[BillBradley]

Money is not determinative, which is good, or you can just crown Ohio State, Oregon, or Texas today.  Just today an article was published about the football stars who banked millions of dollars in NIL money, and are busts (featuring, everyone's favorite Wolverines).  It's also nice because if money were determinative, nobody would actually watch the games.

But having said that, look at the Athletic article:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/interac...g-budgets/

The 7 teams with a budget of $41 - $46 million have a 47% chance of making the CFB playoffs.  Spending money is not determinative, but it is probably the most reliable and reproducible way to win.  Everything else, finding the "right" coach, setting the "right" environment, having a "commitment to winning" etc. winds up being a "just so" story, a narrative that you can craft to explain the winning after the fact, but not generally not before.  Because if there were a secret sauce, a recipe that any old team could simply follow to get you to football success, then everyone would have followed it.  The recipe winds up being "spend money", but the problem is that not everyone has the money to spend (or the willingness to spend it), including Stanford, so not everyone can fund the path to success.

As to "having someone else at the helm": a) we've had three different people from very different backgrounds at the helm, including one who was very successful for a good period of time, until he wasn't, one w"ho was successful at a lower division football program, and one who came from the pros, and b) the first thing any hire we would want would demand is money to shape the roster.

BC

Sorry, I'm having trouble connecting the dots. You say of the top money spenders, less than half of them have a chance at even making the playoffs. I feel like that supports the point I was making. But then you go on to say "the recipe winds up being "spend money", and I don't know how you got to that conclusion. 

Also, there's a big difference between taking steps to "spend more" vs. a full-send "spend $40M+". We can improve our talent level without having to match the LSU's of the world. 

The article is behind a paywall for me.

[BillBradley]

Money is not determinative, which is good, or you can just crown Ohio State, Oregon, or Texas today.  Just today an article was published about the football stars who banked millions of dollars in NIL money, and are busts (featuring, everyone's favorite Wolverines).  It's also nice because if money were determinative, nobody would actually watch the games.

But having said that, look at the Athletic article:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/interac...g-budgets/

The 7 teams with a budget of $41 - $46 million have a 47% chance of making the CFB playoffs.  Spending money is not determinative, but it is probably the most reliable and reproducible way to win.  Everything else, finding the "right" coach, setting the "right" environment, having a "commitment to winning" etc. winds up being a "just so" story, a narrative that you can craft to explain the winning after the fact, but not generally not before.  Because if there were a secret sauce, a recipe that any old team could simply follow to get you to football success, then everyone would have followed it.  The recipe winds up being "spend money", but the problem is that not everyone has the money to spend (or the willingness to spend it), including Stanford, so not everyone can fund the path to success.

As to "having someone else at the helm": a) we've had three different people from very different backgrounds at the helm, including one who was very successful for a good period of time, until he wasn't, one w"ho was successful at a lower division football program, and one who came from the pros, and b) the first thing any hire we would want would demand is money to shape the roster.

BC

Sorry, I'm having trouble connecting the dots. You say of the top money spenders, less than half of them have a chance at even making the playoffs. I feel like that supports the point I was making. But then you go on to say "the recipe winds up being "spend money", and I don't know how you got to that conclusion. 

Also, there's a big difference between taking steps to "spend more" vs. a full-send "spend $40M+". We can improve our talent level without having to match the LSU's of the world. 

The article is behind a paywall for me.