[Austroturf]

The quality of life that comes with being an assistant coach on a David Shaw staff is so high that assistants generally don't leave unless it's for a job that represents a significant promotion. Several have turned down big pay raises from other schools (Harbaugh essentially offered blank checks to Lance and Turley). Below is a list of the assistants who have moved on to other jobs since Shaw took over in 2011:

2011 DC Jason Tarver - Raiders DC
2011 STC Brian Polian - Texas A&M STC (the one quasi exception - Polian was a Harbs guy and didn't mesh with DS personality (i.e. he's a jerk just like Harbs))
2012 OC Pep Hamilton - Colts OC
2012 TE Ron Crook - West Virginia OL (WV native, more responsibility and big pay raise)
2013 DC Derek Mason - Vandy HC
2013 ILB David Kotulski - Vandy DC
2013 QB/WR Mike Sanford, Jr. - Boise OC (Boise alum and more responsibility)
2017 OC Mike Bloomgren - Rice HC
2017 RB Lance Taylor - Panthers WR

Those nine moves plus Randy Hart's retirement in 2015 represent the totality of full-time coaching moves (not counting QC's like Picazo and Ashfield) since Shaw was promoted to head coach in 2011. As I mentioned in another thread, DS has never fired an assistant coach. Sure, one of our ten assistants might have an opportunity to make a lateral move to another job but I doubt they'd take it. Anything can happen but the chances of another head coach out there eyeing a Stanford assistant for a job that would represent a significant promotion coming off the season we just had is marginal at best. Moreover, most job offers come as a result of coaches' networks. Several of our guys have been at Stanford for so long that their coaching networks are pretty limited.

TL;DR barring Akina retiring, I'm fully expecting Shaw to walk out on the field for our opener next year with the same 10 assistants as we have now.

It's perhaps also worth noting that, of the coaches on that list above, only Sanford, Bloomgren and Taylor were hired by Shaw.  Taylor is now RB coach at Notre Dame (same job he had at Stanford); Sanford, after a short HC stint at Western Kentucky, is now OC at Utah State.  Kotulski was hired by Mason at the start of 2012 and then left with Mason to Vandy after the following season.   

All the rest of the coaches in that list were inherited from Harbaugh; and none stayed longer than three seasons in the Shaw era.  Lance Anderson and Tavita Pritchard are the lone holdovers from the Harbaugh era, and neither one is HC material.    

In short, Shaw's direct coaching tree is sparse (Sanford, Bloomgren -- coaches he hired that went on to be HCs elsewhere), and he does not appear to have a great eye for coaching talent.  It is a bad sign when your coaches are NOT being poached for bigger opportunities.  If they all come back next year, it is a negative sign for the quality of the staff (nobody wants them, even for lateral opportunities) and casts a suspect light on Shaw's own performance expectations of that staff (i.e., there are no negative consequences for poor performance).

[Austroturf]

The quality of life that comes with being an assistant coach on a David Shaw staff is so high that assistants generally don't leave unless it's for a job that represents a significant promotion. Several have turned down big pay raises from other schools (Harbaugh essentially offered blank checks to Lance and Turley). Below is a list of the assistants who have moved on to other jobs since Shaw took over in 2011:

2011 DC Jason Tarver - Raiders DC
2011 STC Brian Polian - Texas A&M STC (the one quasi exception - Polian was a Harbs guy and didn't mesh with DS personality (i.e. he's a jerk just like Harbs))
2012 OC Pep Hamilton - Colts OC
2012 TE Ron Crook - West Virginia OL (WV native, more responsibility and big pay raise)
2013 DC Derek Mason - Vandy HC
2013 ILB David Kotulski - Vandy DC
2013 QB/WR Mike Sanford, Jr. - Boise OC (Boise alum and more responsibility)
2017 OC Mike Bloomgren - Rice HC
2017 RB Lance Taylor - Panthers WR

Those nine moves plus Randy Hart's retirement in 2015 represent the totality of full-time coaching moves (not counting QC's like Picazo and Ashfield) since Shaw was promoted to head coach in 2011. As I mentioned in another thread, DS has never fired an assistant coach. Sure, one of our ten assistants might have an opportunity to make a lateral move to another job but I doubt they'd take it. Anything can happen but the chances of another head coach out there eyeing a Stanford assistant for a job that would represent a significant promotion coming off the season we just had is marginal at best. Moreover, most job offers come as a result of coaches' networks. Several of our guys have been at Stanford for so long that their coaching networks are pretty limited.

TL;DR barring Akina retiring, I'm fully expecting Shaw to walk out on the field for our opener next year with the same 10 assistants as we have now.

It's perhaps also worth noting that, of the coaches on that list above, only Sanford, Bloomgren and Taylor were hired by Shaw.  Taylor is now RB coach at Notre Dame (same job he had at Stanford); Sanford, after a short HC stint at Western Kentucky, is now OC at Utah State.  Kotulski was hired by Mason at the start of 2012 and then left with Mason to Vandy after the following season.   

All the rest of the coaches in that list were inherited from Harbaugh; and none stayed longer than three seasons in the Shaw era.  Lance Anderson and Tavita Pritchard are the lone holdovers from the Harbaugh era, and neither one is HC material.    

In short, Shaw's direct coaching tree is sparse (Sanford, Bloomgren -- coaches he hired that went on to be HCs elsewhere), and he does not appear to have a great eye for coaching talent.  It is a bad sign when your coaches are NOT being poached for bigger opportunities.  If they all come back next year, it is a negative sign for the quality of the staff (nobody wants them, even for lateral opportunities) and casts a suspect light on Shaw's own performance expectations of that staff (i.e., there are no negative consequences for poor performance).