[d4cohn]

The difference in talent between the two team is so wide. Seriously going to need to spend much more money than we have previously to attract better players out of the portal. Not sure we are willing to do that. If we don't, I'm not sure we can ever be competitive against these top teams.

Is there really a consensus on this board that Stanford SHOULD spend "much more money" to attract better players out of the portal? There comes a point when doing so would be something we should be bloody ashamed of. Stanford is a world-class university in Silicon Valley, not the south or midwest, and, demographically and in terms of interests, its student body is far from what it used to be. Increasingly, students come to Stanford to learn CS, MS&E, EE, and a few other fields of engineering and how to create their own startups. Relatively few come to study the humanities, the social sciences (except for econ), and pre-med. Is such a student body really going to come out to Stanford football games the quite different student body used to? I doubt it. Trying to save Stanford football is like the Dutch boy putting his finger into a hole in the dyke to plug up a leak. The leaks are now proliferating and significant progress in recovering real competitiveness seems unlikely. At least we've got an excellent basketball coach and a pretty good team since Kyle arrived.

A university like Stanford has been elite at developing students in academic pursuits, for their chosen professions, and for their growth as human beings. On the second point, while Stanford has produced incredible CS grads who have founded some of the biggest companies in the world, Stanford has also produced great actors/actresses, influencers, commentators etc. In a world where technology can increasingly do the jobs that were Stanford's proverbial "bread-and-butter" (e.g. software development, finance, and even research that is the underpinning of the "billable hour" model in law), Stanford will need to adapt not just in athletics (if it still wants be an elite Division I AD) if it wants to stay on the forefront of overall career development (which is a big reason people pay whatever high tuition rate they individually pay). I can envision a future if we don't adapt where Stanford becomes a medical center, a VC/hedge fund (our endowment arm), and whatever form the future AD takes (e.g. elite Division I, Ivy, disband and everything in between).

[d4cohn]

The difference in talent between the two team is so wide. Seriously going to need to spend much more money than we have previously to attract better players out of the portal. Not sure we are willing to do that. If we don't, I'm not sure we can ever be competitive against these top teams.

Is there really a consensus on this board that Stanford SHOULD spend "much more money" to attract better players out of the portal? There comes a point when doing so would be something we should be bloody ashamed of. Stanford is a world-class university in Silicon Valley, not the south or midwest, and, demographically and in terms of interests, its student body is far from what it used to be. Increasingly, students come to Stanford to learn CS, MS&E, EE, and a few other fields of engineering and how to create their own startups. Relatively few come to study the humanities, the social sciences (except for econ), and pre-med. Is such a student body really going to come out to Stanford football games the quite different student body used to? I doubt it. Trying to save Stanford football is like the Dutch boy putting his finger into a hole in the dyke to plug up a leak. The leaks are now proliferating and significant progress in recovering real competitiveness seems unlikely. At least we've got an excellent basketball coach and a pretty good team since Kyle arrived.

A university like Stanford has been elite at developing students in academic pursuits, for their chosen professions, and for their growth as human beings. On the second point, while Stanford has produced incredible CS grads who have founded some of the biggest companies in the world, Stanford has also produced great actors/actresses, influencers, commentators etc. In a world where technology can increasingly do the jobs that were Stanford's proverbial "bread-and-butter" (e.g. software development, finance, and even research that is the underpinning of the "billable hour" model in law), Stanford will need to adapt not just in athletics (if it still wants be an elite Division I AD) if it wants to stay on the forefront of overall career development (which is a big reason people pay whatever high tuition rate they individually pay). I can envision a future if we don't adapt where Stanford becomes a medical center, a VC/hedge fund (our endowment arm), and whatever form the future AD takes (e.g. elite Division I, Ivy, disband and everything in between).