[BostonCard]

UCLA did not luck out with Chesney. They did the smart thing hiring a coach who had excelled at Salve Regina, Assumption, Holy Cross, and James Madison. I started hyping him as a desirable coaching candidate in February 2022. If people pay attention to up-and-coming coaching candidates you can have a good sense of who will be more likely to succeed at higher levels. Stanford did a deeply foolish thing hiring Tavita Pritchard.

For instance, a name that makes my heart sink knowing he is still coaching Group of Six and we are where we are is Jason Eck. We are not serious people.

I'm sure you've done a where are they now with your 2022 head coaching candidate list.  Probably depressing reading because if memory serves Curt Cignetti was pretty high on the list.  That being said, looking back historically in the 21st century, other than Harbaugh (and given his show cause finding at Michigan, we may have dodged a bullet when he left after a few seasons for the NFL) Stanford does not have a great track record hiring external head coaches:

Buddy Teevens: 3 seasons 10-23 record, fired
Walt Harris: 2 seasons 6-17 record, fired
Harbaugh: 4 seasons, 29-21 record, 2 bowl games, left for the NFL
Not including Shaw because he wasn't an external hire and I have no desire to debate his tenure
Troy Taylor: 2 seasons, 6-18 record + scandal, fired
Frank Reich: 1 season, 4-8 record [placeholder]
Tavita Pritchard: <1 season, 2-4 record

That's across four different AD's and three or four different Presidents, so it doesn't suggest it's an isolated problem.  It's not even solely a "new era" problem isolated to the NIL era, though I will freely admit we had better success in the Tyrone Willingham era (but even that was up and down), and before that Denny Green [but at least those coaches were clearly better than these].  Nor do the coaches clearly fit a pattern; Teevens was an assistant at Florida with Steve Spurrier.  Harris had success at Pitt.  Taylor had success at Sac State.  Pritchard had NFL experience as a coordinator.  Our one successful guy, Harbaugh, was successful in non-scholarship FCS (USD).  In some ways, the Harbaugh/early Shaw era is the interlude, a respite to a bunch of bad teams and bad coaches since the curse of the Seattle Bowl.

BC

[BostonCard]

UCLA did not luck out with Chesney. They did the smart thing hiring a coach who had excelled at Salve Regina, Assumption, Holy Cross, and James Madison. I started hyping him as a desirable coaching candidate in February 2022. If people pay attention to up-and-coming coaching candidates you can have a good sense of who will be more likely to succeed at higher levels. Stanford did a deeply foolish thing hiring Tavita Pritchard.

For instance, a name that makes my heart sink knowing he is still coaching Group of Six and we are where we are is Jason Eck. We are not serious people.

I'm sure you've done a where are they now with your 2022 head coaching candidate list.  Probably depressing reading because if memory serves Curt Cignetti was pretty high on the list.  That being said, looking back historically in the 21st century, other than Harbaugh (and given his show cause finding at Michigan, we may have dodged a bullet when he left after a few seasons for the NFL) Stanford does not have a great track record hiring external head coaches:

Buddy Teevens: 3 seasons 10-23 record, fired
Walt Harris: 2 seasons 6-17 record, fired
Harbaugh: 4 seasons, 29-21 record, 2 bowl games, left for the NFL
Not including Shaw because he wasn't an external hire and I have no desire to debate his tenure
Troy Taylor: 2 seasons, 6-18 record + scandal, fired
Frank Reich: 1 season, 4-8 record [placeholder]
Tavita Pritchard: <1 season, 2-4 record

That's across four different AD's and three or four different Presidents, so it doesn't suggest it's an isolated problem.  It's not even solely a "new era" problem isolated to the NIL era, though I will freely admit we had better success in the Tyrone Willingham era (but even that was up and down), and before that Denny Green [but at least those coaches were clearly better than these].  Nor do the coaches clearly fit a pattern; Teevens was an assistant at Florida with Steve Spurrier.  Harris had success at Pitt.  Taylor had success at Sac State.  Pritchard had NFL experience as a coordinator.  Our one successful guy, Harbaugh, was successful in non-scholarship FCS (USD).  In some ways, the Harbaugh/early Shaw era is the interlude, a respite to a bunch of bad teams and bad coaches since the curse of the Seattle Bowl.

BC