succeed in football and is willing to listen and adapt when necessary.

I'll do cartwheels when something actually happens. Until then it's just talk. I'm also so cynical about Shaw says at this point that I see anything he says with a filter of "what can I say that will be self-preserving and keep the barbarians at the gate?"

I do think it would be great if Stanford could figure something out without compromising its principles. Not and easy needle the thread, but until there's something real I'm not going to put much stock in it

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - needle - 11-23-2022

Pretty much every player on an all-academic team (I think every conference has one) should be able to transfer to Stanford, imo.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - gailtate - 11-23-2022

(11-23-2022, 07:58 AM)needle Wrote: Pretty much every player on an all-academic team (I think every conference has one) should be able to transfer to Stanford, imo.

If those teams contain any Shane Skovs, Trent Murphys, Chase Thomases, Ben Gardners, Blake Martinezes, etc., I'm all for it.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - BostonCard - 11-23-2022

https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/first-year/testing.html

Officially, Stanford has just made it test optional for the next year due to COVID; it has not (yet) announced it is moving towards a permanent test optional system.

Sagehen, I would agree with you that there is very little specific in there, but as I noted earlier, Shaw knows how the game is played and is cautious perhaps to a fault. He wouldn't have opened his mouth unless a) he was desperate (entirely possible) or b) he had an agreement and clearance to talk about it. But while Harbaugh might have talked about it openly and dared the administration to walk it back, that's never been Shaw's style. The bigger question is how substantive the changes will be, and that could range from filling around the edges to a complete rethink of how Stanford recruits.

One last thought... with the hints we've gotten of major roster turnover coming, I wonder how much of this is back against the wall measures. Like, if he knows between graduation and transfers 40 players won't be coming back next year, that might have resulted in a "no choice but the portal".

BC

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - Jamesy - 11-23-2022

I have no issue with NIL money for the athletes. If that helps with retention, we've shown with our past teams that we can recruit well enough to be competitive and win the pac-12. As for transfers, the typical saying is that if you had to be good enough to get accepted straight out of hs to get accepted as a transfer. Maybe some players that have an offer but go elsewhere could be reasonably accepted as a transfer provided they did okay academically at their other school.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - SamuelMcF - 11-23-2022

(11-23-2022, 08:29 AM)gailtate Wrote:
(11-23-2022, 07:58 AM)needle Wrote: Pretty much every player on an all-academic team (I think every conference has one) should be able to transfer to Stanford, imo.

If those teams contain any Shane Skovs, Trent Murphys, Chase Thomases, Ben Gardners, Blake Martinezes, etc., I'm all for it.

I tracked a bunch of potential defensive front 7 grad transfers last season. Those types of players are definitely out there.

A few of the guys I flagged last season who have made significant impacts at their new teams: DL Kobie Turner (3x all-academic at Richmond --> Wake Forest), LB Colby Reeder (3x all academic at Delaware --> Iowa State), LB Eriq Gilyard (2x all academic at UCF --> Kansas), DL Jacob Lichtenstein (had a 4.0 at USC --> Miami), LB MoMo Sanogo (4x all academic at Ole Miss --> Louisville)...

DL JH Tevis (DAD AND UNCLE - MIKE & JOHN TEEUWS - BOTH PLAYED FOOTBALL AT STANFORD, HAD A 3.51 GPA AND WAS A STARTER AT CAL) who transferred to Indiana...

Oh, and the 1st- and 2nd-team all Ivy teams are loaded with seniors. Ivies don't do 5th years, so they all enter the portal. Last year's Harvard 1st-team all-Ivy DL tandem started for UCLA and ND. Two 1st-team all Ivy OL started for Penn State and UNC. This is the biggest no-brainer EVER.

I will once again be compiling a list this year, but all across the board because f*** it. It should be noted that multiple grad transfers in the portal are already being followed by staff. (This has NEVER happened before.)

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - TrumpCard - 11-23-2022

The press conference comments also could read like his next job application. He’s saying he would have done better if the hard headed admin at Stanford had just let him do stuff that the competition does. I would not read into his comments any conclusion about whether or not he’s coming back or thinks he’s coming back.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - CardinalSagehen - 11-23-2022

(11-23-2022, 05:51 AM)Mick Wrote: And I think that Shaw is the only one who can realistically have that conversation...a new coach wouldn't have the power base to legitimize that conversation and would be brought in to say "sure, we can compete with these oppressive academic boundaries strangling us..."

As a longtime Shawpologist that would very much like to agree, I disagree.

Either Shaw has finally accepted, more than a year after everyone else, that we need the transfer portal (yet another miscalculation to add to the list), or he has been incapable of getting anything done until now. As you say, it's not even clear how much he has achieved because he's still going to negotiate the admission of certain student-athletes, and we don't know how that will work out.

We find ourselves more than a year behind all other serious contenders in this crazy rat race. It is highly improbable that the transfer portal turns out to be a net-positive for us this off-season. It's really just a stop-gap to make up for some of the losses that we are likely to experience.

One option is to bring in an up-and-coming coordinator from a school that has already been doing the portal and NIL successfully. How about we try that? That person might have more credibility and more experience on the matter than Shaw. In addition to managing the admissions process, the coach is actually going to have to be good at identifying and attracting the athletes. Does Shaw and his insular staff even know the going rate for a 300-pound game-wrecking DL or an elite QB?

