[CTcard]

The ESPN Pac 12 football blog is running down the outlook for each team and their expected position in the divisional races for next year.

Lombardi writes the blurb for Stanford, posted today.
http://www.espn.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id...h-stanford


My responses:

- I think his summary comment on "what constitutes success" is a little odd and not correct.

Instead of applying an outcome-oriented approach, it's more fair to apply a process-oriented one here. If the Cardinal can establish consistently solid offensive play, even against the best defenses on their schedule -- something that escaped them last year -- 2017 should be deemed a success.

While of course the offense has to improve and be more consistent, I don't think a consistent offense that still leaves us with 8 or fewer wins is going to be viewed as success by much of anyone.

- I think that the dominant theme of the season roll-over from 2016 to 2017 is that Stanford is losing very few players, but among those lost were our clear best players on each side of the ball. Yet most previews I have seen seem to indicate that Stanford has a large number of personnel losses to plug. Lombardi doesn't quite do so, though I don't think you could read his article and get the implicit understanding that we are returning 8 starters on offense and 9 on defense.

[CTcard]

The ESPN Pac 12 football blog is running down the outlook for each team and their expected position in the divisional races for next year.

Lombardi writes the blurb for Stanford, posted today.
http://www.espn.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id...h-stanford


My responses:

- I think his summary comment on "what constitutes success" is a little odd and not correct.

Instead of applying an outcome-oriented approach, it's more fair to apply a process-oriented one here. If the Cardinal can establish consistently solid offensive play, even against the best defenses on their schedule -- something that escaped them last year -- 2017 should be deemed a success.

While of course the offense has to improve and be more consistent, I don't think a consistent offense that still leaves us with 8 or fewer wins is going to be viewed as success by much of anyone.

- I think that the dominant theme of the season roll-over from 2016 to 2017 is that Stanford is losing very few players, but among those lost were our clear best players on each side of the ball. Yet most previews I have seen seem to indicate that Stanford has a large number of personnel losses to plug. Lombardi doesn't quite do so, though I don't think you could read his article and get the implicit understanding that we are returning 8 starters on offense and 9 on defense.