[akiddoc]

Not sure if this got posted elsewhere.  Op-Ed written by a Stanford Grad Glenn Kramon.  Considers what may be the best path forward for Stanford Football in the emerging era of easy transfers, NIL syndicates and big media money.  Sorry if you find it's behind a paywall.  The LAT used to allow access to three or four articles per month without subscription.  Sometimes Yahoo! news or Microsoft news will make it accessible.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/20...tball-ncaa

p.s.  The piece includes a description of Kramon at the end of the article: Glenn Kramon, a 1975 Graduate of Stanford, is a lecturer of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  If you can't access the LAT piece perhaps you can contact him directly to get a copy.

The author Kramon's position is that Stanford should downgrade to a lesser conference or division and focus on the non-revenue "olympic" sports if the administration, board and alumni will not support NIL payments to at least the level of other competing programs.  Kramon does not address the bigger problem of changing Stanford's admission standards and transfer policy.  If Stanford wants to compete in today's environment with schools like USC and Notre Dame, then it has to drop its strict admission policy and admit any top recruit and transfer that wants to attend Stanford. 

Stanford's a private school and can choose whatever policy it wants for athletes. UC-Berkeley, considered the top public university, will take anyone. I cringe whenever I hear Stanford's standards compared to Notre Dame's, Duke's, Northwestern's, and Vanderbilt's. They are not anywhere close to Stanford. Notre Dame and Michigan is a better comparison, as is Duke and North Carolina, Northwestern and Illinois, and Vanderbilt and Tennessee. These other so-called academic programs will easily accept 95 to 98 of the top 100 high school recruits. Only 5 of the top 100 can qualify to Stanford, and that's on a good year. Yes, I know, we had great success from 2009-2015, but we all knew it was fleeting and took an amazing coach and workhorse recruiter to change attitudes with Enthusiasm Unknown To Mankind. Harbaugh. Shaw is no Harbaugh, and the program was bound to dip under Harbaugh as well. 

I would also change the transfer policy to admit any top college athlete, who may have been overlooked in high school or developed late, to come to Stanford. With the lower academic standards, liberal transfer policy, and a strong, pro-NIL position, Stanford would contend for the national championship every year. They would easily surpass Alabama as the top football program in the country as every parent wants their kid to attend Stanford.  (The mask and Covid vaccine policy is another serious problem, but I'll hold fire on that one.) For those concerned about how a "dumb jock" could graduate from Stanford, please, Stanford could create easy classes and majors directed to these athletes. 

If Stanford doesn't want to be the best in football (and basketball) like they do in every other endeavor, academic or otherwise, then I agree with the author that Stanford should leave the Pac-12 and big-time football and, instead, compete with the likes of Cal Tech and Redlands...or drop football completely.

Stanford has never done those things and never will. There are enough good players with good grades to make Stanford a pretty good team some of the time, but not all of the time.

[akiddoc]

Not sure if this got posted elsewhere.  Op-Ed written by a Stanford Grad Glenn Kramon.  Considers what may be the best path forward for Stanford Football in the emerging era of easy transfers, NIL syndicates and big media money.  Sorry if you find it's behind a paywall.  The LAT used to allow access to three or four articles per month without subscription.  Sometimes Yahoo! news or Microsoft news will make it accessible.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/20...tball-ncaa

p.s.  The piece includes a description of Kramon at the end of the article: Glenn Kramon, a 1975 Graduate of Stanford, is a lecturer of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  If you can't access the LAT piece perhaps you can contact him directly to get a copy.

The author Kramon's position is that Stanford should downgrade to a lesser conference or division and focus on the non-revenue "olympic" sports if the administration, board and alumni will not support NIL payments to at least the level of other competing programs.  Kramon does not address the bigger problem of changing Stanford's admission standards and transfer policy.  If Stanford wants to compete in today's environment with schools like USC and Notre Dame, then it has to drop its strict admission policy and admit any top recruit and transfer that wants to attend Stanford. 

Stanford's a private school and can choose whatever policy it wants for athletes. UC-Berkeley, considered the top public university, will take anyone. I cringe whenever I hear Stanford's standards compared to Notre Dame's, Duke's, Northwestern's, and Vanderbilt's. They are not anywhere close to Stanford. Notre Dame and Michigan is a better comparison, as is Duke and North Carolina, Northwestern and Illinois, and Vanderbilt and Tennessee. These other so-called academic programs will easily accept 95 to 98 of the top 100 high school recruits. Only 5 of the top 100 can qualify to Stanford, and that's on a good year. Yes, I know, we had great success from 2009-2015, but we all knew it was fleeting and took an amazing coach and workhorse recruiter to change attitudes with Enthusiasm Unknown To Mankind. Harbaugh. Shaw is no Harbaugh, and the program was bound to dip under Harbaugh as well. 

I would also change the transfer policy to admit any top college athlete, who may have been overlooked in high school or developed late, to come to Stanford. With the lower academic standards, liberal transfer policy, and a strong, pro-NIL position, Stanford would contend for the national championship every year. They would easily surpass Alabama as the top football program in the country as every parent wants their kid to attend Stanford.  (The mask and Covid vaccine policy is another serious problem, but I'll hold fire on that one.) For those concerned about how a "dumb jock" could graduate from Stanford, please, Stanford could create easy classes and majors directed to these athletes. 

If Stanford doesn't want to be the best in football (and basketball) like they do in every other endeavor, academic or otherwise, then I agree with the author that Stanford should leave the Pac-12 and big-time football and, instead, compete with the likes of Cal Tech and Redlands...or drop football completely.

Stanford has never done those things and never will. There are enough good players with good grades to make Stanford a pretty good team some of the time, but not all of the time.