Monday, October 30, 2006
Stanford football woes
Less than seven years since Stanford football reached a pinnacle moment (Pac 10 champs and Rose Bowl qualifier) and less than five years since it reached another pinnacle moment (9-2 regular season record and a brief time in the top 10), Stanford has hit the bottom. It is arguably the worst team of the 119 in D1-A and it ranked below some D1-AA schools in the Sagarin calculations.
I certainly realize that Stanford has been a mediocre football team for the last 25+ years. Yes, there have been some wonderful seasons, great games and hundreds of talented fine players. I never thought I would see Stanford in a Rose Bowl in my lifetime and there we were on Jan 1st, 2000. The day we beat kal to clinch the Rose Bowl bid was one of the most euphoric sports experiences I have had.
But look at the record. Stanford has had only 8 winning seasons in the last 27 years. Total record - 138-162-5. Since Bill Walsh and Jack Christensen left and ended a run of 11 consecutive winning seasons in the late 60s and 70s, we have had consecutive winning seasons only twice - 1991-92 and 1995-96. We have had a stretch of five consecutive losing seasons (1981 - 85) and two stretches of four each (1987-90 and 2002-05). Only one coach has had more than one winning season.
My point is that the administration has struggled (mostly unsuccessfully) to find a football coach who can win consistently at Stanford. In the last 27 years, only one has done so and he is coaching in Seattle now (and he has such fond memories of his time on the Farm that his public comments never mention his former employer by name). Yes, the most successful Stanford football coach since Bill Walsh I was a young assistant who had never been a head coach at any level before he was hired - Tyrone Willigham. I am no apologist for his horse's-behind behavior at the end of his tenure, but the man knew how to coach a college football team. He definitely did what Paul Wiggin, Jack Elway, Walsh II, Buddy and Walt Harris (so far) could not do - prove that Stanford could consistently compete and win.
Stanford is an incredibly difficult place to coach football. We clearly struggle to get enough talent to compete (look at the number of the current frosh who received no or only one other D1 offer). Our coach needs to be someone who can get a team to achieve beyond its individual talents. That means being a motivator and a tactician who can out-scheme his colleague on the other sideline. I thought that WH might be that person based on a few games from last year, but my opinion is changing rapidly. I had friends in Pittsburgh who told me that we would regret hiring Harris. By the way, I am not one of those people who considers Chow to have been a better choice either. It could be that neither one was the coach to lead Stanford out of the hole it is in.
As fans, all we can do at this point is grit our teeth and tough out this season. But the administration and trustees need some hard discussions about the importance of football to the University and what they can do to turn around years of decline. I can only hope that they find the current results to be unacceptable.
