There's not much to celebrate these days with Stanford football, but my iPhone reminded me today that on November 17, 2012 we won my favorite college football game of all time in Eugene. I can still vividly see Trent Murphy forcing Mariota out of bounds on a critical overtime 3rd down. I was watching at a bar in New York with probably 50-100 young Stanford alums and after Williamson split the uprights in OT I danced on the table and poured a pitcher of beer on myself. It is possible that @rawbbbbbb was there but I don't remember specifically. Those were the days. It's bittersweet that Shaw has driven the program to such depths now but I am personally grateful I got to experience the glory years at an age when I could do the above and not seem completely insane.

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Read that here.

That you're David Shaw.

You've received upwards of $50 million from Stanford - i.e., you and your kids (and grandkids?) are set for life.

You're by any reasonable, objective measure one of the worst head football coaches in D1 sports, with program in the toilet.

You presumably have some pride and a legacy to try and protect (which legacy takes a beating with each passing game).

Why hang on? Why not negotiate a walk-away?

And this leads me to my final question: do you think he's hanging on for PWO status for his son? I know the story linked here a while back talked about the son wanting to blaze his own trail, but if pro ball is not really an option, do you really want to pass up Stanford to play at a lower division school? Maybe.

But if not, there seems to be a reasonable path forward here. Make the PWO admission part of the parting deal. It would be so worth it. Plus, if the kid really wanted to be outside the dad's football influence, the negotiated walk-away would take care of that, too.

Win-win, right?

Whelp, it took just over a week to take most of the wind out of my MBB sails. Thoughts from last night:

The Atmosphere
Joc Pederson was courtside, fresh off of his $20M extension. The 6th man section was almost full but that is typical for the first home game of the season so I expect it to thin out quite a bit. Not counting students, there were more SDSU fans than Stanford, which makes sense given they have more alums in a 100-mile radius. There was a brief period in the 2nd half (when Stanford cut it to 6), where the atmosphere was really rocking.

The Game
SDSU looked like the better team from the jump - faster, more athletic, better shot creators/makers, physical and pressuring Stanford on defense.

It was painful watching O'Connell and Silva get pressured by SDSU's PG (Trammell) who had 4 steals and drew an offensive foul on O'Connell. Silva at least got by him once to get an and-1, and looked more comfortable handling the pressure than O'Connell. Of course, both PGs badly missed open 3-point shots. Ingram actually brought the ball up a number of times and looked more comfortable facilitating the offense (he, of course, had a less pesky defender on him). The PGs continue to be the weak spot for this team as Stanford couldn't make SDSU pay for the full court pressure.

Haase finally added a wrinkle in the 2nd half for Keefe/Raynaud to set a screen for the ball handler, but watching Stanford bleed 6-7 seconds just to get into their offense of contested dribble handoffs was tough.

Keefe played his ass off and was the better C; against fast, physical teams, Raynaud looks a bit lost and just lacks Keefe's motor.

Spencer Jones was the best player, despite a low shooting percentage. I love how big and physical he is playing on defense and now offense. I hope he starts on Friday. Angel was ok but needs to make his 3s to be effective. He also got stripped easily a couple of times.

Michael Jones totally disappeared and missed a critical 1-1 FT when the team was clawing back into the game. As a leader of the MJ Hype Train, this greatly pains me.

I didn't think Ingram was bad for most of the night, but he had two boneheaded TOs and a frustration foul at the 5-minute mark that effectively ended the game (SDSU went from up 10 to up 15).

Turnovers weren't great but given SDSU's aggressive play, expected. Stanford did get a lot of clean 3 point looks and just couldn't knock them down, with a lot of bad misses. Murrell was one of the more effective offensive players but is a defensive liability and gave up some easy buckets, which limited his run.

I still believe that this team has the most talent of any Haase team but the hope that they would make "the leap" this season is quickly disappearing. So far they look similar to past teams with negligible improvement and no players have looked demonstrably better than last season, which is incredibly disappointing.

