[gailtate]

The program has been trending down since 2016; and over the last three seasons, Shaw is 11-14, which is sub-mediocre.  And this at a time when the Pac-12 has been arguably the weakest of the Power 5 conferences.  This is our current football reality; and the glory years of 2009-2015 will not change this.  The level of football on display yesterday was subpar on so many fronts that it makes a mockery of the strengths the program once claimed to possess.  Feeble line play, no running game, porous defense.  Let's bury the term "Intellectual Brutality" once and for all, because none of this was on display against Wazzu and has been absent from the program for years.      

I buy the argument that being head football coach at Stanford is not a "destination job", so any truly successful coach at Stanford will probably be looking to trade up at some point to some perceived better opportunity for even more money.  That is a quandary.  However, David Shaw has clearly made Stanford HIS destination job, and his skill-set combined with a strong coaching staff and excellent players resulted in some fabulous seasons in the first five years of his tenure as head coach.  But that is all history now, and the current state of the program requires a complete overhaul.  And, frankly, I am not convinced Shaw possesses the skill-set for such a turnaround.  So having Shaw at the helm will, in my view, merely perpetuate the current malaise.  He has shown no appetite for retooling the program, has endless patience for subpar performance from his coaching staff and continues to run Stanford football as a cozy, family affair.  With Shaw, our current football reality will also be our future: mediocrity.  

So what do we have to lose by making a coaching change?  Yes, we might get some version of Teevens or Harris again; or we might get a second Harbaugh.  History doesn't repeat itself, but the program definitely needs some form of renewal; and I don't think Shaw is the coach to provide it.  How many on this board believe that the program would have reached its historic heights (2009-2015) if Shaw had been hired to turn the football team around in 2007?  I believe that period of success was the happy coincidence of two coaches with complementary skill-sets running the program in two successive regimes (2007-2010, 2011-2015).  But without Harbaugh leading and completely overhauling the program, Shaw's years of success in building on that program would not have happened.      

Of course, I don't believe Shaw is going anywhere, either forced or on his own.  Unless the bottom absolutely drops out of the Stanford program and he goes 0-12 for a couple of seasons, Shaw virtually has "tenure" in his current spot, so the discussion is academic.  I would love to be wrong, but unless Shaw, at the very minimum, goes out and hires some legitimate top-flight coordinators, nothing is going to change, and losing to mediocre teams like Wazzu will become our new normal.  So we get mediocrity with coaching stability?  Is that better than the prior coaching carousels, with all the attendant risk, but also with the possibility of renewal?  Shaw has done great things at Stanford, but I don't think he has the skill-set to right the foundering ship.  Just don't see it happening.

You got it.

[gailtate]

The program has been trending down since 2016; and over the last three seasons, Shaw is 11-14, which is sub-mediocre.  And this at a time when the Pac-12 has been arguably the weakest of the Power 5 conferences.  This is our current football reality; and the glory years of 2009-2015 will not change this.  The level of football on display yesterday was subpar on so many fronts that it makes a mockery of the strengths the program once claimed to possess.  Feeble line play, no running game, porous defense.  Let's bury the term "Intellectual Brutality" once and for all, because none of this was on display against Wazzu and has been absent from the program for years.      

I buy the argument that being head football coach at Stanford is not a "destination job", so any truly successful coach at Stanford will probably be looking to trade up at some point to some perceived better opportunity for even more money.  That is a quandary.  However, David Shaw has clearly made Stanford HIS destination job, and his skill-set combined with a strong coaching staff and excellent players resulted in some fabulous seasons in the first five years of his tenure as head coach.  But that is all history now, and the current state of the program requires a complete overhaul.  And, frankly, I am not convinced Shaw possesses the skill-set for such a turnaround.  So having Shaw at the helm will, in my view, merely perpetuate the current malaise.  He has shown no appetite for retooling the program, has endless patience for subpar performance from his coaching staff and continues to run Stanford football as a cozy, family affair.  With Shaw, our current football reality will also be our future: mediocrity.  

So what do we have to lose by making a coaching change?  Yes, we might get some version of Teevens or Harris again; or we might get a second Harbaugh.  History doesn't repeat itself, but the program definitely needs some form of renewal; and I don't think Shaw is the coach to provide it.  How many on this board believe that the program would have reached its historic heights (2009-2015) if Shaw had been hired to turn the football team around in 2007?  I believe that period of success was the happy coincidence of two coaches with complementary skill-sets running the program in two successive regimes (2007-2010, 2011-2015).  But without Harbaugh leading and completely overhauling the program, Shaw's years of success in building on that program would not have happened.      

Of course, I don't believe Shaw is going anywhere, either forced or on his own.  Unless the bottom absolutely drops out of the Stanford program and he goes 0-12 for a couple of seasons, Shaw virtually has "tenure" in his current spot, so the discussion is academic.  I would love to be wrong, but unless Shaw, at the very minimum, goes out and hires some legitimate top-flight coordinators, nothing is going to change, and losing to mediocre teams like Wazzu will become our new normal.  So we get mediocrity with coaching stability?  Is that better than the prior coaching carousels, with all the attendant risk, but also with the possibility of renewal?  Shaw has done great things at Stanford, but I don't think he has the skill-set to right the foundering ship.  Just don't see it happening.

You got it.