(12-02-2022, 05:21 PM)msqueri Wrote: Fifth year seniors have become an oddity at Stanford but they happen elsewhere. In the COVID era sixth and seventh year players are pretty common.
What's changed is manifold. A few of those things:
* Stanford football players now enroll in summer school. If you take AP credits plus early summer school enrollment plus summer schools in subsequent years plus load up on classes it's amazing how quickly you can graduate. If anybody among David Bailey, Sam Roush, or Mudia Reuben - who all enrolled not one, not two, but three academic quarters early (essentially an academic year) - stay at Stanford long enough they might set the record for quickest to graduation in school history.
* Shaw fetishized the 40 year decision, value of the Stanford degree, ability to leverage football into not only undergrad degrees but grad degrees as well, and so forth to such an extreme extent, not to mention his strong predisposition to Stanford Men and self-selectors generally, that the composition of the roster over time became heavily tilted to the types who would load up on classes (and thus focus on football less....sorry), bolt from their brothers to get additional professional credentials, and so forth.
* The pre-NIL period/changing of the zeitgeist in college football exacerbated the sense among Stanford football players (more cerebral/analytical than most) that their labor was not being properly compensated, feeding into "looking out for number one" and "I'm gonna get mine" sentiments. Importantly, these were not just individual views but an overall vibe shift across the locker room. Recall that when McCaffrey bailed on the bowl game his teammates actually supported him. It was the most natural thing in the world for them to view his economic decision as a reasonable career decision. It's not about team goals, they all understand this is transactional and support one another in that.
* Tying those points together a bit, Shaw seemed to actively encourage the transactional aspects. Coming to Stanford was about the 40 year decision, not what you build with your brothers. You can get a master's at Indiana rather than shore up Stanford's DL? Good for you!
* For these reasons and because of the ease of graduate transferring, norms shifted to make getting a masters degree much more normal for Stanford football players. Since it's difficult to get into Stanford grad programs, that created a push factor away from the team for players to seek the now normal grad degree elsewhere, rather than majoring in football for a super senior sole quarter of a fifth year like normal football players at Stanford and across the country have done since time immemorial.
* As players started accumulating units to graduate earlier and quicker in reaction to these trends, they were in a position to graduate earlier. Out of understandable pride, they applied to graduate when able, creating a fait accompli on needing to go elsewhere if they couldn't get into grad school at Stanford. That essentially pushed them out the door by default, given the trends/zeitgeist/incentives that prevail. Whereas players since time immemorial spread out units across their time at Stanford to make the workload more manageable, knowing an extra quarter existed in the fifth year, now players load up on units throughout their career to graduate earlier and give themselves more options. [This also presumably has serious effects on the football focus/energy/dedication/etc. of the team as it's a lot harder to juggle 20 units than 15 or whatever it is. As a wise man said on TOS, "the thought that guys that used to hit the weight room hard in the offseason to get better are now hitting the library hard to get out is sobering."]
* As Shaw surveyed the changing landscape both at Stanford and nationally (as well as with rules changes related to redshirts, transfers, the COVID year, etc.), he confronted a confounding "roster management" situation, as he frequently reminded us. It's so hard to know how many scholarship spots you have in this environment. To make this more manageable, he leaned into the shifting norms above and encouraged players to go to the NFL when they could, to get masters degrees elsewhere when they could. Win-win, his high-minded, deontological, football loser mentality thought.
I actually think I can think of more reasons but will stop there. Major change in how we operate and truly devastating to systematically deprive yourself of the best football years of your players.
Tony Lima, I did read your post. I just think your mentality is reflective of Shaw's, which got us in this place. Straight-up loser from a football perspective. Not saying it's not high-minded, but it's not how Ralston, Walsh, Harbaugh or coaches across America built their teams. These guys are here to play football. Sorry, they just are. Only playing football until you graduate is not what college football is.
Shaw is now gone. New HC will have to figure out how to navigate with the New World Order of College football and Stanford admin/admissions. Won’t be easy.
Reading between the lines of your “discussion “, it seems that Shaw actually cared about his players. As human beings. And believed in the quaint but anachronistic notion of “student-athlete.” Foolish, perhaps. But somewhat admirable. (For all but a few, btw, that Masters at Indiana is considerably more more valuable than a fifth year of football.)
Shaw’s legacy is simple - he took the program to heights none of us had seen or ( if honest with ourselves) believed possible. Then horrifically crashed and burned. He wears both. Credit for the former. Blame for the latter.
In any event, time to move on.