Read that here.

Read that here.

Read that here.

Read that here.

That’s one take posted by SI.

(Ben, I didn’t see this posted the other day, but if it was, please delete)

Read that here.

Hey guys,

After doing some digging and trying to figure out where Stanford sits with all this NIL stuff, this is what I’ve found out about the NIL program Stanford is launching.

First off, it’s being led by Stanford alum Allen Thorpe, who graduated in 1992. His son Alexander Thorpe was previously on the team as a punter/kicker. He’s no longer on the team as his last season was his junior year in 2021. Alexander majored in Management Science, & Engineering (MS&E). It sounds like Alexander is taking part in helping his dad as are other members of the Thorpe family. Allen loves Stanford and is a guy who really wants to see it succeed. He’s gotten a lot of influential graduates and donors to get involved in this, which is good.

As far as the collective is concerned, it’s going to be called “Lifetime Cardinal LLC”. Stanford wants to make sure they do this right and help to fulfill the lifetime promise of Stanford. They’re not going to tamper with players from other schools and really have reputational integrity be at the core of this collective. It will cover all players both on scholarship and preferred walk-ons. They want it to eventually cover all sports, but they’re starting with football.

This will also be an independent organization. There will be contracts with players around NIL. Players will work with Non-Profits like the Boy’s and Girls Club, YMCAs, and other likeminded organizations. There is a plan to also work with businesses, allowing them to get money for services. There is an effort to connect players with investors, which they see as something that can help set them apart from other programs. And then also get them involved with VCs, PE, Real Estate, and Stanford Investment Professionals.

There will be $10,000 for everyone to start. The first payment will be for $5,000 in March and the second payment will be for the other $5,000 in the summertime. Either July or August. And then there will be additional money for other players. Students will also get 1099s and this will be done in a way that will make sure financial aid won’t be affected.

I know that publicly, Stanford is trying to downplay their involvement in NIL so as to not have it divert from their image of being a school that takes academics first and prioritizes the whole “40 year not 4 year decision” talk, but they’re definitely getting in the game. Even if it isn’t to the same degree/level as other schools.

Note: For more on Allen Thorpe, check out the link below.

https://longevity.stanford.edu/allen-thorpe/

Read that here.

Read that here.

Read that here.

Today's Bay Area Baseball Media Day is here. San Jose State just finished up. Cal is going live. Stanford will go at 11:40 AM: David Esquer, Tommy O'Rourke, and Tommy Troy.

I'll add comments and thoughts from Stanford in here and also video once that gets sent out to me.

Ok, team. Here's the challenge for those of you who are the right combination of recruiting nerd and bored: what is your recruiting pitch for the 2024 class? If you really want to have fun, you can do this for each position.

The purpose of this thought experiment is to give everyone a chance to put themselves into the shoes of our coaches and think about the level of difficulty they're facing — which can vary dramatically depending on the position. There are many factors to consider: playing time, NIL, bowl drought and lack of relevancy for several years, future conference uncertainty, fan support, a coach's reputation/résumé, etc.

I'll chime in later but wanted to toss this out there and see who wants to carry it the first few yards.

Read that here.

Read that here.

As I’m sure many of you noticed, Rivals was down today. But as you can probably tell by reading this message, Rivals is back up!

The issue was due to an outage with a global provider that provides services to multiple sites. Not just Rivals. Rivals is working closely with the provider to make sure this doesn’t happen again or at least better understand what caused it so we can minimize the odds of it happening again, etc.

Thankfully it got resolved as soon as it did, but just thought I would provide an explanation for those that were wondering what the deal was and also those who didn’t see the posts on the Stanford Rivals Twitter and Facebook pages.

