[81alum]

* Also the 40 year decision has become less and less salient as players realize that being a football player at Oklahoma rather than Stanford is not necessarily an unwise decision from a life-time perspective monetarily or in other dimensions (as a case in point, in the NIL world don't you think Dylan Lonergan will make more money in his life having gone to Alabama than he would have going to Stanford?).



* I suspect but can't prove (especially because the academics of Stanford football recruits/nature of the application process has become so opaque, which I think bolsters my theory) that it is WAAAAAAAAAAY easier to be admitted to Stanford as a coveted scholarship football player than many of our fans assume. I don't think the admissions office is very tough on football applicants these days and with the continuity of Lance Anderson's role helping shepherding recruits through the process coupled with continuity in Mike Eubanks' operation, we are better equipped than ever before to hold recruits' hands through the application process. Sure, recruits have to ask for a few letters of recommendation and write a few short personal statements/essays. But it's not a herculean effort for a recruit to apply and be accepted to Stanford.



* There may have even been a philosophical change where we give/solicit applications from more recruits than before, a calculation (I would support) to give ourselves a shot rather than just treating admissions as the last wicket in the process for guys definitely coming.

I can't agree with this enough. As someone one year beyond the 40-year decision, I can tell you there is no 40-year decision.  I get it, one order of magnitude more than 4 years of eligibility.  I first heard the term when Lou Holtz said that some kid who picked FSU over Notre Dame didn't just make a 4-year mistake, he made a 40-year mistake.  What a horrific thing to say.  Don't say anything, or wish the kid luck.



The 40-year decision is really a 4-, or 5-, or maybe just 1-year decision. People recover from decisions every day. And if Stanford recruits on the whole are making their decisions based on academic prestige rather than football, we're done.  The glory years (2009-2015 more or less) happened because the football was so strong.  Yes, any player interested in also partaking in the academic environment (some good professors, not all; and some bright classmates, not all) received those benefits, but football has to be the draw.



The 4-year (plus or minus) decision also includes the type of effort an athlete will put into his/her non-athletic life. Leaving aside lifetime earnings in MSqueri's examples (a function of talent, opportunity, and a bunch of luck, more than alma mater), most serious athletes at an Oklahoma or Alabama can, if they so chose, get a great education and find like-minded classmates.  I said most, because there are the Chase Beelers and the new guy and Glyn Milburns and (no one from Bama yet, right?) who do see something special here.  That's fantastic, although maybe those were not purely academic plays.



To be fair, I've attended a grand total of two universities in my life, plus that one for-credit class in Berkeley that for a world-class institution, honestly, sucked eggs, so I don't really know.  At each place were great classes, good classes, great professors, good professors, and dreck. Probably directly proportional to the time spent at each.  At least Stanford didn't have The Shaft.  One degree is 2.7 times the size of the other (by area), but other than that, it is all pretty immeasurable. Particularly 41 years out - a lot has happened between then and now. We have a lot of smart, successful people working here and only three of us went to Stanford, all for graduate school.



Long post to say we need to stay focused on football in recruiting, with academic side benefits they can consider unique (maybe), or it falls apart.  



In my opinion.

We are both 41 years out, as my handle might have hinted ;)

In one sense I agree with you.  It is possible to obtain a first class education at many universities.  Having spent my career teaching at a state university, I genuinely do believe that some of my students obtain a better education than some Stanford students.  In fact, since teaching is taken more seriously in the retention, tenure and promotion system at such universities than at R-1 universities like Stanford, it perhaps is not that uncommon.  But the biggest determinant of the quality of an undergraduate education is--the undergraduate.  Is it a student who takes the effort to find the most challenging and inspiring faculty?  Who takes advantage of all the resources a university has to offer?  Or is it a student who does the minimum to get the degree?  Stanford has vastly more resources and opportunities for its students than my current university has for ours--but a student at a state university who takes advantage of every opportunity is going to wind up with a superior education to a Stanford student who skates.  Of course, the admissions requirements make those two types of students rare.  Few of my students do take advantage of every opportunity my university offers them.  Few Stanford students go through four years in which they ignore all the myriad of extracurriculars and academic add-ons available to them.

And so I've always thought the "40 year decision" really refers to the reputation of the university rather than to the absolute quality of the education.  In my own case the Stanford name made a large difference and opened doors to graduate programs I would not otherwise have had access to.  But if I wanted to be a social worker, or go home to the family business, then I might not need to go through any of the doors that the Stanford degree helped to open.

Now, in terms of recruiting, there was a major shift in strategy after Mamlet left.  I still think her departure was the main reason for the resurgence of Stanford football.  Harbaugh had a much larger talent pool to recruit from than did his predecessors.  Before, the only athletes we could recruit were those who were academic high achievers and who knew the value of a Stanford degree--except for the rare "special admits."  After Mamlet's departure, we were free to widely recruit students who had academic potential but who had not prioritized it so much in their high school years.  A different pitch is needed for such students, and with the Harbaugh/Shaw years the recruiting pitch did change.  They made a deliberate effort to turn Stanford's academic reputation from a liability into a strength--from the standpoint of the less academically inclined recruits.  Frankly, I think it was a brilliant move and was largely responsible for our success, "intellectual brutality," "NerdNation," etc.  Funny, poking fun at our academics while celebrating them, and making recruits realize that the student-athletes here are unique and different and have a sense of pride in BOTH sides of what they do.  But this pitch is only sustainable if the program can show that our athletes really do have the best of both worlds.  Too steep and long lasting a decline in athletic success cannot be overcome by the academic pitch alone.

