[mutoo1]

I feel like people are jumping off a cliff here. It’s been 4 years of poor execution on the field. It’s clear and obvious the talent on the field is there. The coaching and talent progression has been poor. 

There’s no reason to believe we can’t continue to compete at the D1 level with improvement in the coaching staff.

"It’s clear and obvious the talent on the field is there."

with all due respect, it is clear and obvious the talent on the field is seriously lacking as compared with (1) many of our opponents, and (2) our successful teams from the recent past.

the most noticeable issues i see are (1) the overall lack of team speed & quickness as compared with, for example, u$c, oregon & ucla (and we will see it again against utah), (2) poor offensive line coaching, and (3) the worst defensive line play, and perhaps talent, in recent memory.  the dl is just getting pushed around.  so perhaps a strength issue as well.

Put me in the "clear and obvious we have talent" camp. I'm not saying it's USC level talent or Stanford glory years level talent, but it's very competitive Pac-12 talent. Free your mind from comparing to Shaw Rose Bowl teams and think about Stanford's 1960-2007 level teams. Do you not think our talent is noticeably lacking compared with that? To my mind, we are a bit more talented on defense than the historical Stanford norm, a mixed bag on offense, and clearly deeper almost everywhere except QB and RB than what Stanford had pre-Harbaugh (recall that almost half of our rosters for all of eternity were Group of Five level or worse recruits).

i don't care about the historical stanford norm.  our overall talent has declined.  especially our team speed and quickness, which has dramatically declined from where it was 4-5 years ago, which means we are not recruiting as much for speed & quickness as was previously the case.  unless one thinks the pool of admissible recruits with speed has shrunk, which is possible.  

also missing is the "nastiness" factor on the ol.  which, to me, is both poor recruiting and ol coaching.  why did stanford turn away from its successful power running game?

[mutoo1]

I feel like people are jumping off a cliff here. It’s been 4 years of poor execution on the field. It’s clear and obvious the talent on the field is there. The coaching and talent progression has been poor. 

There’s no reason to believe we can’t continue to compete at the D1 level with improvement in the coaching staff.

"It’s clear and obvious the talent on the field is there."

with all due respect, it is clear and obvious the talent on the field is seriously lacking as compared with (1) many of our opponents, and (2) our successful teams from the recent past.

the most noticeable issues i see are (1) the overall lack of team speed & quickness as compared with, for example, u$c, oregon & ucla (and we will see it again against utah), (2) poor offensive line coaching, and (3) the worst defensive line play, and perhaps talent, in recent memory.  the dl is just getting pushed around.  so perhaps a strength issue as well.

Put me in the "clear and obvious we have talent" camp. I'm not saying it's USC level talent or Stanford glory years level talent, but it's very competitive Pac-12 talent. Free your mind from comparing to Shaw Rose Bowl teams and think about Stanford's 1960-2007 level teams. Do you not think our talent is noticeably lacking compared with that? To my mind, we are a bit more talented on defense than the historical Stanford norm, a mixed bag on offense, and clearly deeper almost everywhere except QB and RB than what Stanford had pre-Harbaugh (recall that almost half of our rosters for all of eternity were Group of Five level or worse recruits).

i don't care about the historical stanford norm.  our overall talent has declined.  especially our team speed and quickness, which has dramatically declined from where it was 4-5 years ago, which means we are not recruiting as much for speed & quickness as was previously the case.  unless one thinks the pool of admissible recruits with speed has shrunk, which is possible.  

also missing is the "nastiness" factor on the ol.  which, to me, is both poor recruiting and ol coaching.  why did stanford turn away from its successful power running game?