I've been mulling over McKee's draft stock and wanted to get data to interrogate my own bias that unproductive college QBs should be avoided in the NFL draft. Below is my stab at it: the career best college Total QBR ratings of the NFL QBs drafted since 2012. I think this can put into perspective McKee's lack of production, as demonstrated by his career best year of 2021 having a Total QBR of 65.1. What I found:

1. Mac Jones - 96.1
2. Kyler Murray - 95.4
3. Joe Burrow - 94.9
4. Tua Tagovailoa - 94.8
5. Russell Wilson - 94.1
6. Andrew Luck - 93.8
7. Jalen Hurts - 92.7
8. Baker Mayfield - 92.3
9. Justin Fields - 92.1
10. Marcus Mariota - 91.3
10. Johnny Manziel - 91.3
12. Deshaun Watson - 90.9
13. Jameis Winston - 90.2
14. Matt Corral - 89.9
15. Zach Wilson - 88.6
16. Kyle Trask - 88.5
17. Aaron Murray - 88.1
18. Brandon Allen - 88.0
19. Trevor Lawrence - 87.3
19. Kevin Hogan - 87.3
21. Chad Kelly - 86.9
22. Zach Mettenberger - 86.8
22. Bryce Petty - 86.8
24. Mason Rudolph - 86.7
25. Dak Prescott - 86.5
26. Sam Darnold - 86.2
26. Jarrett Stidham - 86.2
28. Lamar Jackson - 85.4
29. Jake Fromm - 85.1
30. AJ McCarron - 84.9
31. Dwayne Haskins - 84.8
32. Jared Goff - 84.2
33. Brett Hundley - 84.1
34. Teddy Bridgewater - 84.0
34. Ian Book - 84.0
36. Mitchell Trubisky - 83.6
37. Robert Griffin III - 83.5
38. Brandon Doughty - 82.9
39. Brandon Weeden - 82.6
40. Patrick Mahomes - 82.5
41. Connor Cook - 82.3
42. Matt Barkley - 82.2
43. Drew Lock - 82.0
43. Jake Rudock - 82.0
45. Tajh Boyd - 81.8
46. Trace McSorley - 81.5
47. Kenny Pickett - 81.2
47. Nathan Peterman - 81.2
49. Landry Jones - 81.1
50. Will Grier - 81.0
51. Desmond Ridder - 80.9
52. Danny Etling - 80.8
53. Ryan Finley - 80.4
53. Davis Webb - 80.4
55. Justin Herbert - 80.1
56. Joshua Dobbs - 79.8
57. Blake Bortles - 79.6
58. Cody Kessler - 79.5
59. Geno Smith - 79.4
60. Sam Howell - 79.3
61. Deshone Kizer - 79.1
62. Brock Purdy - 78.8
63. Malik Willis - 78.7
63. Chandler Harnish - 78.7
65. Bailey Zappe - 78.6
66. Logan Woodside - 77.9
67. Sam Ehlinger - 77.6
67. Mike White - 77.6
67. David Fales - 77.6
70. Davis Mills - 77.4
71. Derek Carr - 76.6
72. Gardner Minshew - 76.5
73. Skylar Thompson - 76.2
74. Sean Mannion - 75.9
75. Paxton Lynch - 74.9
76. Kellen Mond - 74.9
77. Tyler Wilson - 74.7
78. EJ Manuel - 74.5
79. Nate Stanley - 74.2
80. Kirk Cousins - 74.1
81. Josh Allen - 73.8
81. Nate Sudfeld - 73.8
83. Logan Thomas - 73.3
84. Ryan Lindley - 73.0
85. Daniel Jones - 72.3
86. Luke Falk - 72.0
87. Keith Wenning - 71.6
88. Cole McDonald - 70.8
89. Brock Osweiler - 70.7
90. Nick Foles - 70.2
91. Clayton Thorson - 70.0
92. Ryan Tannehill - 69.7
92. CJ Beathard - 69.7
94. Brad Kaaya - 69.4
94. Garrett Grayson - 69.4
96. Jacoby Brissett - 68.9
97. James Morgan - 68.8
98. Jeff Driskel - 68.4
98. Josh Rosen - 68.4
100. Jake Luton - 68.2
101. Ryan Nassib - 68.0
102. Jordan Love - 67.8
103. Sean Renfree - 66.2
104. Jacob Eason - 65.9
105. Tommy Stevens - 65.3
106. Tom Savage - 64.2
107. Garrett Gilbert - 62.8
108. Tanner Lee - 61.6
109. Alex McGough - 61.5
110. BJ Daniels - 61.0
111. Trevor Siemian - 60.7
112. Zac Dysert - 60.3
113. Christian Hackenberg - 58.3
114. Mike Glennon - 57.8
115. Cardale Jones - 56.1

