[winflop]

I don't think David Shaw is stressing about winning like Petersen is. I don't know if that's good or bad. Depends on your perspective. Whatever the case, it seems reasonable to assume Stanford doesn't create stress for a coach like Washington and other places do.

I happened to work with the wife of a young defensive assistant at Stanford until last year.  Her reports of the intensity of coaching under Shaw surprised me, because like you, I had assumed Shaw was running a kinder, gentler, “maintenance-mode” environment (despite my respect for him).  She told me about the heat and pressure that was being applied at mid-season after a couple losses. I even bounced off her the idea that Shaw seemed to be a calmer, lower-pressure leader, and she furrowed her brow and shook her head.  Of course, she was young enough not to have been around other coaching staffs, so she and her husband might have perceived “level 5” coaching intensity as “level 10”, but it still struck me how hard they were working and how intensely Shaw cared about winning. She also spoke of 100-hour work weeks and the fact that she barely ever saw her husband during the season (and even for much of the off-season). After those occasional conversations by the coffee machine, I gained a different perspective of Shaw than the one I had inferred from his calm and sometimes low-energy demeanor.

Interesting insights. OK so Shaw's obsessed with winning. I want a football head coach who is. My big questions are beyond that:
1. when he's not winning, is he sufficiently introspective to figure out why, including critically evaluating himself and his staff? His press conferences do not indicate that he is, but I'm not convinced he puts his cards on the table there
2. When he figures out why and what the path forward is, is he willing to execute on it?

[winflop]

I don't think David Shaw is stressing about winning like Petersen is. I don't know if that's good or bad. Depends on your perspective. Whatever the case, it seems reasonable to assume Stanford doesn't create stress for a coach like Washington and other places do.

I happened to work with the wife of a young defensive assistant at Stanford until last year.  Her reports of the intensity of coaching under Shaw surprised me, because like you, I had assumed Shaw was running a kinder, gentler, “maintenance-mode” environment (despite my respect for him).  She told me about the heat and pressure that was being applied at mid-season after a couple losses. I even bounced off her the idea that Shaw seemed to be a calmer, lower-pressure leader, and she furrowed her brow and shook her head.  Of course, she was young enough not to have been around other coaching staffs, so she and her husband might have perceived “level 5” coaching intensity as “level 10”, but it still struck me how hard they were working and how intensely Shaw cared about winning. She also spoke of 100-hour work weeks and the fact that she barely ever saw her husband during the season (and even for much of the off-season). After those occasional conversations by the coffee machine, I gained a different perspective of Shaw than the one I had inferred from his calm and sometimes low-energy demeanor.

Interesting insights. OK so Shaw's obsessed with winning. I want a football head coach who is. My big questions are beyond that:
1. when he's not winning, is he sufficiently introspective to figure out why, including critically evaluating himself and his staff? His press conferences do not indicate that he is, but I'm not convinced he puts his cards on the table there
2. When he figures out why and what the path forward is, is he willing to execute on it?