[CTcard]

I'll reiterate what I said earlier in the thread. Wilner is not a homer, but he's much more positive about the team in general than many on this board. I do think/hope we'll outperform his 5-7 prediction this year.

Wilner has his strengths. Chief among those is that he is almost alone among employees of major Bay Area media outlets in writing about Stanford sports at all. He has a decent bead on finances and politics of college sports. For a home-town sports writer has a fairly decent view on what is happening across the conference. And, he is definitely not a homer - for Stanford or cal.

Wilner also has his weaknesses. Chief among those is that he doesn't seem to actually like or watch a lot of the sports he covers. He doesn't write much, and certainly not in much detail, about most key sports stuff: things like personnel strength and weaknesses, strategies, game plans, match ups, injury implications,etc. He has a well-intentioned, but ultimately unworkable theory of ranking that gets his AP ballot into some awkward places. He doesn't seem to have any good connections to the local coaching staffs to get insights into what's up and coming.

As far as I can remember, overall Wilner is as good as most doing these kinds of predictions. However, I don't put much stock in predictions as being overly indicative of being good at one's job as a football analyst. Other than what is obvious (of which there is a lot in college football), it's basically an exercise in coin flipping - particularly beyond about three games into a season that hasn't even begun yet.

[CTcard]

I'll reiterate what I said earlier in the thread. Wilner is not a homer, but he's much more positive about the team in general than many on this board. I do think/hope we'll outperform his 5-7 prediction this year.

Wilner has his strengths. Chief among those is that he is almost alone among employees of major Bay Area media outlets in writing about Stanford sports at all. He has a decent bead on finances and politics of college sports. For a home-town sports writer has a fairly decent view on what is happening across the conference. And, he is definitely not a homer - for Stanford or cal.

Wilner also has his weaknesses. Chief among those is that he doesn't seem to actually like or watch a lot of the sports he covers. He doesn't write much, and certainly not in much detail, about most key sports stuff: things like personnel strength and weaknesses, strategies, game plans, match ups, injury implications,etc. He has a well-intentioned, but ultimately unworkable theory of ranking that gets his AP ballot into some awkward places. He doesn't seem to have any good connections to the local coaching staffs to get insights into what's up and coming.

As far as I can remember, overall Wilner is as good as most doing these kinds of predictions. However, I don't put much stock in predictions as being overly indicative of being good at one's job as a football analyst. Other than what is obvious (of which there is a lot in college football), it's basically an exercise in coin flipping - particularly beyond about three games into a season that hasn't even begun yet.