10-21-2024, 12:19 PM
Back in the day, the third year usually told you what you needed to know.* I don't know if or how that's changed with the portal. We should be coming out of the Covid strange times of insane eligibility where there are so many men among the boys.
Interesting thinking back on Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh, the most recent coaches with relatively short careers here. How where they doing after two years?
Teevens won six games in two years. Canned after three full seasons. Well liked (?), but I heard rumblings of great player dissatisfaction with how lax everything was. That was going nowhere. Easy decision. At the time they had no trouble attracting a legitimate coach that looked OK on paper. Some more due diligence would not have hurt.
Harris won six games in two years and 2006 was a total disaster. Somehow they beat UW, but he was rightfully canned by Bowlsby without destroying the University's reputation or the ability to find the next coach. Apparently players went to Bowlsby, which is why Harris didn't get Teevens' third year. That and Bob wasn't Ted. These days players can just leave without penalty, so they probably won't revolt. (A good thing. It shouldn't take player revolts.) Harris' quick termination didn't phase Harbaugh. Coaches don't think they are owed anything other than their super-lucrative contracts.
Harbaugh won nine games in two years. Not a world beater, but five awful years preceded him and there was something there, especially in 2007. I mean we watched the dude paint Marinelli's face with his blood during a game. Not Stanford at all and I don't know whether people liked the guy, but as the late great Denny Green once said, 'sometimes what a Stanford player needs most is a boot up his ass.' I recall some open muttering after 2008 (odd mix of close loses and blowout losses and five wins) but the payoff came soon thereafter. I'll never understand why Luck was redshirted. Heard it was at his request, but he was better than anything Stanford rolled out there and hard to believe Luck was that worried about playing behind a leaky line.
It is the AD's job to figure out how long to hang on to coaches that are losing. Or winning. I think Stanford can financially afford to churn coaches, but I don't know. I don't think Taylor has a Norvellesque buyout attached.
*My Stanford fandom started with Elway in his second year, but I looked back to Ralston to check out third seasons. For the most part, every coach did about as well or better as he was going to do in total, by that third year. Walsh's third season with an echo of Green's team is an outlier. Probably all moot now in the professional era, but for what it is or isn't worth:
Ralston (1965) 6-3-1 (0.650) record at Stanford 0.601
Christiansen (1974) 5-4-2 (0.545) record at Stanford 0.573
Walsh (1992) 10-3 (0.769) record at Stanford 0.585
Dowhower (n/a) record at Stanford 0.500
Wiggin (1982) 5-6 (0.455) record at Stanford 0.364
Elway (1986) 8-4 (0.667) record at Stanford 0.464
Green (1991) 8-4 (0.667) record at Stanford 0.471
Willingham (1997) 5-6 (0.455) record at Stanford 0.549
Teevens (2004) 4-7 (0.364) record at Stanford 0.303
Harris (n/a) record at Stanford 0.261
Harbaugh (2009) 8-5 (0.615) record at Stanford 0.580
Shaw (2013) 11-3 (0.786) record at Stanford 0.640
Taylor sits at 5-14 (0.263) with five games left this year. If he wins them all, he's at 0.417 and a good year next year probably gets him going. He's not going to win them all. Two more wins seems reasonable enough. That would put him at 0.292 and out of dead last among all coaches since 1960. I would then give him another year. Lose them all and all by double digits? I've seen enough.
Interesting thinking back on Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh, the most recent coaches with relatively short careers here. How where they doing after two years?
Teevens won six games in two years. Canned after three full seasons. Well liked (?), but I heard rumblings of great player dissatisfaction with how lax everything was. That was going nowhere. Easy decision. At the time they had no trouble attracting a legitimate coach that looked OK on paper. Some more due diligence would not have hurt.
Harris won six games in two years and 2006 was a total disaster. Somehow they beat UW, but he was rightfully canned by Bowlsby without destroying the University's reputation or the ability to find the next coach. Apparently players went to Bowlsby, which is why Harris didn't get Teevens' third year. That and Bob wasn't Ted. These days players can just leave without penalty, so they probably won't revolt. (A good thing. It shouldn't take player revolts.) Harris' quick termination didn't phase Harbaugh. Coaches don't think they are owed anything other than their super-lucrative contracts.
Harbaugh won nine games in two years. Not a world beater, but five awful years preceded him and there was something there, especially in 2007. I mean we watched the dude paint Marinelli's face with his blood during a game. Not Stanford at all and I don't know whether people liked the guy, but as the late great Denny Green once said, 'sometimes what a Stanford player needs most is a boot up his ass.' I recall some open muttering after 2008 (odd mix of close loses and blowout losses and five wins) but the payoff came soon thereafter. I'll never understand why Luck was redshirted. Heard it was at his request, but he was better than anything Stanford rolled out there and hard to believe Luck was that worried about playing behind a leaky line.
It is the AD's job to figure out how long to hang on to coaches that are losing. Or winning. I think Stanford can financially afford to churn coaches, but I don't know. I don't think Taylor has a Norvellesque buyout attached.
*My Stanford fandom started with Elway in his second year, but I looked back to Ralston to check out third seasons. For the most part, every coach did about as well or better as he was going to do in total, by that third year. Walsh's third season with an echo of Green's team is an outlier. Probably all moot now in the professional era, but for what it is or isn't worth:
Ralston (1965) 6-3-1 (0.650) record at Stanford 0.601
Christiansen (1974) 5-4-2 (0.545) record at Stanford 0.573
Walsh (1992) 10-3 (0.769) record at Stanford 0.585
Dowhower (n/a) record at Stanford 0.500
Wiggin (1982) 5-6 (0.455) record at Stanford 0.364
Elway (1986) 8-4 (0.667) record at Stanford 0.464
Green (1991) 8-4 (0.667) record at Stanford 0.471
Willingham (1997) 5-6 (0.455) record at Stanford 0.549
Teevens (2004) 4-7 (0.364) record at Stanford 0.303
Harris (n/a) record at Stanford 0.261
Harbaugh (2009) 8-5 (0.615) record at Stanford 0.580
Shaw (2013) 11-3 (0.786) record at Stanford 0.640
Taylor sits at 5-14 (0.263) with five games left this year. If he wins them all, he's at 0.417 and a good year next year probably gets him going. He's not going to win them all. Two more wins seems reasonable enough. That would put him at 0.292 and out of dead last among all coaches since 1960. I would then give him another year. Lose them all and all by double digits? I've seen enough.