[teejers1]

Fisher DeBerry was a highly successful coach at Air Force who fell on hard times. He was finally told he had no choice but to make radical changes to his staff. He resigned rather than do it.
I wonder if Shaw would react that way.

Of course, it seems highly unlikely Muir would ever push it with Shaw. And, if he did, my guess is that Shaw would also quit.

Without any comment upon the current situation at Stanford, in general I think it is a bad idea for an athletic director to dictate staff to a head coach.

It's the head coach's job to run the football program. If you don't have enough confidence in your head coach to hire his own staff, it's not clear how you could possibly have enough confidence in him to be your head coach. It's also hard to see that many ADs would have the knowledge of the coaching candidates and the inner workings of the team to reliably know which coaches are likely to be replaced by upgrades.

When you no longer have confidence in your head coach to run your program, it's time to get a new head coach.

Dictate staff . . . hmmm.

How about saying "hire a proven, competent OC and let him do his job" - without dictating person X.
Also, before you all blithely conclude "that never happens" - word is that is exactly what happened after Kelley's one losing season at ND.  And they have been largely excellent since then.

Blind spots indeed.  And here, the spot is ginormous . . .

[teejers1]

Fisher DeBerry was a highly successful coach at Air Force who fell on hard times. He was finally told he had no choice but to make radical changes to his staff. He resigned rather than do it.
I wonder if Shaw would react that way.

Of course, it seems highly unlikely Muir would ever push it with Shaw. And, if he did, my guess is that Shaw would also quit.

Without any comment upon the current situation at Stanford, in general I think it is a bad idea for an athletic director to dictate staff to a head coach.

It's the head coach's job to run the football program. If you don't have enough confidence in your head coach to hire his own staff, it's not clear how you could possibly have enough confidence in him to be your head coach. It's also hard to see that many ADs would have the knowledge of the coaching candidates and the inner workings of the team to reliably know which coaches are likely to be replaced by upgrades.

When you no longer have confidence in your head coach to run your program, it's time to get a new head coach.

Dictate staff . . . hmmm.

How about saying "hire a proven, competent OC and let him do his job" - without dictating person X.
Also, before you all blithely conclude "that never happens" - word is that is exactly what happened after Kelley's one losing season at ND.  And they have been largely excellent since then.

Blind spots indeed.  And here, the spot is ginormous . . .