[msqueri]

I agree that we should think of roster management one year at a time rather than getting sucked in to thinking about three year projections for people who will face annual opportunities to leave. The problem I have is that even if we are simply optimizing for 2025 the evidence so far is that Cisse is a better receiver than Williams. I don't think it's a guarantee but if I had to bet I think Cisse would be the better receiver for us next year. Oh well.

These are supposed to be college students, not part of a roster to be "managed".  Of course I recognize that ship has sailed long ago, but it really kills me that this board is talking like it has given up all pretense that these are supposed to be student athletes not professional football players. 

BC

I actually think you are the one with a misplaced sense of what this is all about. This has been professional entertainment longer than either of us have been alive. It had just operated under a system in which powers-that-be cynically used the term "amateur" to describe something that wasn't (it has been adults working a job to entertain people for a long, long time) and colluded to deny monetary compensation to the workers. Football players would not go to the schools they go to were it not for football. The recent move to a more one year at a time, transactional model just gives the employees more agency in this arrangement. That evolution makes it necessary for those administering programs to "manage" them as they try to construct a roster amidst so much player agency. 

Fundamentally, these players I talk about "managing" are at Stanford to play football. They wouldn't get into the school were it otherwise and their value to the school is the entertainment and revenue they produce. 

I'll go even more fundamental than that: college football has always been an extremely bizarre convenience for communities that want to benefit from the labor of young people in a way that makes them feel a swell of community pride. Everywhere else in the world this is recognized as professional or semi-professional sports. I think if we really were talking about the purpose of universities sports in the way we've defined it for decades would have nothing to do with the conversation. College football is not about college at all and it never has been. It's about entertainment and community. I can't get outraged or sad about the twists and turns of college sports finally bringing it toward greater alignment with that reality.

[msqueri]

I agree that we should think of roster management one year at a time rather than getting sucked in to thinking about three year projections for people who will face annual opportunities to leave. The problem I have is that even if we are simply optimizing for 2025 the evidence so far is that Cisse is a better receiver than Williams. I don't think it's a guarantee but if I had to bet I think Cisse would be the better receiver for us next year. Oh well.

These are supposed to be college students, not part of a roster to be "managed".  Of course I recognize that ship has sailed long ago, but it really kills me that this board is talking like it has given up all pretense that these are supposed to be student athletes not professional football players. 

BC

I actually think you are the one with a misplaced sense of what this is all about. This has been professional entertainment longer than either of us have been alive. It had just operated under a system in which powers-that-be cynically used the term "amateur" to describe something that wasn't (it has been adults working a job to entertain people for a long, long time) and colluded to deny monetary compensation to the workers. Football players would not go to the schools they go to were it not for football. The recent move to a more one year at a time, transactional model just gives the employees more agency in this arrangement. That evolution makes it necessary for those administering programs to "manage" them as they try to construct a roster amidst so much player agency. 

Fundamentally, these players I talk about "managing" are at Stanford to play football. They wouldn't get into the school were it otherwise and their value to the school is the entertainment and revenue they produce. 

I'll go even more fundamental than that: college football has always been an extremely bizarre convenience for communities that want to benefit from the labor of young people in a way that makes them feel a swell of community pride. Everywhere else in the world this is recognized as professional or semi-professional sports. I think if we really were talking about the purpose of universities sports in the way we've defined it for decades would have nothing to do with the conversation. College football is not about college at all and it never has been. It's about entertainment and community. I can't get outraged or sad about the twists and turns of college sports finally bringing it toward greater alignment with that reality.