[BostonCard]

There is an element of post hoc ergo propter hoc to all of this.  I mean, USC also invested a crap ton in NIL, recruited well, and picked a top, proven coach, for which it was rewarded with a losing Big Ten record and an overall pretty mediocre outcome (though one we'd be thrilled with, I'm sure).

Every year, you can pick a handful of programs and say "look, we should imitate them", without recognizing that pretty much every D1 program is trying to do what the successful ones are doing, just not as effectively.

At the end of the day, I don't think we should do "whatever it takes", and even if this group, collectively decides that we do in fact want to do whatever it takes, I don't think it is in our institutional DNA to do so.  Stanford's identity is not wrapped up in being a successful Tier 1 football program the way Notre Dame's is.  Even making the case that Stanford's identity is elite academics and athletics is probably a stretch.

One other quick comment I have is that there is a tendency towards what I call "Green Lantern thinking" (a reference to the "Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency", a theory described here (https://www.vox.com/2014/5/20/5732208/th...-explained, which is that “the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.")  I think we see a similar idea amongst sports fans, especially college sports fans, which is that success at school x can be achieved if the administration "tries hard enough or uses the right tactics".  The problem is that there are 134 FBS football schools, and the fan bases of all of them think the exact same thing.  Yet only 12 (<10% make the CFB playoff), and only 1 (0.7%) can win a championship every year.  When Calfan says "Cal could be a perennial football powerhouse if only the administration tried hard enough or usedt he right tactics, we scoff, but Stanford has a lifetime .570 winning percentage, not that much better than Cal's .546.

BC

[BostonCard]

There is an element of post hoc ergo propter hoc to all of this.  I mean, USC also invested a crap ton in NIL, recruited well, and picked a top, proven coach, for which it was rewarded with a losing Big Ten record and an overall pretty mediocre outcome (though one we'd be thrilled with, I'm sure).

Every year, you can pick a handful of programs and say "look, we should imitate them", without recognizing that pretty much every D1 program is trying to do what the successful ones are doing, just not as effectively.

At the end of the day, I don't think we should do "whatever it takes", and even if this group, collectively decides that we do in fact want to do whatever it takes, I don't think it is in our institutional DNA to do so.  Stanford's identity is not wrapped up in being a successful Tier 1 football program the way Notre Dame's is.  Even making the case that Stanford's identity is elite academics and athletics is probably a stretch.

One other quick comment I have is that there is a tendency towards what I call "Green Lantern thinking" (a reference to the "Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency", a theory described here (https://www.vox.com/2014/5/20/5732208/th...-explained, which is that “the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.")  I think we see a similar idea amongst sports fans, especially college sports fans, which is that success at school x can be achieved if the administration "tries hard enough or uses the right tactics".  The problem is that there are 134 FBS football schools, and the fan bases of all of them think the exact same thing.  Yet only 12 (<10% make the CFB playoff), and only 1 (0.7%) can win a championship every year.  When Calfan says "Cal could be a perennial football powerhouse if only the administration tried hard enough or usedt he right tactics, we scoff, but Stanford has a lifetime .570 winning percentage, not that much better than Cal's .546.

BC