(03-10-2022, 01:36 PM)JohnR34231 Wrote: (03-10-2022, 10:20 AM)teejers1 Wrote: (03-10-2022, 10:13 AM)2006alum Wrote: (03-10-2022, 09:52 AM)teejers1 Wrote: (03-09-2022, 11:35 PM)2006alum Wrote: Wilner cuts quite close to the bone. And his exposition elucidates why Muir and Haase both need to go. Complacent mediocrity is the MO of the AD these days, and a shelf clearing seems the only way to rectify it.
That said, the idea that the football team's recent history is anywhere near the basketball team's is risible at best. We've won more Rose Bowls in the past decade than we've won NCAA bids - - period. That doesn't mean our football team doesn't also need an overhaul, but to suggest the leading indicator for mediocrity is the football program is to overlook the obvious. Sadly, the best debate we have going these days is which program is more hopelessly lost in the weeds...
You used the word "collapse," and I'd argue that football is WAY closer to a "collapse" than is basketball, which as you note has been stuck at .500 overall (or thereabouts) for years and years.
[And of course, I credit Shaw WAY less than many for Stanford's "multiple Rose Bowls." I've already delineated why that is, so no need to repeat it here.]
Read again - I didn't use the word collapse, Wilner did. And look, at this point, if I were the AD I'd tell Shaw he needs to hire a dedicated OC and clean house with his assistants or be ready to walk himself. But Stanford football has won a divisional title and multiple bowl games in the past half decade (equivalent of at least a solid, if not spectacular, post-season run). The trendline is worse because there's farther to fall; but we also have demonstrable evidence that Shaw has, for many years in a row, coached a successful Stanford football team. With a dedicated OC, a better strength and conditioning coach, and some new assistants, I don't think it's beyond rescue.
With MBB, there are *no* signs of success with Haase, not even the glimmers of hope like Dawkins' miraculous Sweet 16 Run in 2014. Nothing, nada, zilch.
When I came to Stanford, it was known as a basketball school. Yes, a lot fo that was Monty, but Monty brought us a lot of success for over a decade, and it's not like he's some all-time-one-of-a-kind coach. He was a very good college coach. We have an insanely large endowment and rich boosters who want our sports programs to succeed. There's simply no excuse for this, and for the life of me, I don't understand why Muir tolerates it, nor why the Administration tolerates Muir's complacency.
Okay, my bad. I thought you were embracing Wilner's article, which ended by borrowing from the "If a tree falls in the forest . . ." rhetorical question.
P.S. Shaw has needed to hire a real OC and get the hell out of his way for his entire tenure, including when he had Harbaugh's superior players and managed to underperform with them. Now that he has only "his" players - w/o any Harbaugh Effect (including in recruiting) - the deficiency is so painfully clear that everyone sees it now.
Shaw "underperformed" with Harbaugh's players by going to four NY6 bowls in five years?
SMH on that one.
Pep Hamilton was Shaw's OC in '11 and '12. The 2011 offense, led by Andrew Luck, averaged 43 points p/g and close to 500 yards p/g in Total Offense. That offense was loaded with some damn good talent, including a QB who was considered by some NFL people as the best at his position in 25 years.
Hamilton examined the personnel he had to work with in the spring of '12 and determined that there was no way Stanford's offense was going to be able to run the same stuff that they did in '11. Besides Luck, the QB who vaulted Harbaugh to the NFL, there were a number of other key losses, especially with playmakers and field-stretchers.
It was Harbaugh who brought physical offensive football to Stanford, it was after he and Luck departed that Stanford became Even More physical. Pep and Shaw concluded that the best chance for Stanford to win games and contend for championships was to slow the pace of games down, shorten games with a ball control offense, and to keep the teams with offenses equipped with superior athletes and with breakneck tempo on the sidelines for many minutes at a time.
For the most part it worked, beautifully. Did Stanford have good defenses in '12 and '13? Yes, but those defenses also received a big assist from its offense. I'm certain that Shaw's teams would not have won conference titles those two seasons if they had attempted to run any other type of offense, given the players they had.
I'm very much hoping that Stanford will return to the smash mouth football. Shaw did allude to getting realigned with "Intellectual Brutality". We'll have to see what that means.
