Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - Printable Version
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever (/thread-23888.html)
+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever (/thread-23888.html)
Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - 81alum - 12-17-2022
Coming off a bad season with a .250 win record, I wondered how bad, historically, was this?
In 102 years of Stanford football, there were 8 seasons in which we won fewer than 3 games, and (including this year) 9 years in which we won 3 games. So by wins we were in the bottom 17 of 102.
The number of games played each year has varied, however. By percentage there were 7 worse seasons in 102 years of Stanford football history.
2021 2020 (tie) .250
1958 .200
2002 .182
1939 .167
1983 .091
2006 .083
1960 1918 (tie) .000
Looking ahead, I thought it might be interesting to ask what were the records of coaches in their first year who followed a departing coach with a losing year. There have been only 7, although two more came in after a year in which wins and losses were tied. The majority of Stanford coaches started their time here after a winning season, not after a losing one. But here are the possible turnaround artists:
1919 Bob Evans 4-3 (followed 0-4)
1940 Clark Shaughnessy 10-0 (followed 1-7-1)
1984 Jack Elway 5-6 (followed 1-10)
1989 Dennis Green 3-8 (followed 3-6-2)
1995 Tyrone Willingham 7-4-1 (followed 3-7-1)
2005 Walt Harris 5-6 (followed 4-7)
2007 Jim Harbaugh 4-8 (followed 1-11)
The biggest turnaround was, of course, Clark Shaughnessy--one of the biggest in any sport in any era. But every other coach improved on the prior year except for Dennis Green, and he at least won the same number of games as his predecessor.
Let's hope Troy Taylor is the next Clark Shaughnessy--except that he will stay longer than one year!
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - martyup - 12-18-2022
(12-17-2022, 11:49 PM)81alum Wrote: The biggest turnaround was, of course, Clark Shaughnessy--one of the biggest in any sport in any era. But every other coach improved on the prior year except for Dennis Green, and he at least won the same number of games as his predecessor.
Let's hope Troy Taylor is the next Clark Shaughnessy--except that he will stay longer than one year!
The problem is that this is the first time a new coach has come in following losing seasons and the new transfer portal is in effect. T² comes in with a bare cupboard. It's going to take more time to rebuild this program than in the pre-portal years.
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.presentermedia.c...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.presentermedia.com%2Ffiles%2Fanimsp%2F00008000%2F8038%2Fstick_figure_open_cupboard_md_wm.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7bb7c0bb5d65561d9ed35f645d73fe686a3edb3a48a69c57e36aa7f050e74d61&ipo=images)
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - Phogge - 12-18-2022
Actually Shag stayed for a second season of 6-3 and a co-PCC Championship with Washington and Oregon State College. OSC took home the Rose Bowl bid and beat Duke in Durham, NC after the Rose Bowl was moved over concerns about a Japanese attack on the Pacific Coast.
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - 81alum - 12-18-2022
I thought this was interesting from the Wiki article about Shaughnessy:
Quote:Many Stanford alumni were upset with the decision to hire Shaughnessy. The most popular candidates for the vacant position were two Stanford alumni themselves: San Jose State coach Dudley DeGroot, and Santa Clara coach Buck Shaw. Some believed the Shaughnessy hiring was a ploy to eventually eliminate football at the school, as had happened at both Loyola and Chicago the year prior.[49] The Bay Area media mocked the Shaughnessy hiring as comically inept. They believed that a prestigious academic school had foolishly hired an inveterate loser as its head coach.[49] Prescott Sulivan of the San Francisco Examiner and Jack McDonald of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin coined the nickname "Soup" for Shaughnessy, which they sarcastically explained was a diminutive for the word "super".[49] Sullivan wrote, "We have heard it said that Shaughnessy has developed the knack of losing to the point where, with him, it is an exact science. In light of his record, we aren't at all surprised at this."[49] The Stanford players were also skeptical of Shaughnessy's abilities. Center Milt Vucinich said, "We'd been reading about all those beatings Shaughnessy's men had taken, so we were joking among ourselves that wasn't it just like Stanford to hire somebody like this to coach us."
Imagine what would have been said had there been a Cardboard in 1940!
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - Mick - 12-18-2022
(12-18-2022, 10:18 AM)81alum Wrote: I thought this was interesting from the Wiki article about Shaughnessy:Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.
Quote:Many Stanford alumni were upset with the decision to hire Shaughnessy. The most popular candidates for the vacant position were two Stanford alumni themselves: San Jose State coach Dudley DeGroot, and Santa Clara coach Buck Shaw. Some believed the Shaughnessy hiring was a ploy to eventually eliminate football at the school, as had happened at both Loyola and Chicago the year prior.[49] The Bay Area media mocked the Shaughnessy hiring as comically inept. They believed that a prestigious academic school had foolishly hired an inveterate loser as its head coach.[49] Prescott Sulivan of the San Francisco Examiner and Jack McDonald of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin coined the nickname "Soup" for Shaughnessy, which they sarcastically explained was a diminutive for the word "super".[49] Sullivan wrote, "We have heard it said that Shaughnessy has developed the knack of losing to the point where, with him, it is an exact science. In light of his record, we aren't at all surprised at this."[49] The Stanford players were also skeptical of Shaughnessy's abilities. Center Milt Vucinich said, "We'd been reading about all those beatings Shaughnessy's men had taken, so we were joking among ourselves that wasn't it just like Stanford to hire somebody like this to coach us."Imagine what would have been said had there been a Cardboard in 1940!