I don't think Harbaugh flinched as much as Shaw does when someone told him we had to do something the "Stanford Way." The football coach's job, within reason, is to advocate for a successful football team. It's other people's jobs to push back on the football coach and create a healthy balance.

To be clear, I wouldn't prioritize only NIL/transfer knowledge as the selection criterion for a new coach - it's just one of many areas where a fresh approach and fresh eyes are needed. It's a fallacy to think we just need a few tweaks. We need a complete rebuild. The man who built the castle and oversaw its decay should not be the one to knock it down and rebuild.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - Maple Leaf - 11-23-2022

(11-23-2022, 07:58 AM)needle Wrote: Pretty much every player on an all-academic team (I think every conference has one) should be able to transfer to Stanford, imo.

Not so sure about "Pretty much every player......"; much depends on the school and major. Physics Major from Purdue yes, NIL Major from USC maybe not.

Come to think since the President MTL has degrees in chemistry and physiology, selecting transfers with science, math and engineering majors might be just the ticket!

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - gailtate - 11-23-2022

(11-23-2022, 09:45 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote:
(11-23-2022, 08:29 AM)gailtate Wrote:
(11-23-2022, 07:58 AM)needle Wrote: Pretty much every player on an all-academic team (I think every conference has one) should be able to transfer to Stanford, imo.

If those teams contain any Shane Skovs, Trent Murphys, Chase Thomases, Ben Gardners, Blake Martinezes, etc., I'm all for it.

I tracked a bunch of potential defensive front 7 grad transfers last season. Those types of players are definitely out there.

A few of the guys I flagged last season who have made significant impacts at their new teams: DL Kobie Turner (3x all-academic at Richmond --> Wake Forest), LB Colby Reeder (3x all academic at Delaware --> Iowa State), LB Eriq Gilyard (2x all academic at UCF --> Kansas), DL Jacob Lichtenstein (had a 4.0 at USC --> Miami), LB MoMo Sanogo (4x all academic at Ole Miss --> Louisville)...

DL JH Tevis (DAD AND UNCLE - MIKE & JOHN TEEUWS - BOTH PLAYED FOOTBALL AT STANFORD, HAD A 3.51 GPA AND WAS A STARTER AT CAL) who transferred to Indiana...

Oh, and the 1st- and 2nd-team all Ivy teams are loaded with seniors. Ivies don't do 5th years, so they all enter the portal. Last year's Harvard 1st-team all-Ivy DL tandem started for UCLA and ND. Two 1st-team all Ivy OL started for Penn State and UNC. This is the biggest no-brainer EVER.

I will once again be compiling a list this year, but all across the board because f*** it. It should be noted that multiple grad transfers in the portal are already being followed by staff. (This has NEVER happened before.)

All consistent with this coach's reticence, complacency and comfort with resting on this laurels. The old saying, "He who hesitates is lost" in Shaw terms: He who hesitates in the new age loses players, games, fans and stature. All of which, as we see, are well underway. #MuirAndShawMustGo

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - VB Card - 11-23-2022

(11-22-2022, 07:34 PM)MVCard Wrote:
(11-22-2022, 06:52 PM)lex24 Wrote: 2 separate issues: 1. He should go. 2. Stanford admin should improve situation with portal and NIL.

3. Improve campus culture so it’s actually attractive for student-athletes to want to attend… a campus where anonymous messaging apps (see: “Fizz”) create toxic animosity between students - why attend?

4. Address player needs with respect to training and nutrition. Who gives a bleep who transfers or how they are funded, if they can’t eat.

Did you just say campus culture is bad because of Fizz? I'm just going to assume you aren't a student. As an actual current student who greatly enjoys campus culture and the school, I don't know a single person who has complained about Fizz making Stanford a toxic place. As for how football players and other athletes enjoy campus culture, that comes down to how much they choose to immerse themselves. All the athletes I know who hang out with NARP's and not just other athletes, absolutely love it. If you only interact with people on your team and not acknowledge regular students (as several of the football players do), yeah you're not going to enjoy the campus culture. But get out of here with Fizz. Every school in America has some kind of social media app that people use.

RE: Shaw dangling changes to transfer portal and NIL practices at Stanford - Softball Fan - 11-23-2022

https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/best-colleges/

This is the Niche ranking of colleges. 1.) MIT 2.) Stanford 3.) Harvard

There are over 1,000 reviews of Stanford by students and alums. Stanford gets 4 out 5 stars for campus life which is the same as all the other top schools. I'm aware it's fashionable among a handful of students to say Stanford hates fun. I suspect they are in the absolute minority. Each year Stanford sets records for number of student applications. Something must be going ok.

WVB is the one sport I know about. There have been two students in WVB program history who left Stanford before getting their degree. One was a student from Michigan twenty five years ago who got homesick freshman year. She came back later in life to get a Masters from Stanford. The other was Logan Tom who left to play on the Olympic team and then professionally. She came back later in life to finish her degree.

All I hope is any fundamental changes to admissions be considered thoroughly and not be a knee-jerk reaction. There are too many good things happening on the Farm to screw things up. Admittedly this is the viewpoint of someone who enjoys football but is not a die-hard Stanford football fan.

One final random thought although it's not relevant today. I recall some time ago there was a year when no transfer students were admitted. Typically transfers were mainly admitted to fill out the diversity of a class depending on how many openings were available.