Three Stanford players are in the field. Last weekend featured most of the qualification tournaments. McNealy, Rodgers and Bramlett came up short. Brandon Wu captured a spot and his Stanford teammate, Isaiah Salinda captured an invite. Brandon and Isaiah led Stanford’s last NCAA men’s title. Isaiah is currently playing on the Korn Ferry and sits in 16th. Top 20 at year’s end get their PGA card. The 3rd player is Tiger, who received a special exemption. Unlike the Masters or the PGA Championship, winning the title doesn’t earn a lifetime exemption into the field. The US Open exemption is good for ten years and Tiger was in his 5th year of getting his spot from winning the Masters in 2019.

The golf channel called last Sunday’s day of qualification the ‘longest day.’ I was offended by that given that D-Day happens just four days later.

Far and away the thing keeping me from being all in on enthusiasm for the Troy Taylor era is that Bobby April III's first year as defensive coordinator was an abject disaster. Maybe the worst defense in the history of Stanford football and it really shouldn't have been. One of my greatest hopes for this team is that our neophyte defensive coordinator wasn't ready for prime time but is so talented and pedigreed that his progress along the learning curve will be steep and the defense going forward will look nothing like last year. If he can get Stanford back to even mediocre defense it becomes much easier to envision success for Troy Taylor.

I've done some analyses putting into perspective what Taylor's first year and future prospects look like in light of head coaches who have had first years like him. I thought about doing the same for April, but on some reflection it seems to me that what was most salient about him last year was the rarity of being a Power Five defensive coordinator in his first year ever having such a role. Typically defensive coordinators have sharpened their skills at lower levels or in a co-DC role (the path for Mark Stoops, Bret Bielema, Brent Venables, Derek Mason, Glen Schumann, Tosh Lupoi, Mike Tressel, Coleman Hutzler, Brian Williams, Matt Powledge, Tyler Santucci, etc.). I thought it might be interesting to see the trajectory of coordinators who, like April, got thrown right into the deep end in their first jobs in the role. The ones I could find among current FBS head coaches or defensive coordinators (excluding co-DCs as that's definitely not apples-to-apples), ranked by my sense of their first break resume quality (rankings are scoring defense rankings):

Dan Lanning: #1, #16, #1 at Georgia from 2019-2021 (median #14 previous five years), parlayed that into a power head coaching job at Oregon

Trent Bray: #16 and #47 at Oregon State in 2022 and 2023 (median #105 previous five years), parlayed that into a limbo conference realignment victim head coaching job at Oregon State

Greg Schiano: #11 and #5 at Miami in 1999 and 2000 (median #30 previous five years), parlayed that into a power head coaching job at Rutgers

Clark Lea: #13, #12, #14 at Notre Dame from 2018-2020 (median #39 previous five years), parlayed that into a power head coaching job at Vanderbilt

Tony White: #35 at Arizona State in 2019 (median #99 previous five years), went to Syracuse and was #90, #64, #40 (median #90 previous five years) to parlay that into a Nebraska job where he was #13 (median #66 previous five years)

Morgan Scalley: #33, #39, #16, #6, #46, #35, #27, #18 at Utah from 2016-present (median #43 previous five years)

Brad White: #14, #45, #26, #11, #61 at Kentucky from 2019-present (median #74 previous five years)

Alex Grinch: #74, #50, #56 at Washington State from 2015-2016 (median #101 previous five years)

Phil Parker - #33, #9, #50, #19, #13, #17, #11, #5, #6, #13, #2, #4 at Iowa from 2012-present (median #8 previous five years)

Ron English: #15 and #23 at Michigan (median #24 previous five years) in 2006 and 2007 but then RichRod brought in new people....big mistake

Al Golden: #74, #50, #26, #17, #40 at Virginia from 2001-2005 (median #46 previous five years)

Chris Marve: #54 and #51 at Virginia Tech in 2022 and 2023 (median #54 previous five years)

DJ Durkin: #15 and #19 at Florida in 2013 and 2014 (median #5 previous five years)

Brad Lambert: #16, #65, #110 at Wake Forest in 2008-2010 (median #41 previous five years), went on to be a head coach at Charlotte for a long time before settling back in as a DC at Marshall, Purdue, and now back at Wake Forest

Jay Sawvel: #21 at Minnesota in 2016 (median #45 previous five years), #76 and #101 at Wake Forest in 2017 and 2018 (median #43 previous five years), had to drop a level to Wyoming where he's been #24, #43, #47, #37 from 2020-2023 (median #28 previous five years)

Travaris Robinson: #51, #25, #67, #53, and #105 at South Carolina from 2016-2020 (median #13 previous five years)

