[BostonCard]

The comparison to the law of gravity rings hollow. There is nothing immutable about the notion that became popular under Shaw that a Stanford career was four years. I have compiled data sets on hundreds of Stanford football players going back decades and as recently as under Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh 54 percent of OL stayed five years and 71 percent of DL stayed five years, compared to less than 30 percent at both positions under Shaw. Stanford cared about academics in the 2000s too and, in fact, almost certainly had higher standards for football players than it has today.

This is an apples to oranges comparison.  In the days of Teevens and Harris, graduate transfers weren't just more difficult (due to the absence of the portal), they were virtually unheard of because the requirement to sit a year out meant that in order to transfer and play football in graduate school, athletes had to 1) not have redshirted and 2) graduate in three years so that they would be able to sit out a year and still have one year of eligibility remaining to play as fifth years.  Even with the introduction of graduate transfers in 2007, they were limited to pursuing graduate degrees not available at the undergraduate institution, and even when that requirement was taken down, it wasn't until the portal was developed that it became relatively frictionless to transfer to a different school.

In addition, there was the impact of a rule change allowing players to play up to 4 games without losing their redshirt, which meant that playing freshmen (for example, if a starter is injured, or if you just want to see how they do in a game situation) is less of a dilemma, and lastly the impact of the COVID pandemic and the blanket addition of a year of eligibility, which means that a fair number of players were able to graduate, transfer, and benefit from having two years of eligibility remaining.

Furthermore, there was one major university undergraduate policy that changed which made it harder.  I don't know when it happened, but the university went from not caring if a student took more than 4 years to graduate, to actively discouraging it, if not de facto prohibiting it.  That means that we've gone from a system where it is easier to stay than leave to a system where, strangely enough, it is easier to leave than stay as other universities don't really require students to apply to their graduate school the way Stanford does.  We've had several cases of students essentially being forced out when they were not accepted to a master's program at Stanford. Unsurprisingly, then that we have gone from a majority of athletes staying in school to exhaustion of eligibility to a majority leaving.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure that students taking more than four years to graduate was problem that needed solving.  Even before the new policy, Stanford's graduation rate was above 95% for both non-athletes and athletes, and, at least for athletes, being able to graduate in more than 4 years seemed, if anything, to give them added flexibility and make it more likely that they would graduate, not less.  If there is one change I would like to see it is for the de facto requirement to graduate in four years to be waived for athletes, as it is not unreasonable to expect that their commitment to athletics might slow their academic progress and, for example, make certain majors more challenging to pull off.

Do we know for a fact that Shaw was complicit or agnostic to this change?  While football is the sport most affected by the four year graduation requirements, it is not the only one.  Were other coaches also pursuing a "suicide cult"?  Or, was this a case of a change that was implemented without regard to its impact on football or athletics, as a solution to a problem that we might not appreciate (I certainly am not sure what instigated the change), by a department that might have been indifferent to its impact on athletics?  I think there is some evidence that Shaw did push for (and eventually succeed) in getting the administration to implement policies that went against long-standing University traditions in order to benefit the football team, and that he did so even though at least in some cases, it didn't benefit him personally because he was on his way out.  We know that he advocated for, and eventually won, endorsement for some freshmen to be enrolled in the Spring of their senior year in high school (even though I think it is a bad idea that separates football players from all other students), and we know that on his way out the door he received commitments from the administration to ease the path towards taking in transfer students.  I haven't heard one way or another about the graduation policy, but maybe it has been reported elsewhere that Shaw agreed with it or was ok with it.

But programs and administrations can make decisions about how to operate within their given landscape. The football team can recruit players who care more about team goals than individual goals. It can recruit players who care more about football than academics. It can have the conversations you talk about with regard to long-term academic plans and options to stay on campus for the years of maximum football impact. If the administration is going to insist that only people still completing degrees can stay on the team or that football players need to get into grad school on non-football merits, a coach who cares about what he's hired to do can and should push back at that and find a way to not be overseeing a football suicide cult. 

