[BostonCard]

Right, there is no requirement to graduate in five years.  I think the issue is that, and this has been decades in the making, college football has gone from a game you play with your friends that oh by the way pays for your college to a profit-maximizing business that doesn't pay its players.  Is it any wonder that the players now view playing as a means to an end (an NFL payday for those good enough to get one, or at least a degree and a chance to earn a living for those not) than an end in itself?  Taking one or two classes just to stay in school an extra year to play football will be the exception and not the rule.  The majority of our players will go to the NFL, graduate and get a job at something else, or grad transfer and at least earn a masters degree for their trouble.



I think we have to assume that incoming recruits will be playing for no more than four year, if we are lucky.



BC

It's an extra quarter, not an extra year (as it always has been).



I get that people want to rationalize away the exodus of what used to be a very important part of Stanford's on-field success to something other than dissatisfaction with the program.  But no matter how you want to characterize it, the departures distill to "it's not worth it to me" to come back and play ball.  That's pretty significant, particularly if you believe (as I do) that every single one of these kids love to play the game.  I disagree with any implication that people are mechanistically working the collegiate system as a means to an end - stepping stone to NFL and/or free degree.  I think you short-sell the fun/love/desire these kids have to play the game itself when you do that.



Maybe Stanford makes it harder to stick around; maybe kids are burning out of football at a higher % and faster rate than in yesteryear; but it's hard to believe that satisfaction with the program (and prospects for next season) play no role - or even a small role - in the "it's not worth it to me" calculus.



Something is amiss.  And maybe the "amiss" is only Shaw's inability to recognize the new reality and adjust accordingly (but I suspect it's a tad more than that).

At a minimum, it is an extra six months of time, but it can be as much as a year if we compare winter quarter to winter quarter.  Moreover, it is another cycle of spring practices, spring/summer conditioning, and summer practices, and the fall season.  Players don't just show up in the fall and play; football is basically a year round commitment.

This is not just a Stanford phenomenon, though I think we are affected more than most.  While Christian McCaffrey was the first prominent player to skip a lower tier bowl, that is now routine.  Look at Florida's shell of a team this year in the Cotton Bowl.  Hell, we had a thread about a player bailing on the team at halftime, having shown what he thought he needed to show scouts in the first half.  I don't follow other teams as closely as Stanford, but looking at rosters I see fewer fifth year seniors than used to be the case.  Here's the data from the final 2020 two-deep (based on depth charts on ourlads) for the various Pac-12 schools:
Arizona 4 RS SR (1 of whom is a transfer)
ASU 2
UCLA 2
USC 6 (2 of whom are transfers)
Colorado 3
Utah 6 (1 of whom transferred in)
Cal 10 (5 of whom are transfers)
Oregon 3 (1 of whom is a transfer)
OSU 7 (1 transfer)
Washington 6 (1 transfer)
WSU 9 (3 transfers)

That compares to 4 at Stanford (Schaffer, Harrington, Robinson, Antoine) none of whom transferred in.  We were right around the median in the Pac-12 for redshirt seniors in our two-deep, and if you were to take away transfers in (which were basically not an option for us) our number was typical.  When I was a student, it was a rare player who didn't redshirt, and a plurality of the players on the two-deep were redshirt seniors.

The world has changed since I was in school (and I suspect the same for you).  Forget football; we used to joke about professional students who loved being in school so much that they would do what they could to prolong their stay.  That's not really a thing anymore.  Obviously, a college education has always been a means to an end, but "back in the day", it was an end in itself as well.  Increasingly, though, it is viewed more pragmatically; just look at the share of graduates who major in the humanities, which has plummeted.  I suspect that has to do with its cost, the student debt crisis that hit millennials, and increasing uncertainty in the job market for college graduates.  While when I was going through, a college degree was viewed as a recipe for success, increasingly it is viewed as insufficient.  So now, instead of "enjoy your four (or more) years in college; you will have nothing to worry about when you get out" the message kids are increasingly hearing is that they need to use college tactically to major in the right major, land the right internships and position themselves for life after graduation.  Football players are little different, but for the fact that at least they don't graduate with (as much) student debt.

Shaw has been slow to react to the changing world, so I don't give him a pass on this.  But he has not been the cause of the changing world as you intimate.  I suspect this will be a problem for us going forward, as one of our competitive advantages had always been less attrition (due to academic or legal failings), and who wouldn't want to stay at Stanford a fifth year, for free.  At the least, Shaw needs to plan for it, by recruiting as if fifth year players will be the exception and not the rule.  I agree with calls for him to adapt to the new reality, but we do need to understand that some of the tools available to other teams (having freshmen enroll early, for example) will not be available to us.