Where We Stand/What's Next

Stanford is now 0-3 ATS and was less competitive than they should have been against Wisconsin and SDSU. I agree with the analysis by @msqueri that tourney odds have halved, from roughly 50% to 25%.

The Thanksgiving tournament now looms large. There are no ranked teams and Stanford has an outside shot of going 3-0 with 3 quality OOC wins. They could also (more likely) go 1-2 without a signature win, which would effectively bury their NCAA hopes before December.

Here is the bracket. Ole Miss, FSU, Oklahoma and Memphis all project as bubble teams, so ideally Stanford can get 2 wins over credible OOC foes, which would set them up nicely heading into conference play.

Stanford also has a chance to pick up a major win when traveling to Texas but that seems pretty unlikely (Texas has a huge game against Gonzaga tonight FYI).

I think 4 OOC losses is the maximum that Stanford can endure and still have reasonable tourney hopes heading into conference play. So 2-1 in the Thanksgiving Tourney and a loss to UT, run the table on all other games.

Read that here.

Stanford did not make the ESPN Bottom 10, but both Stanford and Cal did make the 10 teams on the Waiting List. With a putrid performance on Saturday, we have a chance to make the Bottom 10.

Per CFP rankings today:

#7 USC
#10 Utah
#12 Oregon
#16 UCLA
#17 Washington
#18 Notre Dame
#23 Oregon St

Obviously going 1-6 vs. ranked teams (with 4.5 of those Ls being complete and utter blowouts (USC counts as half IMO)) and 1-1 vs. unranked teams (with the W being a shitfest and the L being a worse blowout than the ranked ones) is godawful, but thought this was notable. Colgate does not count as a real game.

ESPN has us at #13 SOS thus far, but 8 of their top 9 are SEC teams and all 12 teams ahead of us are SEC/Big 10. Vanderbilt is #1, and they have only played 3 currently ranked teams (Bama, UGA, and Ole Miss). Iowa is ahead of us despite playing only 2 currently ranked teams (OSU and Michigan). Respectfully, ESPN, please f*** right off.

When was the last time 6 Pac-12 schools have been ranked this late in the season?

Read that here.

Read that here.

I decided to swing by the Big Game Rally before tonight's women's basketball game and it did not disappoint. Walter Rouse gave a very fiery and passionate speech.

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Last but certainly not least: The women's basketball recruiting thread for November. The October thread is here.

Once again, starting off with signing day. That will be in the same November 9-16 window as the men. The current 2023 commits who are expected to sign in November are as follows: 4-star guard Nunu Agara (Hopkins High School, Minnetonka, MN), 5-star wing Courtney Ogden (Westminster School, Atlanta, GA), and 4-star guard Chloe Clardy (Conway High School, Conway, Arkansas).

Others who could join them in 2023: 5-star point guard Hannah Hidalgo (Paul VI, Haddonfield, NJ), 5-star guard JuJu Watkins (Sierra Canyon, Los Angeles, CA), and 4-star forward Delaney Thomas (St. John's College, Washington, D.C.). Thomas will announce her decision tomorrow at 4:00 PM ET.

Both Hidalgo and Juju Watkins visited during October, which is encouraging. Hidgalgo visited the weekend of October 8th and Watkins visited last week. Definitely reason to have hope for them.

To my knowledge, Thomas has not visited this fall, but she's been really really quiet with her recruitment, so it's hard to get a read on where she's going. What I can say is latest I checked, in mid-October, Stanford was still on her. That said, if her social media likes are any indicator at all, Duke and UCLA seem to be the front runners here. A Duke assistant coach liked her announcement date tweet and in addition to liking a bunch of Duke stuff, she's liked a fair amount of UCLA stuff. Hasn't liked anything Stanford related. So read into that what you will.

For 2024, 4-star forward Toby Fournier (Crestwood Secondary, Ontario, Canada) included Stanford in her top eight last month. See the October thread for the full list. Stanford also making an effort with 4-star point guard Shay Ijiwoye (Desert Vista, Phoenix, AZ), being in to see her recently. 2024 4-star combo guard Avary Cain (Saint Joseph, Santa Maria, CA) and 2024 5-star guard/forward Jordan Lee (Saint Mary's High School, Stockton, CA) also visited last month.

