I don't believe this has been commented on:
There was a time I was supportive of this and then a time I was agnostic but now I'm hostile to it. Our head coach, following a disastrous season, is taking significant time out of his schedule to prepare for and then participate in a telecast so that he can speak for like 20 minutes, almost entirely about players that have nothing to do with Stanford football, for an audience of 1-2 million people (about a million fewer people than watched last year's Notre Dame or Oregon games).
The issue here is opportunity cost. He's said he watched film for two weeks to prepare for this. Given our spring ball ending this weekend and his draft night time to shine before the cameras being April 28, we now know what a big chunk of Shaw's time the rest of April post-spring game is going to be focused on. As a general proposition, I view Shaw's job responsibilities, salary, management challenges, and hole he needs to dig out of for his program as substantial enough that all of it warrants an intense, more than full-time focus on his actual job (which this NFL photo op has some relation to but is pretty tenuous and exaggerated).
Even putting that aside, there is a lot of recruiting to do in April that I wish had his undivided attention. The evaluation period runs from April 15-May 31. An evaluation period is when coaches can visit high schools "to assess the academic qualifications and playing ability of prospective student-athletes." It's not as much recruiting crunch time as a contact period as the coaches aren't supposed to have in-person conversations with recruits or their family members beyond "an exchange of a greeting" but it's still important time on the road. To put it in perspective, we've been in a quiet or dead period since January 30. The bottom line is the April 15-April 28 period when Shaw will be thinking a lot/watching a lot of film for his tv appearance is an important one on the recruiting calendar. But it's not only the evaluation period that makes this an important part of the recruiting calendar. Schools are allowed to host official visits starting April 1. April is the first month of the year in which phone calls can be made at the institution's discretion (as opposed to once a week or not at all). And of course there is always the work of evaluating prospects for potential offers and building the board for not only the 2023 recruiting class but also the 2024 class, activity that is allowed year-round and never sleeps and presumably is a lot easier for the coaches to do when they're not in the midst of practices with the team.....a time like what Shaw will have starting next week.
Not a fan of Shaw taking his eye off his recruiting responsibilities. This isn't an issue of walking and chewing gum at the same time. It's a matter of priorities and what he chooses to carve time out for....and what he doesn't. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many days in the year in which he's allowed to spend his time on certain recruiting tasks. The one way in which it's similar to walking and chewing gum at the same time is that the chewing gum part of what he wants to do (the NFL draft appearance) is completely elective and superfluous. It's fine to get that nice flavor and satisfying action if it doesn't have any adverse impact on the more fundamental aspect of the day-to-day, less so if your brain works such that you have to divide hours in the day between the walking and the chewing. Shaw is going to be able to walk (recruit) less far because he's doing this NFL draft work.
There was a time I was supportive of this and then a time I was agnostic but now I'm hostile to it. Our head coach, following a disastrous season, is taking significant time out of his schedule to prepare for and then participate in a telecast so that he can speak for like 20 minutes, almost entirely about players that have nothing to do with Stanford football, for an audience of 1-2 million people (about a million fewer people than watched last year's Notre Dame or Oregon games).
The issue here is opportunity cost. He's said he watched film for two weeks to prepare for this. Given our spring ball ending this weekend and his draft night time to shine before the cameras being April 28, we now know what a big chunk of Shaw's time the rest of April post-spring game is going to be focused on. As a general proposition, I view Shaw's job responsibilities, salary, management challenges, and hole he needs to dig out of for his program as substantial enough that all of it warrants an intense, more than full-time focus on his actual job (which this NFL photo op has some relation to but is pretty tenuous and exaggerated).
Even putting that aside, there is a lot of recruiting to do in April that I wish had his undivided attention. The evaluation period runs from April 15-May 31. An evaluation period is when coaches can visit high schools "to assess the academic qualifications and playing ability of prospective student-athletes." It's not as much recruiting crunch time as a contact period as the coaches aren't supposed to have in-person conversations with recruits or their family members beyond "an exchange of a greeting" but it's still important time on the road. To put it in perspective, we've been in a quiet or dead period since January 30. The bottom line is the April 15-April 28 period when Shaw will be thinking a lot/watching a lot of film for his tv appearance is an important one on the recruiting calendar. But it's not only the evaluation period that makes this an important part of the recruiting calendar. Schools are allowed to host official visits starting April 1. April is the first month of the year in which phone calls can be made at the institution's discretion (as opposed to once a week or not at all). And of course there is always the work of evaluating prospects for potential offers and building the board for not only the 2023 recruiting class but also the 2024 class, activity that is allowed year-round and never sleeps and presumably is a lot easier for the coaches to do when they're not in the midst of practices with the team.....a time like what Shaw will have starting next week.
Not a fan of Shaw taking his eye off his recruiting responsibilities. This isn't an issue of walking and chewing gum at the same time. It's a matter of priorities and what he chooses to carve time out for....and what he doesn't. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many days in the year in which he's allowed to spend his time on certain recruiting tasks. The one way in which it's similar to walking and chewing gum at the same time is that the chewing gum part of what he wants to do (the NFL draft appearance) is completely elective and superfluous. It's fine to get that nice flavor and satisfying action if it doesn't have any adverse impact on the more fundamental aspect of the day-to-day, less so if your brain works such that you have to divide hours in the day between the walking and the chewing. Shaw is going to be able to walk (recruit) less far because he's doing this NFL draft work.