Peter Sirmon: #93 at Mississippi State in 2016 (had been top top 40 six years in a row) and moved down a level to Louisville in 2017, where he was #70 (had been top 40 seven years in a row) and then after those failures had to go rebuild his career initially as a non-coordinator at Cal


There are also some guys who, like April, have only had one year under their belt as DCs so it's hard to judge. D'Anton Lynn's first year was befitting the spectacular top end of coordinators: #14 at UCLA in 2023 (median #90 previous five years), now USC's DC. Matt Brock got the quick boot after one slightly subpar but not all that bad first year: Matt Brock: #68 at Mississippi State in 2023 (median #57 previous five years), now at Connecticut. Aaron Henry, like April, had an awful first year: #96 at Illinois in 2023 (median #54 previous five years). For what it's worth, April was #132 at Stanford in 2023 (median #79 previous five years).

There are also guys following in April's and the other's footsteps as untested first-time coordinators this year, including Robert Livingston (Colorado), Tim McGarible (Northwestern), Stephen Belichick (Washington), and, incredibly, Duane Akina (Arizona....while he had been co-DC way back in the day at Texas, this upcoming season marks his first as full defensive coordinator)

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I'm not going to lie, I did this entire exercise in the hope of finding examples that could give a glimmer of hope that massive improvement is possible after a disastrous maiden voyage as a neophyte power conference defensive coordinator. Just when I was about to lose hope, I found one:

Johnny Nansen (had been a high school DC for a year but I'm not going to count that): #126 and #30 at Arizona in 2022-2023 (median #109 previous five years)

I think that's what we are hoping for with April. That a) he inherited such a bombed out program and culture that that explains a fair amount of the first year failure (though Arizona had a far worse recent defensive history than Stanford and b) that there was a misfire in the first year as a coordinator but enough coaching ability and ability to adjust that the first year could be flushed and quickly replaced with something a lot better.

I am not saying I think it is possible for us to have the #30 scoring defense in 2024. But I am saying I haven't given up on April being way, way better than he's shown so far. We really need him to be. If he isn't, Taylor should have a short leash (though I worry he won't). As you can see from the above, there really is scant history of wunderkind neophyte DCs bouncing back from such bad first years. In fact, it's almost unheard of to not have a top 75 scoring defense the first year. April has a ton to prove but I'm hoping he can do it.

Amazing what an on-point aspirational comparison Arizona under Fisch is for our program. Taylor as Fisch and April as Nansen is as salient/poignant/realistic/exciting of a dream as we could have. And if Taylor takes a Big 10 job a year and a half from now I will be happy as that will mean he has healed our program and we've been able to enjoy some success after time in the wilderness. We could do worse than that. But before we can have success of any sort we really need to not have the worst defense in history. Pulling for you, Coach April!

Read that here. Courtesy of Adam Gorney.


A bit on Josh Petty in here, but the really relevant part is Penn State commit Tiqwai Hayes ended up not coming to Stanford despite being in California for an NIL deal. Stanford was trying hard to get him to come, but he affirmed to them that he was still solid in his pledge to the Nittany Lions.

Richard Schnyderite who covers Penn State and some other East Coast schools for our network was under the impression he was visiting Stanford and relayed it onto me. That was the only confirmation I was able to obtain.

Anyways, a bummer for Stanford, but still shows the aggression of the staff to try to make a move with him visiting the Golden State.

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As I might have referred to in a previous post, this week I got connected with a former college QB who works for a big financial services firm and is plugged into the NIL world in a very significant way. It looks like we are going to be working very closely together from here on out, so I'll likely be getting more insights like this...

During our discussion today he told me some university administrators are floating the idea of not offering scholarships (I think this was exclusive to football players, but not sure), because the athletes are getting paid so much money they can afford tuition. My reaction was to ask how can universities claim "the value of the education" precludes the athlete's need to be paid cold, hard cash, and then turn around and say if they are making so much money they can pay for their own education. This would make more clear than anything before that athletes aren't choosing schools based on the educational value they offer, so how can the educational offering be THAT valuable?

There are insipidly stupid NCAA school administrators everywhere.

Read that here. Courtesy of Ryan O’Bleness.

Read that here. Courtesy of Adam Gorney.