BC

[BostonCard]

Right, there is no requirement to graduate in five years.  I think the issue is that, and this has been decades in the making, college football has gone from a game you play with your friends that oh by the way pays for your college to a profit-maximizing business that doesn't pay its players.  Is it any wonder that the players now view playing as a means to an end (an NFL payday for those good enough to get one, or at least a degree and a chance to earn a living for those not) than an end in itself?  Taking one or two classes just to stay in school an extra year to play football will be the exception and not the rule.  The majority of our players will go to the NFL, graduate and get a job at something else, or grad transfer and at least earn a masters degree for their trouble.



I think we have to assume that incoming recruits will be playing for no more than four year, if we are lucky.



BC

It's an extra quarter, not an extra year (as it always has been).



I get that people want to rationalize away the exodus of what used to be a very important part of Stanford's on-field success to something other than dissatisfaction with the program.  But no matter how you want to characterize it, the departures distill to "it's not worth it to me" to come back and play ball.  That's pretty significant, particularly if you believe (as I do) that every single one of these kids love to play the game.  I disagree with any implication that people are mechanistically working the collegiate system as a means to an end - stepping stone to NFL and/or free degree.  I think you short-sell the fun/love/desire these kids have to play the game itself when you do that.



Maybe Stanford makes it harder to stick around; maybe kids are burning out of football at a higher % and faster rate than in yesteryear; but it's hard to believe that satisfaction with the program (and prospects for next season) play no role - or even a small role - in the "it's not worth it to me" calculus.



Something is amiss.  And maybe the "amiss" is only Shaw's inability to recognize the new reality and adjust accordingly (but I suspect it's a tad more than that).

At a minimum, it is an extra six months of time, but it can be as much as a year if we compare winter quarter to winter quarter.  Moreover, it is another cycle of spring practices, spring/summer conditioning, and summer practices, and the fall season.  Players don't just show up in the fall and play; football is basically a year round commitment.

This is not just a Stanford phenomenon, though I think we are affected more than most.  While Christian McCaffrey was the first prominent player to skip a lower tier bowl, that is now routine.  Look at Florida's shell of a team this year in the Cotton Bowl.  Hell, we had a thread about a player bailing on the team at halftime, having shown what he thought he needed to show scouts in the first half.  I don't follow other teams as closely as Stanford, but looking at rosters I see fewer fifth year seniors than used to be the case.  Here's the data from the final 2020 two-deep (based on depth charts on ourlads) for the various Pac-12 schools:
Arizona 4 RS SR (1 of whom is a transfer)
ASU 2
UCLA 2
USC 6 (2 of whom are transfers)
Colorado 3
Utah 6 (1 of whom transferred in)
Cal 10 (5 of whom are transfers)
Oregon 3 (1 of whom is a transfer)
OSU 7 (1 transfer)
Washington 6 (1 transfer)
WSU 9 (3 transfers)

That compares to 4 at Stanford (Schaffer, Harrington, Robinson, Antoine) none of whom transferred in.  We were right around the median in the Pac-12 for redshirt seniors in our two-deep, and if you were to take away transfers in (which were basically not an option for us) our number was typical.  When I was a student, it was a rare player who didn't redshirt, and a plurality of the players on the two-deep were redshirt seniors.

The world has changed since I was in school (and I suspect the same for you).  Forget football; we used to joke about professional students who loved being in school so much that they would do what they could to prolong their stay.  That's not really a thing anymore.  Obviously, a college education has always been a means to an end, but "back in the day", it was an end in itself as well.  Increasingly, though, it is viewed more pragmatically; just look at the share of graduates who major in the humanities, which has plummeted.  I suspect that has to do with its cost, the student debt crisis that hit millennials, and increasing uncertainty in the job market for college graduates.  While when I was going through, a college degree was viewed as a recipe for success, increasingly it is viewed as insufficient.  So now, instead of "enjoy your four (or more) years in college; you will have nothing to worry about when you get out" the message kids are increasingly hearing is that they need to use college tactically to major in the right major, land the right internships and position themselves for life after graduation.  Football players are little different, but for the fact that at least they don't graduate with (as much) student debt.

Shaw has been slow to react to the changing world, so I don't give him a pass on this.  But he has not been the cause of the changing world as you intimate.  I suspect this will be a problem for us going forward, as one of our competitive advantages had always been less attrition (due to academic or legal failings), and who wouldn't want to stay at Stanford a fifth year, for free.  At the least, Shaw needs to plan for it, by recruiting as if fifth year players will be the exception and not the rule.  I agree with calls for him to adapt to the new reality, but we do need to understand that some of the tools available to other teams (having freshmen enroll early, for example) will not be available to us.

BC