Other 2024 names: 4-star guard Mikayla Blakes (Rutgers Prep, Somerset, NJ), 5-star forward Joyce Edwards (Camden High School, Camden, SC), 4-star guard Tajianna Avant-Roberts (La Jolla Country Day, La Jolla, CA), 5-star guard Morgan Cheli out of Mitty, and 5-star post Blanca Thomas (Charlotte Catholic, Charlotte, NC).

For 2025, obviously 4-star guard Hailee Swain is already committed out of Holy Innocents in Marietta, GA. Two others I have in 2025 are wing Jasmine "Jazzy" Davidson out of Clackamas High School in Oregon and then forward Sienna Betts out of Grandview High School in Aurora, CO. Sienna is the younger sister of Lauren Betts.

I'll check on visitors for this weekend as well. Though it's of course possible @Bobbk beats me to it as he was the one who noticed Juju was visiting last week for the scrimmage.

1. Make it stop. Every week is the same. We don't belong on the field with real teams. We're no more of a test than Louisiana, UAB, or Weber State would be. Injuries and the transfer portal can't explain that. Things have gotten so bleak that one has to ask what the point even is. This is not fun for anybody. If a school is going to field a football team it really owes it to itself (not to mention the players and fans) to at least try to have a product that has some purpose. That's the fundamental thing that bothers me about the most unambitious sentiments: even if one were to grant that Stanford can never again be competitive (which is BS), what's stopping us from trying to give the program/players/fans a chance at something that isn't joyless?

2. I was glad to hear Muir was in Rice-Eccles for the carnage. The tv broadcast did no favors to those of us who care about Stanford football and have some standards. The clueless announcers (we know they were clueless because they didn't know the slow mesh was an intentional/core part of Stanford's offense, didn't mention that Gabe Reid was a former Stanford player, and generally added very little color) all but waved the white flag on Stanford ever having a relevant program again. Any Shawpologist or surrender monkey watching would have felt entirely vindicated by supposedly expert commentators taking it as a given that this isn't Shaw's fault and it will be up to him to dig Stanford out of its hole and by those commentators then aggressively managing expectations with assertions that the transfer portal makes it impossible for Stanford to compete. This narrative may be the greatest threat to the future of Stanford football. So many people inside and outside the program seem to have succumbed to the defeatism. This narrative needs to be punctured. For what it's worth, here are the win totals (listed parenthetically) for the 11 Power Five programs with three or fewer incoming transfers this past off-season: Ohio State (10), Michigan (10), Clemson (9), Penn State (8), Oregon State (7), NC State (7), Iowa (6), Baylor (6), Iowa State (4), Texas A&M (3), Stanford (3). We are no more incapable of competing in major college football than Oregon State, NC State, or Iowa. That we do not compete under Shaw is about Shaw.

3. For several years Shaw's teams have reminded me of the Teevens/Harris teams. That's the level we are right now, at best (in terms of the team's overall competitiveness it's an insult to Teevens to compare 2019-2022 Shaw to Teevens). Two of the parallels in some of our recent games have been a spirited defense that fights for a while before being beaten down as it has no chance given the offensive ineptitude, and an ostensibly NFL talent quarterback getting sacked every few drop backs and increasingly looking like a shell of himself. This game had those parallels in spades. As usual, it added up to a totally uncompetitive game in which the defense battled to a point but eventually crumbled and the offense deserves more of our scorn. Utah has now scored 42+ points in four of their seven conference games, so other defenses have been scorched too, but there are zero Pac-12 teams that had failed to score 13+ points on Utah until Stanford did it. And seven points may overstate the offense's quality yesterday as the long Higgins catch in the first quarter was the only way we had a prayer of scoring at all. After all, including the first half touchdown we only had three first downs in the first half! [This week's moving the chains (first down) leader board: Higgins (3), McKee (2), Hawkins, Humphreys, Leigber (Tremayne drew a pass interference)] Utah had two individual players with more total offense than Stanford's entire team combined! As bad as Shawfense always is, Utah has a way of bringing out special levels of ineptitude - for the second straight year Utah is the one team against which Stanford can't even muster 4 yards per play.