[81alum]

* Also the 40 year decision has become less and less salient as players realize that being a football player at Oklahoma rather than Stanford is not necessarily an unwise decision from a life-time perspective monetarily or in other dimensions (as a case in point, in the NIL world don't you think Dylan Lonergan will make more money in his life having gone to Alabama than he would have going to Stanford?).



* I suspect but can't prove (especially because the academics of Stanford football recruits/nature of the application process has become so opaque, which I think bolsters my theory) that it is WAAAAAAAAAAY easier to be admitted to Stanford as a coveted scholarship football player than many of our fans assume. I don't think the admissions office is very tough on football applicants these days and with the continuity of Lance Anderson's role helping shepherding recruits through the process coupled with continuity in Mike Eubanks' operation, we are better equipped than ever before to hold recruits' hands through the application process. Sure, recruits have to ask for a few letters of recommendation and write a few short personal statements/essays. But it's not a herculean effort for a recruit to apply and be accepted to Stanford.



* There may have even been a philosophical change where we give/solicit applications from more recruits than before, a calculation (I would support) to give ourselves a shot rather than just treating admissions as the last wicket in the process for guys definitely coming.

I can't agree with this enough. As someone one year beyond the 40-year decision, I can tell you there is no 40-year decision.  I get it, one order of magnitude more than 4 years of eligibility.  I first heard the term when Lou Holtz said that some kid who picked FSU over Notre Dame didn't just make a 4-year mistake, he made a 40-year mistake.  What a horrific thing to say.  Don't say anything, or wish the kid luck.



The 40-year decision is really a 4-, or 5-, or maybe just 1-year decision. People recover from decisions every day. And if Stanford recruits on the whole are making their decisions based on academic prestige rather than football, we're done.  The glory years (2009-2015 more or less) happened because the football was so strong.  Yes, any player interested in also partaking in the academic environment (some good professors, not all; and some bright classmates, not all) received those benefits, but football has to be the draw.



The 4-year (plus or minus) decision also includes the type of effort an athlete will put into his/her non-athletic life. Leaving aside lifetime earnings in MSqueri's examples (a function of talent, opportunity, and a bunch of luck, more than alma mater), most serious athletes at an Oklahoma or Alabama can, if they so chose, get a great education and find like-minded classmates.  I said most, because there are the Chase Beelers and the new guy and Glyn Milburns and (no one from Bama yet, right?) who do see something special here.  That's fantastic, although maybe those were not purely academic plays.



To be fair, I've attended a grand total of two universities in my life, plus that one for-credit class in Berkeley that for a world-class institution, honestly, sucked eggs, so I don't really know.  At each place were great classes, good classes, great professors, good professors, and dreck. Probably directly proportional to the time spent at each.  At least Stanford didn't have The Shaft.  One degree is 2.7 times the size of the other (by area), but other than that, it is all pretty immeasurable. Particularly 41 years out - a lot has happened between then and now. We have a lot of smart, successful people working here and only three of us went to Stanford, all for graduate school.



Long post to say we need to stay focused on football in recruiting, with academic side benefits they can consider unique (maybe), or it falls apart.  



In my opinion.

We are both 41 years out, as my handle might have hinted ;)

In one sense I agree with you.  It is possible to obtain a first class education at many universities.  Having spent my career teaching at a state university, I genuinely do believe that some of my students obtain a better education than some Stanford students.  In fact, since teaching is taken more seriously in the retention, tenure and promotion system at such universities than at R-1 universities like Stanford, it perhaps is not that uncommon.  But the biggest determinant of the quality of an undergraduate education is--the undergraduate.  Is it a student who takes the effort to find the most challenging and inspiring faculty?  Who takes advantage of all the resources a university has to offer?  Or is it a student who does the minimum to get the degree?  Stanford has vastly more resources and opportunities for its students than my current university has for ours--but a student at a state university who takes advantage of every opportunity is going to wind up with a superior education to a Stanford student who skates.  Of course, the admissions requirements make those two types of students rare.  Few of my students do take advantage of every opportunity my university offers them.  Few Stanford students go through four years in which they ignore all the myriad of extracurriculars and academic add-ons available to them.

And so I've always thought the "40 year decision" really refers to the reputation of the university rather than to the absolute quality of the education.  In my own case the Stanford name made a large difference and opened doors to graduate programs I would not otherwise have had access to.  But if I wanted to be a social worker, or go home to the family business, then I might not need to go through any of the doors that the Stanford degree helped to open.

Now, in terms of recruiting, there was a major shift in strategy after Mamlet left.  I still think her departure was the main reason for the resurgence of Stanford football.  Harbaugh had a much larger talent pool to recruit from than did his predecessors.  Before, the only athletes we could recruit were those who were academic high achievers and who knew the value of a Stanford degree--except for the rare "special admits."  After Mamlet's departure, we were free to widely recruit students who had academic potential but who had not prioritized it so much in their high school years.  A different pitch is needed for such students, and with the Harbaugh/Shaw years the recruiting pitch did change.  They made a deliberate effort to turn Stanford's academic reputation from a liability into a strength--from the standpoint of the less academically inclined recruits.  Frankly, I think it was a brilliant move and was largely responsible for our success, "intellectual brutality," "NerdNation," etc.  Funny, poking fun at our academics while celebrating them, and making recruits realize that the student-athletes here are unique and different and have a sense of pride in BOTH sides of what they do.  But this pitch is only sustainable if the program can show that our athletes really do have the best of both worlds.  Too steep and long lasting a decline in athletic success cannot be overcome by the academic pitch alone.