[Goose]

Wilner needs to stick to what he knows and not write wildly speculative and poorly researched articles as click-bait.  He knows the business side of the Pac-12 versus the rest of the country.  He does a decent job assessing the strengths and weaknesses of rosters and projecting how teams will perform.

These are facts:

1. Robertson wanted to go to Stanford and choose Cal as a backup plan.
2. He signed up to play for a coach, style, and staff that no longer is there.
3. He was consistently injured and well could have thought a change of scenery was needed.
4. He deleted photos of his former girlfriend off his social media.
5. Many, many players transferred out of Cal after the Dykes departure, regardless of where they went to high school.
6. Stanford recruits nationally. USC recruits Nationally. Oregon does too, and dominated with many recruits from TX and FL under Kelly.
7. There are also west coast recruits who go east and get home sick.

To claim recruiting out of state athletes is somehow perilous, is just plain stupid. Every example has to be viewed as an individual case, and we don't have near enough data to conclude recruiting out of state athletes is somehow a cautionary tale because of Demitris Robertson.  Just a massively intellectually lazy article by Wilner.

Totally agree. Attempting to generalize one players actions based on assumed motives into a general rule is very questionable. Also, as you point out, there are "bulk" counter-examples. Nobody really knows why Robertson left UCB except Robertson. Assigning motives with no additional data is at best speculation.

[Goose]

Wilner needs to stick to what he knows and not write wildly speculative and poorly researched articles as click-bait.  He knows the business side of the Pac-12 versus the rest of the country.  He does a decent job assessing the strengths and weaknesses of rosters and projecting how teams will perform.

These are facts:

1. Robertson wanted to go to Stanford and choose Cal as a backup plan.
2. He signed up to play for a coach, style, and staff that no longer is there.
3. He was consistently injured and well could have thought a change of scenery was needed.
4. He deleted photos of his former girlfriend off his social media.
5. Many, many players transferred out of Cal after the Dykes departure, regardless of where they went to high school.
6. Stanford recruits nationally. USC recruits Nationally. Oregon does too, and dominated with many recruits from TX and FL under Kelly.
7. There are also west coast recruits who go east and get home sick.

To claim recruiting out of state athletes is somehow perilous, is just plain stupid. Every example has to be viewed as an individual case, and we don't have near enough data to conclude recruiting out of state athletes is somehow a cautionary tale because of Demitris Robertson.  Just a massively intellectually lazy article by Wilner.

Totally agree. Attempting to generalize one players actions based on assumed motives into a general rule is very questionable. Also, as you point out, there are "bulk" counter-examples. Nobody really knows why Robertson left UCB except Robertson. Assigning motives with no additional data is at best speculation.