[msqueri]

My view is rebuilds take time and Stanford will win 3-5 games in 2023 and something like 12-16 over the next three years...

Well written post. Here's what disappoints me.  You are one of the more optimistic football fans and you are only predicting 4 to 5 wins per season for three years starting in 2024 if I understand correctly.  I may die of old age before the football team has a winning season.



As a fan of many Olympic sports, we need the football team to be successful to get to the B1G if that is the eventual objective.  Losing W/L records won't get it done.

I was responding to Mick's friendly wager for the next three years, so my guess at a win total spanned 2023-2025. For 2023 I think the state of the program Taylor inherited was bleak enough that it takes time to build back up the fundamentals of a program. Just too much program rot and attrition to make a winning season a likely bet. For 2024 and 2025 I am buoyed by some optimism we'll be further along in the rebuild, but also view the 2023 schedule as unusually easy in terms of racking up some wins (it's unusually hard in terms of winning the conference because of strength at the top but in terms of how the winnable games set up it's an absolute gift). Truth be told, 2024 and 2025 are complete wild cards and it is somewhat foolish of me or Mick or anybody else to predict wins.....we don't even know who we'll be playing! Candidly, I sometimes forget this in forecasting out because everything I've ever known is the Pac-12 with a credible non-conference schedule. We know those days are ending in five months and don't know what comes after. Predicting win totals for 2024 and 2025 depends a lot on if we are playing in a conference and what quality that conference is if so, and what kind of independent schedule we can muster if not. A winning season could be super easy in 2024 and 2025 if we're independent and playing minor programs all year, but that would be cold comfort. Importantly, it would do nothing for our program prestige, recruiting, and revenue.

What we need to eventually get to - and we may be racing extinction if things break poorly in terms of conference alignment - is occasional top 25 seasons. Nothing else is relevant. And the more infrequent those top 25 seasons are the less relevant we will be. Getting back to a bowl would be deeply cathartic and welcome, but we don't move needles in alignment or recruiting without 8+ win seasons in a major conference or 10+ win seasons as an independent or minor conference team. So the hill is a steep one.

I do not think I am all that optimistic compared to most Stanford fans, by the way. I follow Stanford football obsessively on the subscription-only Cardinal Sports Report and 247 site (formerly The Bootleg) as well as here and in real life and it is clear to me that this board has an unusually Olympic sports-tilted, anti-football mindset. There is more football defeatism here than elsewhere. I may be something approaching mainstream in terms of relative optimism or pessimism among Stanford football fans.

That said, there are real reasons for optimism. It is palpable that the new staff has lifted a pall over the program and totally transformed the morale, energy, and strength and conditioning of the team. That could have big, immediate effects. It is also the case that our 2023 schedule sets up almost perfectly in terms of the potential to build momentum. Having a super easy first half of the schedule with a well-timed bye and the hardest games being the games we were least likely to win all season is just what the doctor would have ordered in terms of creating a chance for 3-4 wins that build confidence. I don't rule out six or seven wins this year because a) Shaw had brought us so low and so disconnected from our actual talent level, b) all the signs are there in terms of a cultural transformation, and c) there is a chance to build momentum. 

Nonetheless, I think a more prudent bet is that we crawl-walk-run, which is how most rebuilds go. That's what happened with Denny Green and Jim Harbaugh. Based on my research, I think Stanford's experience with attempted rebuilds is about typical: they work out about half the time and more often than not they take a few years. My bet on Troy Taylor is he will get Stanford back to bowls but it will take a few years. There are other possibilities out there, including quicker and/or more significant success as well as never succeeding.

P.S. Goose, you and I agree on what matters, that it was his least successful chapter and that he probably grew from it. My point is just that when talking about a 55 year old man, having mediocre results in your first and only gig as a major college football offensive coordinator be the low point of your career, and only a two year period at that, is the kind of thing you say about somebody who has been very successful at what they've done. I also think Utah's years-long wheel-spinning on offense made it clear where the ownership was. I mean, Jim Harbaugh coached a #105 scoring offense his first year at Stanford. Heck, a few years into his job at Michigan he had a #91 offense. Chip Kelly started with the #98 offense at UCLA. Degree of difficulty does matter, and outlier low points don't define whether somebody has succeeded at each stage other than in the most literal sense. I probably exaggerated in saying he's succeeded at everything but thought I covered my bases enough with "essentially."