Chicago was in the Big 10 and their prior coach was Amos Alonzo Stagg, the inventor or co-inventor of the ends-back formation, the reverse, the 7-2-2 defense, the first football playbook with diagrams, first indoor game, first intersctional game, the huddle the center snap, the onside kick, the quick kick, the short punt, the spiral snap, the line shift, the lateral pass, tackling dummies, unbalanced lines, placement kicks, unbalanced line, the Notre Dame box, varsity letters, Statue of Liberty play, uniform numbers, the forward pass, the T Formation, the man in motion, the sleeper play, the linebacker position, the quarterback keeper, the delayed buck, numerical designations of plays, hip pads, padded goal posts, and the end-around. Suffice to say, he knew a little bit about football, Stagg was 1-4-2 in his first season, then had 17 consecutive winning seasons.
U of Chicago's leadership, specifically school President Robert Hutchins decided to eliminate football from the university. It was a part of his plan to eliminate things from the school that would be a "distraction" to the student body and the professors. He hated the idea of an athlete being seen as a role model of any kind and he hated the popularity that footballers had gained around campus. First, he eliminated the PE major. Then, he forced Stagg to retire and prevented new coach Clark Shaughnessy from recruiting players. The cowardly Hutchins abolished football during Christmas break in 1939. He also eliminated fraternities and religious organizations.
The president of Loyola, a Jesuit named Robert Kelley, felt that the team was too popular and led to the general public attending games and showing interest, and that the celebrity of the athletes and focus on entertainment detracted from the amateur nature of the sport. So much like William Gianera at Santa Clara or William Dunne at USF, they unilaterally killed the sport.
BTW, DeGroot and Shaw were both extraordinary coaches that had superb records and would go on to coach in the NFL. Shaw was the only coach to beat Vince Lombardi in the postseason and beat LSU in two consecutive Sugar Bowls. DeGroot was 60-19-8 at SJSU, and his last three seasons were 11-2-1, 11-0-1 and 13-0, the last season SJSU had 8 shutouts and outscored opponents 324-29. Either Shaw or DeGroot would have been great coaches at Stanford. Minor edit: while DeGroot was a Stanford alum and an All American Center, Buck Shaw went to Creighton for a year and graduated from Notre Dame.
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - 81alum - 12-18-2022
(12-18-2022, 11:22 AM)Mick Wrote: Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.Interesting stuff indeed! I heard some football stories when I was at U Chicago and live across the street from Stagg field. They did eventually bring back football as Div III in 1969, and have been very successful. I could watch the games out the window of my apartment in the 1980s when I was there. Well, the view wasn't very good, but I could tell they were playing a game!
However, I maintain that had we tried to hire someone in 2022 with the record Shaughnessey had in 1939, the Cardboard would have exploded with anger and frustration.
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - Mick - 12-18-2022
(12-18-2022, 08:52 PM)81alum Wrote:(12-18-2022, 11:22 AM)Mick Wrote: Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.Interesting stuff indeed! I heard some football stories when I was at U Chicago and live across the street from Stagg field. They did eventually bring back football as Div III in 1969 and have been very successful. I could watch the games out the window of my apartment in the 1980s when I was there. Well, the view wasn't very good, but I could tell they were playing a game!
However, I maintain that had we tried to hire someone in 2022 with the record Shaughnessy had in 1939, the Cardboard would have exploded with anger and frustration.
Could be. At that point, Shaughnessy's career record was just 113-81-9.
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - 81alum - 12-18-2022
(12-18-2022, 09:01 PM)Mick Wrote:But 17-34-4 at Chicago, which was the point--the reason the Bay Area sports crowd ridiculed his hire at the time.(12-18-2022, 08:52 PM)81alum Wrote:(12-18-2022, 11:22 AM)Mick Wrote: Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.Interesting stuff indeed! I heard some football stories when I was at U Chicago and live across the street from Stagg field. They did eventually bring back football as Div III in 1969 and have been very successful. I could watch the games out the window of my apartment in the 1980s when I was there. Well, the view wasn't very good, but I could tell they were playing a game!
However, I maintain that had we tried to hire someone in 2022 with the record Shaughnessy had in 1939, the Cardboard would have exploded with anger and frustration.
Could be. At that point, Shaughnessy's career record was just 113-81-9.
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - Mick - 12-18-2022
(12-18-2022, 09:56 PM)81alum Wrote:(12-18-2022, 09:01 PM)Mick Wrote:But 17-34-4 at Chicago, which was the point--the reason the Bay Area sports crowd ridiculed his hire at the time.(12-18-2022, 08:52 PM)81alum Wrote:(12-18-2022, 11:22 AM)Mick Wrote: Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.Interesting stuff indeed! I heard some football stories when I was at U Chicago and live across the street from Stagg field. They did eventually bring back football as Div III in 1969 and have been very successful. I could watch the games out the window of my apartment in the 1980s when I was there. Well, the view wasn't very good, but I could tell they were playing a game!
However, I maintain that had we tried to hire someone in 2022 with the record Shaughnessy had in 1939, the Cardboard would have exploded with anger and frustration.
Could be. At that point, Shaughnessy's career record was just 113-81-9.
Yeah, I get it. My point was that Coach Stagg himself, as amazing a coach as he was, couldn't succeed at Chicago given the restrictions, and he personally recommended Shaughnessy. Nobody could. Neither Stagg nor Shaughnessy immediately turned into idiots. I would have thought smart Stanford people would understand that.
RE: Stanford Football: Worst Seasons Ever - BostonCard - 12-19-2022
(12-18-2022, 10:18 AM)81alum Wrote: I thought this was interesting from the Wiki article about Shaughnessy:
Quote:Center Milt Vucinich said, "We'd been reading about all those beatings Shaughnessy's men had taken, so we were joking among ourselves that wasn't it just like Stanford to hire somebody like this to coach us."
Imagine what would have been said had there been a Cardboard in 1940!
My wife is related to Milt Vucinich.
BC