Two comments here: first, I think recruiting players who care more about football than academics is at best a mixed bag, and potentially runs the risk of throwing away Stanford's comparative advantage.  Yes, there are some players who might graduate in four years and are academically focused enough that they would view a chance at a graduate degree as a reason for leaving (ie, a player whose reason for transferring out is academic), but I think you run a greater risk of losing players because they value football more than academics and are seeking a) a chance to play for a winning team (or a more winning team) b) a chance to play in a better atmosphere c) a better chance to start (at least for those moving to a lesser program) d) a [perceived] better chance to improve their chances to make it to the next level or e) a better NIL deal.  Moreover, while an academic first transfer will really only transfer out as a fifth year, a football-first transfer could transfer out at any time where the football side of the equation looks better elsewhere, degree or not.

I think to the extent that Stanford has been able to recruit better than our record, it is because it has been able to convince players of the value of the 40-year decision. While I think that rankings are very overstated, Stanford can point to itself as consistently the highest USNWR ranked FBS football program, and for at least some players who would otherwise not think much of a middling football school, the prospect of a Stanford degree is the school's comparative advantage. Eschewing academic-first players probably means less of a chance with players like Bryce Love and Andrew Luck; both clearly valued the academic side of Stanford, and both passed up a chance to enter the NFL draft as underclassmen for that reason.

The second thing is that I think as it becomes increasingly clear that the NCAA and its schools are acting in a revenue maximizing way and the relationship between school and student-athlete becomes more like one between an employer and employee, selling players on "family" and "team goals" is increasingly naive.  I mean, the Pac-12 dissolved and Stanford joined the ACC because of money that does not flow to the student-athletes.  Maybe I'm being too cynical, but if I'm a 20-year old weighing my prospects, I would roll my eyes at a coach making multiple millions of dollars a year, who, in the back of my mind, I know will not hesitate to jump to a bigger program if he can be successful at Stanford.  When the entire system (NCAA, conferences, university presidents, athletic directors, head coach, and all the assistants) are demonstrably only in it for themselves, expecting the athletes to be in it for some mythical greater purpose is naive.

BC

[BostonCard]

The comparison to the law of gravity rings hollow. There is nothing immutable about the notion that became popular under Shaw that a Stanford career was four years. I have compiled data sets on hundreds of Stanford football players going back decades and as recently as under Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh 54 percent of OL stayed five years and 71 percent of DL stayed five years, compared to less than 30 percent at both positions under Shaw. Stanford cared about academics in the 2000s too and, in fact, almost certainly had higher standards for football players than it has today.

This is an apples to oranges comparison.  In the days of Teevens and Harris, graduate transfers weren't just more difficult (due to the absence of the portal), they were virtually unheard of because the requirement to sit a year out meant that in order to transfer and play football in graduate school, athletes had to 1) not have redshirted and 2) graduate in three years so that they would be able to sit out a year and still have one year of eligibility remaining to play as fifth years.  Even with the introduction of graduate transfers in 2007, they were limited to pursuing graduate degrees not available at the undergraduate institution, and even when that requirement was taken down, it wasn't until the portal was developed that it became relatively frictionless to transfer to a different school.

In addition, there was the impact of a rule change allowing players to play up to 4 games without losing their redshirt, which meant that playing freshmen (for example, if a starter is injured, or if you just want to see how they do in a game situation) is less of a dilemma, and lastly the impact of the COVID pandemic and the blanket addition of a year of eligibility, which means that a fair number of players were able to graduate, transfer, and benefit from having two years of eligibility remaining.

Furthermore, there was one major university undergraduate policy that changed which made it harder.  I don't know when it happened, but the university went from not caring if a student took more than 4 years to graduate, to actively discouraging it, if not de facto prohibiting it.  That means that we've gone from a system where it is easier to stay than leave to a system where, strangely enough, it is easier to leave than stay as other universities don't really require students to apply to their graduate school the way Stanford does.  We've had several cases of students essentially being forced out when they were not accepted to a master's program at Stanford. Unsurprisingly, then that we have gone from a majority of athletes staying in school to exhaustion of eligibility to a majority leaving.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure that students taking more than four years to graduate was problem that needed solving.  Even before the new policy, Stanford's graduation rate was above 95% for both non-athletes and athletes, and, at least for athletes, being able to graduate in more than 4 years seemed, if anything, to give them added flexibility and make it more likely that they would graduate, not less.  If there is one change I would like to see it is for the de facto requirement to graduate in four years to be waived for athletes, as it is not unreasonable to expect that their commitment to athletics might slow their academic progress and, for example, make certain majors more challenging to pull off.

