[BostonCard]

Agree that bouncing back from 5 years of sub-.500 football punctuated by a 1-11 season and players so disgruntled that they led a mutiny against Harris was a much heavier lift than coming back from 3 years of sub-.500 football (in 4), with the low point being a 3-9 season, that had a pretty smooth transition such as these things go.

Harbaugh went 4-8, 5-7, 8-5, and 12-1, and it wasn't on the strength of what Harris left behind.  Even if you believe that the talent in 2023 is substantially lower than 2022 (fair assumption given all the departures), a good coach should be able to at least tread water in 2023 compared to 2022, with a goal to improve every year thereafter and reach at least 6-6- and a bowl by 2025.

BC

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Does anyone have an answer as to why Stanford has this love/hate relationship with its football program?

Football revenues are not that important to the university writ large, like they might be for other schools, but football revenues are suppose to fund the rest of the athletic department too, right?  

How can anyone in Stanford leadership circles justify this cycle of allowing football to languish, then decide it has to be fixed, come back up as nationally relevant, then languish again? I mean it's prohibitively expensive to forgo maintenance on a property and then be forced to do a tear down and replace because it deteriorated so much while being ignored.  This seems to be Stanford's MO. Why? To what end? How does this make any sense? An argument can be made it is more sensible to drop football than continue this boom and bust cycle. Not sure what the argument is for letting football languish, then deciding it must be restored.  Wy let it languish in the first place?

It's almost as if there are multiple voices with different views at Stanford, some of whom are actively hostile to Stanford football, some of whom are indifferent, and some of whom really want a University that the football team can be proud of, and that a lot depends on the priorities of the people in charge.

BC

[BostonCard]

Agree that bouncing back from 5 years of sub-.500 football punctuated by a 1-11 season and players so disgruntled that they led a mutiny against Harris was a much heavier lift than coming back from 3 years of sub-.500 football (in 4), with the low point being a 3-9 season, that had a pretty smooth transition such as these things go.

Harbaugh went 4-8, 5-7, 8-5, and 12-1, and it wasn't on the strength of what Harris left behind.  Even if you believe that the talent in 2023 is substantially lower than 2022 (fair assumption given all the departures), a good coach should be able to at least tread water in 2023 compared to 2022, with a goal to improve every year thereafter and reach at least 6-6- and a bowl by 2025.

BC

---

Does anyone have an answer as to why Stanford has this love/hate relationship with its football program?

Football revenues are not that important to the university writ large, like they might be for other schools, but football revenues are suppose to fund the rest of the athletic department too, right?  

How can anyone in Stanford leadership circles justify this cycle of allowing football to languish, then decide it has to be fixed, come back up as nationally relevant, then languish again? I mean it's prohibitively expensive to forgo maintenance on a property and then be forced to do a tear down and replace because it deteriorated so much while being ignored.  This seems to be Stanford's MO. Why? To what end? How does this make any sense? An argument can be made it is more sensible to drop football than continue this boom and bust cycle. Not sure what the argument is for letting football languish, then deciding it must be restored.  Wy let it languish in the first place?

It's almost as if there are multiple voices with different views at Stanford, some of whom are actively hostile to Stanford football, some of whom are indifferent, and some of whom really want a University that the football team can be proud of, and that a lot depends on the priorities of the people in charge.

BC