OT - John Urschel - Printable Version
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OT - John Urschel - rogpodge - 10-07-2026
https://x.com/thesportsontap/status/2107543383489015820
John Urschel update - he has preliminarily proved why Gaussian elimination growth factors aren't exponential, which would cause the algorithms to output junk.
RE: OT - John Urschel - Papa John - 10-07-2026
While that's an amazing story, John Urschel turned down a Stanford offer to play for Penn State.
RE: OT - John Urschel - BostonCard - 10-07-2026
And proved that you can actually make a “40-year decision” without picking Stanford.
BC
RE: OT - John Urschel - fullmetal - 10-07-2026
Urschel and Myron Rolle are prime examples of players that Stanford missed out on...they're great ambassadors for academics and athletics.
RE: OT - John Urschel - Papa John - 10-08-2026
(10-07-2026, 03:01 PM)BostonCard Wrote: And proved that you can actually make a “40-year decision” without picking Stanford.
BC
Not sure that he *proved* the non-Stanford 40-year decision, although I wouldn't put it past him given his math prowess :-)
Jim Harbaugh didn't have a lot of recruiting misses, though, so that's what I was really getting at with my comment.
RE: OT - John Urschel - burger - 10-08-2026
(10-07-2026, 03:01 PM)BostonCard Wrote: And proved that you can actually make a “40-year decision” without picking Stanford.Now that top players are pulling in 6 or 7 figures a year, 40-year decision has a whole new meaning. As in..making enough money to not have to work for the next 40 years.
BC
RE: OT - John Urschel - fullmetal - 10-08-2026
What use is never having to work again in your life if there's an outsized chance your brain and body start falling apart in your mid-30s?
RE: OT - John Urschel - jacket3ree - 10-08-2026
Oh, he definitively proved the non-Stanford 40-year decision, although that is true by inspection, honestly. Impressive guy, obviously. He is originally from Buffalo, so Penn State made tons of sense even if there are higher ranked B1G math programs. He made a decision and both football and academics worked out well for him. Out of curiosity I looked up (freely available) NSF survey results for the top 50 programs for undergraduate math that ultimately leads to a PhD, which is exactly what he did. Penn State is not on that list. More than anything, he blew clinging to arbitrary university rankings out of the water. (I could and did find other types of rankings for math programs that are completely different and one of them does have Penn State in the 40s. THESE ARE ARBITRARY!) His degree was good enough to get him to MIT, so there's that too. Here is how FBS schools fared in this one particular UG math program ranking:
1. Rice
9. Stanford
15. Berkeley
19. Duke
20. Notre Dame
21. Northwestern
25. UCLA
28. North Carolina
30. Michigan
31. Georgia Tech
32. Boston College
34. Vanderbilt
36. NC State
37. Virginia
38. Wake Forest
39. Tulane
40. Wisconsin
41. Washington
42. Texas
44. Illinois
45. Florida
46. Minnesota
47. Maryland
48. Rutgers
His ultimate destination of MIT is 2nd on the same UG list and tied with Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley for 2nd on a grad school list behind Princeton, which itself is #5 on the same UG list, but plays FCS (they can go to the playoff now I believe) like some here seem to pine for because they love, what 500 people in a 50,000 seat stadium instead of 15,000?
If Stanford doesn't get its football shit together, don't expect football players to come without overriding reasons like a lot of cash, weather, really dig red tile, like a challenge, whatever. Our use of the "40-year decision" has always been embarrassing. I mean for cripes sake, Lou Holtz is the one who coined it.
RE: OT - John Urschel - Mick - 10-09-2026
(10-07-2026, 01:13 PM)Papa John Wrote: While that's an amazing story, John Urschel turned down a Stanford offer to play for Penn State.
I get that he's been successful. How much more successful would he have been at Stanford?
RE: OT - John Urschel - jacket3ree - 10-09-2026
(10-09-2026, 04:53 AM)Mick Wrote:(10-07-2026, 01:13 PM)Papa John Wrote: While that's an amazing story, John Urschel turned down a Stanford offer to play for Penn State.
I get that he's been successful. How much more successful would he have been at Stanford?
I may be and probably am missing the delicious sarcasm in this post but honestly wondering how much more successful was he going to be than earning two degrees in mathematics, the academic Voldemort, a 5th round selection, 40 games in the NFL (13 starts), factoring in the incidents of CTE and retiring, serving on the CFP selection committee and earning a PhD from MIT (clandestinely while still playing for the Ravens), joining the faculty of MIT, and appearing to solve a problem in Gaussian elimination that has eluded mathematicians for decades? I mean he has an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth. Had he gone to Stanford instead, that honorary doctorate would have been from where, Brown? (Forgive my lack of knowledge on the Ivy League peacocking order.)
I mean he did miss out on some pretty good football at Stanford from 2009-2012. 43-10 with trips to the Sun (L), Orange (W), Fiesta (L), and Rose (W) Bowls. Meanwhile Penn State was 35-16 with trips to the Capital One (W), Outback (L), and TicketCity (L) Bowls and embroiled in a pedophilia scandal.
Stanford was the marginally better football choice and a guy sacrificed that for academic and life success elsewhere. Miss those days.
RE: OT - John Urschel - BostonCard - 10-09-2026
Maybe he would have won the Fields Medal had he gone to Stanford[/sarcasm]?
As you point out, the irony is that had he gone to Stanford from 2009-2013, he probably would have had more football success than at Penn State. The question is where he would have fit in on our line? I mean, David DeCastro was recruited the year before him, so would have locked down one of the guard slots until 2011. 2009 and 2010 you had Andrew Phillips in his senior/5th year Senior years, so Urschel probably redshirts his freshman year and doesn’t see the field as a sophomore.
By 2012 (his 3rd year), he would have battled Kevin Danser to be the starting RG and might have been an upgrade, though in 2012 Danser was a second team all-Pac12 Guard whil Urschel wasn’t even a starter at Penn State. Would have been an interesting battle.
BC
RE: OT - John Urschel - Papa John - 10-09-2026
(10-09-2026, 04:53 AM)Mick Wrote:(10-07-2026, 01:13 PM)Papa John Wrote: While that's an amazing story, John Urschel turned down a Stanford offer to play for Penn State.
I get that he's been successful. How much more successful would he have been at Stanford?
I was thinking more along the lines of "how much more successful would Stanford have been with John Urschel on our football team?" As BC points out, the answer is unknowable, but I think he would have been a major contributor. And, as others have intimated, JU's academic goals would hardly have suffered on the Farm!