Not sure if behind a paywall, but good stuff

AB

After reading this, I tried to think of a possessive brand name that would work to replace the "Big" in Big 12, and name the subject of the post after what it would be. Would the official conference logo then include the Golden Arches with the #12? I guess it would. Anyway, the chase for more and more money never ends. But, I don't' think private equity is the answer. PE exists to ruthlessly cut costs to maximize profit. By definition, this unregulated college sports market is being driven by wanting to spend more. These conferences better not get so desperate that they become minority owners in their own thing. The "we'll only take 12%-15%" sounds great until the fine print that says we get to buy more if certain performance milestones aren't met, kicks in when they aren't. PE is a deal with the devil. A naming rights deal for a conference may sound gross, but it makes more sense. Good luck keeping the athletes from getting paid, universities, when yer so cravenly selling out your soul for cash.

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Quite a football player CA State Champ in the Discus, son of a former Stanford player. Anyone know why we aren’t recruiting him. Hope we are for T&F

Was watching this video about CMac and was surprised to hear "I probably would've gone to Oregon" if not for Ed telling him he needed to play in a pro-offense. We should've played him more as a freshman.

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Read that here. Courtesy of Greg Smith.

I had a conversation today with a former starting QB for an ACC school who is involved in the college sports business.

He told me something that was new to me and almost shocking. Players from "smaller programs" are approached by representatives of larger programs after games - usually not when the larger program is playing them - and made offers that require them to take or leave it within 24-48 hours. Often times it is not the player himself making the decision to take the offer. Keep in mind, these players don't even have to have entered the transfer portal to be made and accept these "pressure" offers. The transfer portal is just a formality in this context.

So I said "this sounds a lot like human trafficking to me." An athlete enrolled at School A, basically taking an offer to play for School B during the season. This is insane. What is the mechanism to enforce these kinds of transactions in a completely unregulated market? He didn't really answer and went on to another thought.

I've talked about how the NCAA is trying to get Congress to provide legal cover not to pay athletes, but also to outlaw NIL as well. Could it be possible that this kind of behavior has been reported to legislators as a predicate for the NCAA to get a roll back on the gains athletes have made, as it tries to get a law passed that will do this in the lame duck session of Congress this year?

Maybe NIL isn't going to be touched, but how in the hell is this increasingly aggressive and predatory behavior not going to lead to disaster?

A look right here:

Not shown in this video, they interviewed Rose before the race. Announcers pushing Rose for the last 2 days. Same story as indoor championships.

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OMG did Danny Hurley's agent PLAY the Los Angeles Lakers!

When Woj reported that the Lakers were in serious discussions with Danny Hurley and were preparing a "massive" offer to land the 2x defending champion UConn Huskies MBB Head Coach, sports media had a cow. It basically sidelined Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

That last Thursday I was in the car and happened to turn on the Rob Dibble Show that broadcasts from Hartford and is radio home of UConn sports. Rob Dibble and his partner Ben Darnell pointed out that Geno Auriemma just signed a big extension yesterday and that Hurley shares the same agent. They thought given this, and Hurley being an East Coast guy, that his agent was just using the Lakers to boost Hurley's ability to get more from UConn, and make him a recruiting force like no other.

When Hurley returned from a trip to Los Angeles this weekend without being signed by Lakers, and it was reported that he would make his decision on Monday, I knew he was staying at UConn. No coach makes an announcement they are leaving their current employer to take another job. They just show up at the new place.

The Lakers should be embarrassed. The first rule of sales is don't let the prospect leave until you close the deal. The first rule of PR when looking to hire someone is to not let it be known you might be hiring a top candidate, until you know said candidate is signing. The Lakers allowed Hurley's agent to give Woj the "Lakers are preparing a massive offer," knowing it would be reported and knowing Hurley would capitalize on all the publicity by turning it down to stay at UConn.

Now the Lakers look like incompetent fools, allowing themselves to be played publicly like this, and used by a college coach. Hey, Lakers, you were turned down for freaking Storrs, Connecticut! Any competent organization would have known Hurley likely would not be leaving the East Coast because they would have done their homework. Instead, their hubris got in the way as they thought "who would ever turn down glitzy, great weather L.A., and the Lakers??? We just need to offer him and he won't turn US down."

I'm going to predict Danny Hurley lands some very top end players to go after his three-peat championship.

Stanford running second here, but one to watch

USA Softball's Collegiate Player of the Year was named at the softball WS. Thought that this deserved it's own thread.
https://gostanford.com/news/2024/5/28/nijaree-canady-usa-softball-collegiate-player-of-the-year.aspx

Read and watch that here.

Very insightful from him. It's not NIL
"It’s important to note that despite some rumors, many athletes who elect to transfer from Stanford aren’t doing so for NIL reasons."

Read that here. I tried to make this a bit of an entertaining read. No disrespect to plants and fruits. I love both.

Just won the 100 meters at the New York Grand Prix. 10.25. Kind of slow even with the -0.7 headwind.

Correction: 10.24.