Op-Ed: Football at Stanford? Maybe not
The new NCAA rules that allow college athletes to be compensated makes it harder for schools like Stanford to recruit and retain talent.
www.latimes.com
I don’t find this op-Ed in the LA Times misguided. I believe it represents the majority opinion among the faculty, certainly, the administration, probably, and supporters of the program, maybe.
What pisses me off is that it didn’t have to come to this, at least not yet. If Shaw hadn’t run the program into the ground three years ago and instead maintained a credibly competitive program in the 8-4 range, the sense of hopelessness based on NIL and transfer portals would not have taken hold. There would be no op-eds calling for the demise of an 8-4 program. There is no necessary cause and effect between those new factors and the current state of the program. We are where we are because of crap coaching and crap recruiting…which feeds the “Let’s downgrade or quit” sentiment.
I know Muir is refusing to publicly state whether he wants us to join the Big 10. I believe Shaw is, too. But why would the Big 10 read this and want us…or recruits come and play for us?
Look for Shaw to use the eventual downgrading of the program as an excuse to deflect from his terrible stewardship of what was a juggernaut when he took over. It wouldn’t surprise me if he actually wants to de-emphasize, with his money and reputation in tact.
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