4. While the strongest derision should be directed at the offense, we shouldn't overstate the quality of the defensive performance. That was the most yards per play we've given up since USC and the most Utah has had against any FBS opponent. The run defense continues to perform (horrific) wonders, this time giving up 7.75 yards rushing per carry (nearly two yards more than the next worst all season against Utah). That's three games in a row giving up more than 7 yards per carry. On the season, we are 128th in the country after being 127th last year and 112th in 2020. Pass defense is sometimes a relative bright spot and relatively speaking it was again as at least we held Utah under their average in yards per attempt and passer rating, but even then it was our worst pass defense game in five games by most metrics and Utah's best in the last three games. Combining stats with the eye test it's clear that what actually happened is that Rising has been slumping for nearly a month and Utah knew well that they didn't need him or anybody else to be crisp to beat us by 35 points. The quality of our pass defense, as usual, is an irrelevance in the broader context of the overall system failure.

5. That's the reality we're again cruelly reminded of: this is comprehensive, system-wide, catastrophic failure. Looking at it from the vantage of this game, we had 0.7 points per drive and Utah had 4.2 points per drive, meaning that we made the #57 points per drive defense look like the #1 defense in the nation (Michigan at 0.87 is the only defense that gives up less than a point per drive) and we made the #14 points per drive offense look like the #1 offense in the nation (Oregon at 4.12 and Ohio State at 4.03 are the only offenses that get more than four points per drive). As happens all too often, that's a mark of failure that bears re-reading: on both offense and defense we let Utah play at a level that would be tops in the nation. Looking at all this from the vantage of the full season, it's similarly bleak as we are 111th in scoring offense and 114th in scoring defense. We'll see where FEI ends up, but heading into this game (obviously our rankings will drop further once algorithms update) we had the #98 Offensive FEI and #78 Defensive FEI. There's nothing worth saving. Full-on system failure.

Watching today and struck by how limited the development of our players has been. Not one player looks appreciably better than last year and many look worse. Silva in particular appears to be the worst defender we have had in quite some time.

Can we ensure all the members of the BoT show up for that one?

Read that here.

This was posted on 247 earlier tonight. My friends involved with this effort wanted RJ to get it out to the public on their behalf (must be all of those posts about Cal that did you in Ben. 😄)

Prepared statement

The Cardinal One Collective (COC) was created to provide name, image, and likeness (NIL) opportunities to student athletes on the Stanford men’s basketball team. The COC was organized by a group of long-time supporters of both Stanford athletics and the university more broadly. They see NIL as a necessary step for the long-term health and competitiveness of Stanford sports. COC is committed to operating within the law and in full compliance with NCAA regulations.

Derek Mason

So tweets Wojo. Damn.

Nobody has mentioned this, no doubt because you're all haters who only focus on the negative, but our very own Jordan Morris is the first Cardinal man to ever be named to the USMNT World Cup roster. His selection was very much in doubt, as he's overcome two ACL tears in the past five years. Had the US made the last WC, he would have featured if healthy. Now he's a late game speed and energy sub, but just making the squad is a massive achievement. He led us to our first national title with two goals in the championship match, including the game winner, and he won the Hermann Trophy as player of the year. Can't wait to root for him and the team in a week (as well as our awesome Cardinal squads in their respective tournaments). Some fun videos:

Jordan gets the call:

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Jordan's story:

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2015 College Cup final highlights:

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First international goal:

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Gold Cup championship winner:

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Read that here.

San Diego St ranked #19, now 2-0 beating Fullerton & BYU
Bradley, who transferred to SDSU from Cal 2 years ago still playing. And has two bigs that are really good: Would be a very tough win for us.
Here's an account of BYU game/win: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...-cougars-jaedon-ledee-nathan-mensah-uc-irvine

Read that here.

Read that here.

Read that here.