[msqueri]

I'm reading about virtually every Power 5 program in the country creating one, but have not seen or heard anything about Stanford doing so.  Have I missed it? Are Stanford boosters content to let the college sports world pass it by? Or might Stanford have some other way of competing for the level of athlete needed to win championships? I get Stanford degree being uniquely valuable and all that, but it's hard for me to believe it will be possible to stay competitive unless recruits who sign with Stanford are promised some kind of NIL money in exchange for their signature.

To be clear, helping scholarship athletes with NIL deals only after they sign is not on par with the inducement an NIL collective provides recruits to sign with a school. Stanford may offer resources and help for athletes to get NIL deals once at Stanford, but that is not the same as having deals in place prior to signing with Stanford. This is what NIL collectives do, and what my question is based on.

I agree that some kind of competitive NIL deal is necessary.  I also think we need to figure out a way to deal with the portal problem.  More and more of our guys are graduating after 4 year.  With four years of Summer Quarter, it gets to be a lot easier be ready to graduate after 4 years.  Since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program, many of our most experienced guys are out the door via the transfer portal
I think that it would be pretty difficult to manage his courses so that he graduates after Fall Quarter.  A lot of these guys will be good players but maybe marginal NFL types.  I don't see how it is in their best interests to tell them to turn down moving on to another school where they can start their Masters work and a lot of it paid for by the new school.
These two problems added to the historically small incoming talent pool places us a major disadvantage.

I've never understood the "since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program" argument. Our players did just that as the norm for decades. Yes, we didn't used to have all the summer credits and, now winter and spring credits, which could truly be another game changer in just how early players will feel they've completed their time at Stanford. That is a big change from when players could balance football and academics such that they had a lighter load at times knowing they had another quarter in their fifth year to graduate. But is there anything actually stopping players from playing a fifth year even if it's superfluous academically (or "just" an opportunity to take classes for interest beyond what's required to graduate)? It seems to me what's stopping it is more normative than set in stone - the new norm at Stanford is that you only stay as long as you need to get your degree and that playing football for "free" (i.e., without a particular degree in return) is for suckers. Very harmful to football culture and competitiveness at Stanford, I think, but not something where players "can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program." It's that they won't, not that they can't.

[msqueri]

I'm reading about virtually every Power 5 program in the country creating one, but have not seen or heard anything about Stanford doing so.  Have I missed it? Are Stanford boosters content to let the college sports world pass it by? Or might Stanford have some other way of competing for the level of athlete needed to win championships? I get Stanford degree being uniquely valuable and all that, but it's hard for me to believe it will be possible to stay competitive unless recruits who sign with Stanford are promised some kind of NIL money in exchange for their signature.

To be clear, helping scholarship athletes with NIL deals only after they sign is not on par with the inducement an NIL collective provides recruits to sign with a school. Stanford may offer resources and help for athletes to get NIL deals once at Stanford, but that is not the same as having deals in place prior to signing with Stanford. This is what NIL collectives do, and what my question is based on.

I agree that some kind of competitive NIL deal is necessary.  I also think we need to figure out a way to deal with the portal problem.  More and more of our guys are graduating after 4 year.  With four years of Summer Quarter, it gets to be a lot easier be ready to graduate after 4 years.  Since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program, many of our most experienced guys are out the door via the transfer portal
I think that it would be pretty difficult to manage his courses so that he graduates after Fall Quarter.  A lot of these guys will be good players but maybe marginal NFL types.  I don't see how it is in their best interests to tell them to turn down moving on to another school where they can start their Masters work and a lot of it paid for by the new school.
These two problems added to the historically small incoming talent pool places us a major disadvantage.

I've never understood the "since they can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program" argument. Our players did just that as the norm for decades. Yes, we didn't used to have all the summer credits and, now winter and spring credits, which could truly be another game changer in just how early players will feel they've completed their time at Stanford. That is a big change from when players could balance football and academics such that they had a lighter load at times knowing they had another quarter in their fifth year to graduate. But is there anything actually stopping players from playing a fifth year even if it's superfluous academically (or "just" an opportunity to take classes for interest beyond what's required to graduate)? It seems to me what's stopping it is more normative than set in stone - the new norm at Stanford is that you only stay as long as you need to get your degree and that playing football for "free" (i.e., without a particular degree in return) is for suckers. Very harmful to football culture and competitiveness at Stanford, I think, but not something where players "can't play a 5th year unless accepted into a Stanford Graduate program." It's that they won't, not that they can't.