N/A (Non-FBS so not measurable by Total QBR): BJ Coleman, Brad Sorensen, Jimmy Garoppolo, Carson Wentz, Kyle Lauletta, Easton Stick, Ben DiNucci (60.5 before transferring but drafted on basis of later seasons), Trey Lance, Chris Oladokun

I'm sorry to say it but if I had a vote for an NFL franchise, McKee would be straight-up undraftable. Not a single spot in the draft I'd want him at. If you look at the above I think it's pretty clear that a QB with his lack of college success is a very poor bet. Part of me feels bad for him that he came to Stanford when he did because I have to believe that if he was at Stanford at any sort of fun or even tolerable time he would have stuck around long enough to have given teams a reason to draft him. Honestly, I think the late Shaw era poisoned our players' brains and twisted their mentality on when it makes sense to declare for the NFL. It was not rational for McKee to leave when he did. He's a terrible risk for an NFL franchise and, if they're looking at the data, they should stay away entirely.

A couple of interesting nuggets in this piece…

Ten weeks ago, when Stanford made its first phone call to Petersen, he politely demurred and made the same recommendation he had made to Baldwin.

“He said, ‘I’m not interested, but here’s the guy you want to hire,’ ” one member of the Stanford athletic administration said. “He did not give us a lot of names. He gave us Troy Taylor.”

Comes in 5th in race with new WR set:

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A year ago tomorrow, I shared Bill Connelly's SP+ observation that Stanford had an extraordinary amount of returning production for 2022. At that time, he calculated Stanford as having the #3 most returning production in the nation, most in a Power Five conference, and far and away the most in the Pac-12 (next closest was Arizona State at #32). As happens when a team has that much returning production, the natural pendulum swing for the next year is to have very little returning production. As all of us who follow Stanford football know, that pendulum swing hit with with force as Shaw departed and Taylor came on board. Now, Connelly/SP+ have put numbers out to contextualize it (including transfers in calculations given the changed landscape):

Connelly calculates that in 2023 Stanford returns a paltry 35 percent of its production, #129 in the country and dead last among Power Five teams. On offense we are #129 and on defense #128. TCU is the only Power Five offense with less returning production (33 percent to our 34 percent) and no Power Five defense returns less. Yikes.

Those of us setting expectations for 2023 need to account for this being one of the absolute least proven or experienced teams in the country. Moreover, oftentimes teams score low on this list because they were really good the previous year - Alabama has the second least returning production in Power Five football and I already mentioned TCU. Stanford is low not because we were good. We're the oddity of a team that was terrible despite being more experienced than anybody and now gets to be terrible while being less experienced than everybody. As we know, quite a rebuild task ahead for Taylor.

I keep saying it but I will view 2023 as a good year for Stanford football if the team is exactly as bad as it was in 2022. The climb is that steep.

By the way, SP+ has USC, Utah, and Washington as three of the teams most likely to improve in 2023 so, especially given where those teams already were, the Pac-12 could be quite good in 2023. One last hurrah before losing USC.

Read that here.

I won't give it away. You have to guess.

But here's a hint: https://pac-12.com/article/2023/02/13/pac-12-womens-basketball-performance-awards-presented-nextiva-feb-13-2023#:~:text=FRESHMAN OF THE WEEK: Lauren,Stanford (Centennial, Colo.)&text=Shot a team-best 80,State (96-64).

Scroll down and make sure you watch the video.