[81alum]

One thing I have noticed is that "young" teams--and this team is the most inexperienced team Stanford has started in decades--are prone to go on emotional roller coasters.  Losses can shake confidence, and lack of confidence can lead to losses.  There can be a downhill snowball effect.  

It is imperative that we win and soon to break out of this trend.  But being imperative just makes it harder to do so.

Clemson is a significantly better team than SMU.  Then coming in to Maples are Florida State and North Carolina State--both top 25 teams.  It is easy to see an epic losing streak in the making.

In the era of easy transfers, it is critical to have success every year, or else good players may transfer out and highly ranked recruits may change their minds.  We cannot chalk this up to "rebuilding" when all our competition is "reloading."  For example, you could say that SMU's 7 transfers outplayed our 2 transfers.

Did I mention that it is imperative that we beat Clemson on Sunday?  On the one hand it seems like just another nondescript game in the middle of a disappointing season.  But for the reasons just stated, it has now become our most important game of the year.

[81alum]

One thing I have noticed is that "young" teams--and this team is the most inexperienced team Stanford has started in decades--are prone to go on emotional roller coasters.  Losses can shake confidence, and lack of confidence can lead to losses.  There can be a downhill snowball effect.  

It is imperative that we win and soon to break out of this trend.  But being imperative just makes it harder to do so.

Clemson is a significantly better team than SMU.  Then coming in to Maples are Florida State and North Carolina State--both top 25 teams.  It is easy to see an epic losing streak in the making.

In the era of easy transfers, it is critical to have success every year, or else good players may transfer out and highly ranked recruits may change their minds.  We cannot chalk this up to "rebuilding" when all our competition is "reloading."  For example, you could say that SMU's 7 transfers outplayed our 2 transfers.

Did I mention that it is imperative that we beat Clemson on Sunday?  On the one hand it seems like just another nondescript game in the middle of a disappointing season.  But for the reasons just stated, it has now become our most important game of the year.