(04-02-2025, 05:54 PM)Goose Wrote: (04-02-2025, 05:24 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Maybe, just maybe, the spring portal is open or soon will be. The coaches who are here have made bonds and connections with possible transfers, as I'd imagine the assistant coaches are the ones who drove a lot of that. Reich steps in, and that is a brobdingnagian plus towards bringing in guys, even if it's just for a year. That said, losing the connections that the assistants have made would end anything that's possibly coming our way, or could now be enticed to come our way. Just a thought.
Even more importantly they may have some influence on our current roster. The guys that had "issues" staff as it was have probably already left. Bringing in new staff members with no time at all to integrate them into a coherent whole is a recipe for disaster, at least in the short term. If Reich intended to bring in some of this "own" people he would have has about a week to make that happen in terms of negotiating terms etc. Then these new coaches would have to participate in running a spring practice in the next week. They wouldn't even yet know the names and functions of their colleagues, let alone the players. It this whole mess had evolved even a month earlier it MIGHT have made sense to do some immediate additional coaching staff changes. In the event, it couldn't reasonably be done, even assuming there were candidates "ready to go", which IMO is highly improbable.
While a "good" spring practice may indeed not be a make-or-break element of next seasons success, a disorganized incoherent one could easily convince quite a few players that Stanford doesn't have a clue on how to run a football program. There is already some evidence it does not. It might not take much more to create a rush for the portal. That is a risk even with a relatively well run spring practice given recent events. Players may be thinking about seeing what the "new guy" brings and if it isn't adequately convincing, move on.
Hiring Reich is about the best thing that Luck could have done in terms of keeping guys. Almost all these young people want to play at the next level. Taylor was not the guy to teach them what they need to know about that. Now we pretty much have a coach who holds a PhD in coaching and playing in the NFL. So if I am someone like Brown or Bachmier and hope to play in the NFL who better to coach you than a guy who played 14 years in the NFL at their position.
(04-03-2025, 10:49 AM)fullmetal Wrote: Maybe. He was sitting on a couch for a whole year after getting unceremoniously booted from Carolina for failing to make Bryce Young into Steve Young. Luck probably sold Reich on this as a rehab stint -- would the NFL take him after a *bad* year at Stanford if the NFL left him on the couch last season? I think he'll have to show something before the league looks his way as a coordinator, a position coach, analyst, or something. I could be wrong, it could have been just slack demand in the coaching marketplace last season, but surely there was a reason. I'm hoping for amazing success this fall.
It seems to me that if Reich can win 6 games and get us to a bowl game it would be an achievement of large proportions. If that happens Luck and Levin should simply back up the Brinks truck to Reichs home and say How Much.
