[Row80Critic]

No doubt Stanford football would benefit from more access to the portal and being more enticing from an NIL perspective, so that's all good in my book.  

HOWEVER, this team had enough talent for a winning season!  Teams with half the talent outplayed Stanford.  This season was not about a lack of talent.  Focusing on the portal and NIL is just another oh-so-clever way to blame anything and everything other than the elephant in the room: this team was poorly coached.  There's no getting around the fact that the coaching staff simply FAILED to put this team in a position to win, week after week.  So it's highly frustrating to hear the coach blame everything under the sun except his own personal performance and decisions, particularly when those decisions (or lack of decisions) seem to be the heart of the problem.

[Row80Critic]

No doubt Stanford football would benefit from more access to the portal and being more enticing from an NIL perspective, so that's all good in my book.  

HOWEVER, this team had enough talent for a winning season!  Teams with half the talent outplayed Stanford.  This season was not about a lack of talent.  Focusing on the portal and NIL is just another oh-so-clever way to blame anything and everything other than the elephant in the room: this team was poorly coached.  There's no getting around the fact that the coaching staff simply FAILED to put this team in a position to win, week after week.  So it's highly frustrating to hear the coach blame everything under the sun except his own personal performance and decisions, particularly when those decisions (or lack of decisions) seem to be the heart of the problem.