Stanford needs to buy players this off-season. Lifetime Cardinal, donors, the university, and whomever else is necessary needs to support a one-time massive expenditure of money to buy at least 10 admittable, high-quality transfers.
This staff can't recruit high schoolers at the level necessary to reverse our fortunes. As much as I like Troy, the decisive moment was when we didn't get Jason Garrett or someone else of his national standing and chose the self-selector. We don't need a schematic wizard as head coach. We need someone who can get the Jesses and Joes. Garrett would have immediately helped with that much more effectively than Taylor.
Oh well, Stanford went cheap, and here we are. After four consecutive tramplings, the evidence is clear: We must pony up the cash to stay in the race.
There are some precedents for why I believe Stanford could get on board with a big money push for transfers. The athletic department and university (as it pertains to athletics) have a history of waiting until things go to shit before they make uncomfortable decisions or break from tradition.
Fans spent years frustrated when we lost a recruit who wanted to enroll early. Stanford kept saying, "That's not us. It's essential to keep freshmen classes together." Shaw and the coaches parrotted the company line. Some people on this forum were sympathetic about the reasoning and questioned whether changing more things that further separate athletes from everyone else was a good idea. Then, the wheels fell off the program, and suddenly, it was Okay to allow early enrollees.
Stanford won't change to help get football transfers. Remember that? Graduate schools are independent, and it's too damn bad their admission schedules don't work with athletics recruiting windows. That's just how Stanford is different; it stands for student-athletes, not athlete-students. Then, the wheels fell off the program, and suddenly, we created a baccalaureate program expressly to get grad transfers, and the university opened up more transfer slots.
NIL collectives all over the place worked closely with universities for several years while Stanford acted like theirs was a bastard child that they wouldn't stop but wouldn't endorse, either. The first collectives launched in the summer of 2021. Stanford released a statement publicly associating itself with its own almost three years later. It had become unavoidable if we wanted to compete in the NIL world. So, that's when Stanford made a move.
There are older examples involving long-gone administrators. Remember when we upped admissions standards to the point that it strangled the football program (and others)? Then, new leaders showed up and decided that such standards were unnecessary for Stanford to uphold its values as an elite university. Subsequently, the university lowered academic requirements for football recruits significantly below every other team on campus, let alone non-athletes. The university's academic reputation didn't implode, football graduation rates stayed high, and the move helped us become a powerhouse—helping boost applications.
We're not going to pay football coaches big money! Assistants can find an apartment somewhere. We're not a sports factory; we're a university that happens to excel in athletics. Fast-forward: Never mind. Let's build a bunch of on-campus housing for coaches and shatter the previous ceiling for the head coach's compensation because we must if we want to win in major college football.
Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying. However, I believe my argument still holds up.
I know what I'm proposing won't happen. Stanford will crawl ahead, not because it wants to kill football but because that's how it makes decisions. Taylor will be let go after four years without a winning season—which is always the best bet for a coach hired to rebuild a fixer-upper anyway. Assuming Stanford decides to stay in major college football, we'll hire someone slightly more qualified and try again.
Or ...
Maybe we can beat Wake Forest and San Jose State to set up a Big Game where it feels meaningful to win a fifth game. Perhaps we get a couple of impact transfers and enough guys stay to build a better team. Hopefully, after another off-season of strength-and-conditioning and the 24-year-old linemen are gone from other teams, we'll be significantly better at the line of scrimmage. Maybe.
What I know for certain is that I'm ready for basketball. Wake me up for the season openers.
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