07-12-2023, 07:49 AM
I haven't seen confirmation of when fall camp starts but I believe we are allowed to start August 1 as that's 31 days before the season starts.
I am optimistic about Stanford football because I think Taylor is a good coach who has assembled a good staff and is attentive to the two most important things in college football, recruiting and culture. The fruits of Taylor's investments in recruiting and culture are going to take some time to show up on the field. I expect Stanford will be pretty bad this fall or at best very mediocre. It will really surprise me if we're a top 70 team nationally. I think we are looking at a 3-5 win season. But it's the first year of a rebuild and 3-5 wins can be a sign of the start to something much better. I'm looking to Taylor to build something like Jim Harbaugh, Matt Campbell, Dave Clawson, and PJ Fleck did. All of those guys won 3-5 games their first year in turning a program around.
While a 3-5 win season that doesn't crack the top 70 nationally is not a good season, I think there are things to look forward to this fall as well. Seeing a program with a pall lifted from it will be refreshing and energizing for us all. Games will have some anticipation and hope to them. Players will look like young upstarts eager to turn a program around rather than beaten down husks demoralized about being part of the generation that ruined Stanford football's legacy. The offense will be fast paced and dynamic. The defense will be something different than our passive, non-playmaking defense of recent years and, I hope, competent. The schedule starts insanely easy and may lend itself to a snowballing sense of optimism and returned swagger. During all of this, we will be able to keep one eye on a high school slate featuring a massive and pretty good class of incoming recruits. Those of us who obsess over Stanford football will get to know a whole new cast of characters on the coaching staff and even to an extent on the roster rather than the stale Groundhog Day much of the last five years of Shaw's tenure became.
So yeah, really looking forward to the fall!
I am optimistic about Stanford football because I think Taylor is a good coach who has assembled a good staff and is attentive to the two most important things in college football, recruiting and culture. The fruits of Taylor's investments in recruiting and culture are going to take some time to show up on the field. I expect Stanford will be pretty bad this fall or at best very mediocre. It will really surprise me if we're a top 70 team nationally. I think we are looking at a 3-5 win season. But it's the first year of a rebuild and 3-5 wins can be a sign of the start to something much better. I'm looking to Taylor to build something like Jim Harbaugh, Matt Campbell, Dave Clawson, and PJ Fleck did. All of those guys won 3-5 games their first year in turning a program around.
While a 3-5 win season that doesn't crack the top 70 nationally is not a good season, I think there are things to look forward to this fall as well. Seeing a program with a pall lifted from it will be refreshing and energizing for us all. Games will have some anticipation and hope to them. Players will look like young upstarts eager to turn a program around rather than beaten down husks demoralized about being part of the generation that ruined Stanford football's legacy. The offense will be fast paced and dynamic. The defense will be something different than our passive, non-playmaking defense of recent years and, I hope, competent. The schedule starts insanely easy and may lend itself to a snowballing sense of optimism and returned swagger. During all of this, we will be able to keep one eye on a high school slate featuring a massive and pretty good class of incoming recruits. Those of us who obsess over Stanford football will get to know a whole new cast of characters on the coaching staff and even to an extent on the roster rather than the stale Groundhog Day much of the last five years of Shaw's tenure became.
So yeah, really looking forward to the fall!