Defense playing okay, but giving up three first downs.

Read that here.

Read and watch that here.

Stanford men's basketball will have an open practice on Friday, October 20th at Maples Pavilion from 4-6 PM. So that means fans will be able to attend. I'll also be able to get more interviews on that day as well.

Read and watch that here.

Watch that here. It is going live.

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Read and watch that here.

Had no idea Sam was associated with the "defensive alert" blitz predictor you can choose to watch with during TNF. Interesting article about his work on AI powered defensive lineup analysis here: https://theathletic.com/4969578/2023/10/18/thursday-night-football-amazon-prime-vision/

Read that here.

WHAT A GAME!!!!! Where did he come from??!!! (Medicine Hat)

Read that here. Stanford has more work to do, but they're making a good impression early it seems.

First, in writing this post, I'm assuming that the Big 10 is out of reach for the foreseeable future. If the ACC takes us, sure, go for it. But, the Big 12 would be more than fine by me. Yes, I understand that the mediocrity of those schools don't fit in with Stanford's "brand." But, to that I say, "who cares?" We're talking about a sports conference, so I don't get the big deal.

As for how competitive the conference would be: clearly it would be very competitive for Stanford in football and men's basketball, even without Oklahoma and Texas. If we need to have some of our other programs - e.g. Olympic sports - join the WCC or whatever other conference, than so be it.

The bottom line is that I don't see Stanford having the commitment - financially or in terms of intestinal fortitude - to make it as an independent. Sure, the money COULD be there, but will Stanford do what it has to do to either allocate non-athletic funds to the AD or chase after big donors? I'm skeptical they can/want to pull it off.

For Stanford to get the money they'll need to be competitive in all sports - and also have the athletic brand to attract big-name recruits (at least in football and men's basketball, the two sports that stir the proverbial drink) - they need to be in a major conference. And, unless the Big 10 or ACC changes its collective minds in a hurry, Stanford would be stupid not to try to work things out with the Big 12.

I'm sure that very few of you noticed that our highly touted coach, Rob Koll, who we hired from Cornell has already departed after two years. It was rumored that he was looking around last year. When the head coach vacancy at UNC opened up, his alma mater, he was gone. He was a national champion at UNC. All is not well for him back at Chapel Hill. He was interviewed after his hire by the Daily Tar Heel and here's what transpired.
"A week after Rob Koll was named the new head coach of the North Carolina wrestling team in August, the UNC alumnus and acclaimed coach was a guest on a podcast where the host asked him an open-ended question about what made Chapel Hill "so great."
“Well, first of all, it’s 60 percent women for God’s sakes,” Koll said on The Bader Show, a show on FloWrestling.
“And 95 percent of them are attractive," he continued. "It’s just a really neat little campus for young 18- to 22-year-old men. I mean, good Lord, why would you not want to go there?”
Koll went on to tell a story about visiting Chapel Hill a week prior, coincidentally during what he called a “sorority weekend.” He said it was “95 percent girls” and said he wondered why UNC wasn't holding athletic recruiting events that weekend."

Replacing Koll is Chris Ayres. We reached into the Ivy League again as Coach Ayres was the HC for Princeton the last 17 years and was coach of the year 4 times.
For those interested, the wrestling team is sponsoring a golf tournament at Stanford GC. It's a four person scramble on November 3rd at 1:00 PM. Stanford Wrestling Golf Tournament
The annual outdoor match will be against Duke at 4 PM on Nov. 4th. Usually the wrestling match precedes the football game, but this year, we're playing at WSU. Hope the weather is decent!

Stanford women's basketball released their schedule in full today. Check that out here. I'll get a breakdown written later.

Read that here.

According to Sagarin the PAC12 is the second strongest football conference after the Sec. The Big10 east is better than us but when you combine it with the Big10 west we are better.

The ACC is pretty bad, worse than the Big 12.

This whole notion that the PAC12 doesn't have or can't have good teams is bogus.

Read that here.

To help assess the performance of Troy Taylor and his coaching staff, we can't just go on W-L record given the roster Stanford has. They could go 1-5 and still show progress. The best way to show that progress even in losses is to over perform the expected point differential in those games. This in mind...

What do you expect the W-L result and differential to be? Copy and paste the opponents, put in the W-L result, and expected margin.
+ X would be a Stanford W
- X would be a Stanford L

Note: It is very possible, even likely that some games may over-perform and some may underperform your expectation. For me, only over-performance is really meaningful, and there is no demerit for under performance other than losing to Cal.

- UCLA
- Washington
- @ WSU
- @OSU
- Cal
- Notre Dame

I'll go first:
Expected record: 1-5

- UCLA (L) - 10
- Washington (L) - 24
- @ WSU (L) - 17
- @ OSU (L) - 17
- Cal (W) + 3
- Notre Dame (L) -21

I don't know if Stanford has announced this or not, but I was told by a representative of the Golden Gate Open that their event will not be held at Stanford next year due to Stanford upgrading their tennis center. The Golden Gate Open is an ATP Challenger/WTA 125 event that brought back professional men's and women's tennis to the Bay Area this season when it was held at Stanford. Cici Bellis, who was a Stanford commit but chose to go pro, was part of the group that spearheaded the creation of the tournament with the idea of bringing pro tennis back to the Bay Area specifically in mind. I don't know if the event will be held at Stanford once the upgrades are completed, but I would assume so.

Also, for those that don't know tennis, ATP Challenger & WTA 125 are the lowest levels on both tours. If the following baseball analogy helps at all, it's kinda like AAA tennis.

Somehow this video is ALREADY AVAILABLE (????!!!!) from the amazing YouTube channel Matthew Loves Ball.

Enjoy!

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Graphics Dept. on it!
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