Do we know for a fact that Shaw was complicit or agnostic to this change?  While football is the sport most affected by the four year graduation requirements, it is not the only one.  Were other coaches also pursuing a "suicide cult"?  Or, was this a case of a change that was implemented without regard to its impact on football or athletics, as a solution to a problem that we might not appreciate (I certainly am not sure what instigated the change), by a department that might have been indifferent to its impact on athletics?  I think there is some evidence that Shaw did push for (and eventually succeed) in getting the administration to implement policies that went against long-standing University traditions in order to benefit the football team, and that he did so even though at least in some cases, it didn't benefit him personally because he was on his way out.  We know that he advocated for, and eventually won, endorsement for some freshmen to be enrolled in the Spring of their senior year in high school (even though I think it is a bad idea that separates football players from all other students), and we know that on his way out the door he received commitments from the administration to ease the path towards taking in transfer students.  I haven't heard one way or another about the graduation policy, but maybe it has been reported elsewhere that Shaw agreed with it or was ok with it.

But programs and administrations can make decisions about how to operate within their given landscape. The football team can recruit players who care more about team goals than individual goals. It can recruit players who care more about football than academics. It can have the conversations you talk about with regard to long-term academic plans and options to stay on campus for the years of maximum football impact. If the administration is going to insist that only people still completing degrees can stay on the team or that football players need to get into grad school on non-football merits, a coach who cares about what he's hired to do can and should push back at that and find a way to not be overseeing a football suicide cult. 

Two comments here: first, I think recruiting players who care more about football than academics is at best a mixed bag, and potentially runs the risk of throwing away Stanford's comparative advantage.  Yes, there are some players who might graduate in four years and are academically focused enough that they would view a chance at a graduate degree as a reason for leaving (ie, a player whose reason for transferring out is academic), but I think you run a greater risk of losing players because they value football more than academics and are seeking a) a chance to play for a winning team (or a more winning team) b) a chance to play in a better atmosphere c) a better chance to start (at least for those moving to a lesser program) d) a [perceived] better chance to improve their chances to make it to the next level or e) a better NIL deal.  Moreover, while an academic first transfer will really only transfer out as a fifth year, a football-first transfer could transfer out at any time where the football side of the equation looks better elsewhere, degree or not.

I think to the extent that Stanford has been able to recruit better than our record, it is because it has been able to convince players of the value of the 40-year decision. While I think that rankings are very overstated, Stanford can point to itself as consistently the highest USNWR ranked FBS football program, and for at least some players who would otherwise not think much of a middling football school, the prospect of a Stanford degree is the school's comparative advantage. Eschewing academic-first players probably means less of a chance with players like Bryce Love and Andrew Luck; both clearly valued the academic side of Stanford, and both passed up a chance to enter the NFL draft as underclassmen for that reason.

The second thing is that I think as it becomes increasingly clear that the NCAA and its schools are acting in a revenue maximizing way and the relationship between school and student-athlete becomes more like one between an employer and employee, selling players on "family" and "team goals" is increasingly naive.  I mean, the Pac-12 dissolved and Stanford joined the ACC because of money that does not flow to the student-athletes.  Maybe I'm being too cynical, but if I'm a 20-year old weighing my prospects, I would roll my eyes at a coach making multiple millions of dollars a year, who, in the back of my mind, I know will not hesitate to jump to a bigger program if he can be successful at Stanford.  When the entire system (NCAA, conferences, university presidents, athletic directors, head coach, and all the assistants) are demonstrably only in it for themselves, expecting the athletes to be in it for some mythical greater purpose is naive.

BC