[msqueri]

My view is rebuilds take time and Stanford will win 3-5 games in 2023 and something like 12-16 over the next three years...

Well written post. Here's what disappoints me.  You are one of the more optimistic football fans and you are only predicting 4 to 5 wins per season for three years starting in 2024 if I understand correctly.  I may die of old age before the football team has a winning season.



As a fan of many Olympic sports, we need the football team to be successful to get to the B1G if that is the eventual objective.  Losing W/L records won't get it done.

I was responding to Mick's friendly wager for the next three years, so my guess at a win total spanned 2023-2025. For 2023 I think the state of the program Taylor inherited was bleak enough that it takes time to build back up the fundamentals of a program. Just too much program rot and attrition to make a winning season a likely bet. For 2024 and 2025 I am buoyed by some optimism we'll be further along in the rebuild, but also view the 2023 schedule as unusually easy in terms of racking up some wins (it's unusually hard in terms of winning the conference because of strength at the top but in terms of how the winnable games set up it's an absolute gift). Truth be told, 2024 and 2025 are complete wild cards and it is somewhat foolish of me or Mick or anybody else to predict wins.....we don't even know who we'll be playing! Candidly, I sometimes forget this in forecasting out because everything I've ever known is the Pac-12 with a credible non-conference schedule. We know those days are ending in five months and don't know what comes after. Predicting win totals for 2024 and 2025 depends a lot on if we are playing in a conference and what quality that conference is if so, and what kind of independent schedule we can muster if not. A winning season could be super easy in 2024 and 2025 if we're independent and playing minor programs all year, but that would be cold comfort. Importantly, it would do nothing for our program prestige, recruiting, and revenue.

What we need to eventually get to - and we may be racing extinction if things break poorly in terms of conference alignment - is occasional top 25 seasons. Nothing else is relevant. And the more infrequent those top 25 seasons are the less relevant we will be. Getting back to a bowl would be deeply cathartic and welcome, but we don't move needles in alignment or recruiting without 8+ win seasons in a major conference or 10+ win seasons as an independent or minor conference team. So the hill is a steep one.

I do not think I am all that optimistic compared to most Stanford fans, by the way. I follow Stanford football obsessively on the subscription-only Cardinal Sports Report and 247 site (formerly The Bootleg) as well as here and in real life and it is clear to me that this board has an unusually Olympic sports-tilted, anti-football mindset. There is more football defeatism here than elsewhere. I may be something approaching mainstream in terms of relative optimism or pessimism among Stanford football fans.

That said, there are real reasons for optimism. It is palpable that the new staff has lifted a pall over the program and totally transformed the morale, energy, and strength and conditioning of the team. That could have big, immediate effects. It is also the case that our 2023 schedule sets up almost perfectly in terms of the potential to build momentum. Having a super easy first half of the schedule with a well-timed bye and the hardest games being the games we were least likely to win all season is just what the doctor would have ordered in terms of creating a chance for 3-4 wins that build confidence. I don't rule out six or seven wins this year because a) Shaw had brought us so low and so disconnected from our actual talent level, b) all the signs are there in terms of a cultural transformation, and c) there is a chance to build momentum. 

Nonetheless, I think a more prudent bet is that we crawl-walk-run, which is how most rebuilds go. That's what happened with Denny Green and Jim Harbaugh. Based on my research, I think Stanford's experience with attempted rebuilds is about typical: they work out about half the time and more often than not they take a few years. My bet on Troy Taylor is he will get Stanford back to bowls but it will take a few years. There are other possibilities out there, including quicker and/or more significant success as well as never succeeding.

P.S. Goose, you and I agree on what matters, that it was his least successful chapter and that he probably grew from it. My point is just that when talking about a 55 year old man, having mediocre results in your first and only gig as a major college football offensive coordinator be the low point of your career, and only a two year period at that, is the kind of thing you say about somebody who has been very successful at what they've done. I also think Utah's years-long wheel-spinning on offense made it clear where the ownership was. I mean, Jim Harbaugh coached a #105 scoring offense his first year at Stanford. Heck, a few years into his job at Michigan he had a #91 offense. Chip Kelly started with the #98 offense at UCLA. Degree of difficulty does matter, and outlier low points don't define whether somebody has succeeded at each stage other than in the most literal sense. I probably exaggerated in saying he's succeeded at everything but thought I covered my bases enough with "essentially."