[gailtate]

He inherited everything a coach could hope for, made good use of it for a number of years and then haplessly stood by watching while it crumbled around him.  He must have believed that his infallible leadership was the secret sauce to success, that he could hire any warm bodies on the coaching staff and that the result would be multiple 10-win seasons.  And that indicates that he never really understood why he was so massively successful in 2011-2015.  I will always be grateful for those seasons; but Shaw clearly did not understand how to sustain that success, which means he never fully grasped the particulars that led to all those wins and bowl games and conference titles.  Ultimately, success (or failure) stems from the people you surround yourself with and your ability to lead them. And the downfall of Stanford football is a simple failure of leadership.

I think this is spot on, especially the last two sentences. It's all about leadership and surrounding yourself with the best people possible. He clearly hasn't done the latter. Arrogance, insecurity, complacency? Who knows, not that it matters at this point.

A guy I worked for when I was coming up had a saying: "The most important thing to know, in business or anything else, is why you are successful. If you don't really understand why, failure is right around the corner."

[gailtate]

He inherited everything a coach could hope for, made good use of it for a number of years and then haplessly stood by watching while it crumbled around him.  He must have believed that his infallible leadership was the secret sauce to success, that he could hire any warm bodies on the coaching staff and that the result would be multiple 10-win seasons.  And that indicates that he never really understood why he was so massively successful in 2011-2015.  I will always be grateful for those seasons; but Shaw clearly did not understand how to sustain that success, which means he never fully grasped the particulars that led to all those wins and bowl games and conference titles.  Ultimately, success (or failure) stems from the people you surround yourself with and your ability to lead them. And the downfall of Stanford football is a simple failure of leadership.

I think this is spot on, especially the last two sentences. It's all about leadership and surrounding yourself with the best people possible. He clearly hasn't done the latter. Arrogance, insecurity, complacency? Who knows, not that it matters at this point.

A guy I worked for when I was coming up had a saying: "The most important thing to know, in business or anything else, is why you are successful. If you don't really understand why, failure is right around the corner."