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Administration should be ashamed - Row80Critic - 10-03-2026

Worst football loss in 72 years today -- second worst in school history -- against Wake Forest.   When they hired Luck, I had some hope the administration wanted change.  When they hired Tavita, I knew they didn't.  Not that it's Luck or Pritchard's fault, per se.  The administration looked for people that would honor the "Stanford way," which not-so-subtle code for 'don't rock the boat" or else.  The admin has this fantasy that everything can stay the same -- academic arrogance and all -- yet somehow the results will be different.  It is logic unbecoming of the University.  The administration should be ashamed of itself.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - KartyFan - 10-03-2026

Am I lost? Is this the Bear Insider?

RE: Administration should be ashamed - Row80Critic - 10-03-2026

(10-03-2026, 01:24 PM)KartyFan Wrote:  Am I lost? Is this the Bear Insider?

Just beyond frustrated.  Ignore me. ;)

RE: Administration should be ashamed - BobK - 10-03-2026

4 years with 13 wins and and after 5 games it’s Tavita’s fault. We simply can’t get great football players with that kind of performance.
Imagine how Georgia Tech fans must feel today

RE: Administration should be ashamed - BostonCard - 10-03-2026

Row80, this is a very different college football landscape than it was 10, 20, or 50 years ago, and it is very clear that without the restraints of amateurism, it is simply a question of whether enough donors want to front enough money to pay enough football players enough money to win enough games.  Right now the going rate is about $50 million a year in terms of player payments, as reported by the Athletic: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/interactive/college-football-nil-spending-budgets/

You can get to that number any number of ways, maybe you have an SEC or BigTen TV contract that pays out $70 million per school (narrator, we don't because after the Pac-12 imploded we had to go begging yo the ACC to take us and basically foregoed most of our share of ACC TV revenue).  Maybe you have a rabid fan base that packs a 100,000 capacity stadium for 7 home games each season and brings in an estimated $60 million in gate revenue as Michigan does (narrator, we cant give away tickets).  Maybe you have a sugar daddy like Cody Campbell or Lary Elison’s wife, who will sign big checks because they  have more money than they know what do with, and they get their ego stoked by watching their team’s highly paid 20 year old kids post bigger numbers than the other school’s less highly paid 20 year old kids.

Without a fanbase and without TV revenue I think the family-friendly term for Stanford football (and eventually all of Stanford Athletics) is “screwed”.  You can fiddle around the edges, and maybe salvage a season of mediocrity here or there, but this isnt on the administration, Luck, or the University; this is a deep structural problem with the current incarnation of college football.

Thats why I implored everyone to be thankful for what we had a decade ago, because you never know when it will be gone.

BC

RE: Administration should be ashamed - Card10Fan - 10-03-2026

Tavita could work out. He also might not. I think it's still too soon to tell. Last two road performances have been pretty bleak @Duke plus todays result. 

I think our results largely come down to our lack of talent on the roster. As mentioned, hard to recruit when we have been bad for so long now. I think a mindset shift and new perspective when looking for our new HC would have been good. Instead, here we are. Tavita will be given at least a a few seasons to prove himself.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - Mick - 10-03-2026

(10-03-2026, 02:01 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Thats why I implored everyone to be thankful for what we had a decade ago, because you never know when it will be gone.

BC

And brother, it is gone. Or it should be gone. It was nice while it lasted.

I candidly thought I was being pessimistic when I projected a 34-17 loss.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - martyup - 10-03-2026

This was the worst loss by a Stanford football team in my lifetime.  And, I ain't no spring chicken.

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2FCrlSE...ipo=images]

RE: Administration should be ashamed - norcard10 - 10-03-2026

Good news is maybe we don't have to wait 3 years to move on from tavita.  More dumpster fires like today will accelerate him and luck gone.

There is zero chance there weren't multiple candidates better than tavita but luck and co chose what they chose.
(10-03-2026, 02:01 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  Row80, this is a very different college football landscape than it was 10, 20, or 50 years ago, and it is very clear that without the restraints of amateurism, it is simply a question of whether enough donors want to front enough money to pay enough football players enough money to win enough games.  Right now the going rate is about $50 million a year in terms of player payments, as reported by the Athletic: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/interactive/college-football-nil-spending-budgets/

You can get to that number any number of ways, maybe you have an SEC or BigTen TV contract that pays out $70 million per school (narrator, we don't because after the Pac-12 imploded we had to go begging yo the ACC to take us and basically foregoed most of our share of ACC TV revenue).  Maybe you have a rabid fan base that packs a 100,000 capacity stadium for 7 home games each season and brings in an estimated $60 million in gate revenue as Michigan does (narrator, we cant give away tickets).  Maybe you have a sugar daddy like Cody Campbell or Lary Elison’s wife, who will sign big checks because they  have more money than they know what do with, and they get their ego stoked by watching their team’s highly paid 20 year old kids post bigger numbers than the other school’s less highly paid 20 year old kids.

Without a fanbase and without TV revenue I think the family-friendly term for Stanford football (and eventually all of Stanford Athletics) is “screwed”.  You can fiddle around the edges, and maybe salvage a season of mediocrity here or there, but this isnt on the administration, Luck, or the University; this is a deep structural problem with the current incarnation of college football.

Thats why I implored everyone to be thankful for what we had a decade ago, because you never know when it will be gone.

BC


Except duke is doing better than this dumpster fire with supposedly less funding.  and they had the *gasp* wisdom to pick a proven coach

RE: Administration should be ashamed - BostonCard - 10-03-2026

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/congress-college-sports-ncaa-bill-f4a9fc7e?st=8HnnCQ

(Should be gifted)

Some interesting nuggets in that editorial…

Quote:A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report this summer found that 94% of Division I athletic programs spent more money than they generated in the 2023-2024 school year. The median spending gap was $20.6 million. Colleges collectively spent $7.2 billion to backfill their sports budgets with other revenue, including federal student aid.

The GAO estimates that the median college contribution to sports programs per undergraduate student was about $8,500 over the course of a four-year degree. Much of this money, GAO said, was “funded by tuition and fees paid by students,” which “indirectly include federal funds students receive in federal student aid to pay their tuition and fees.”

I wonder if the easiest solution to this is simply to bar cross-subsidies to athletics in schools that accept federal funding (that is, all of them), so that taxpayers arent indirectly paying the salaries of athletes. Also, we should tax anything above and beyond scholarship money, and maybe, if we are treating college football like a professional league, start taxing broadcast revenue and ticket sales, and charge property taxes on stadiums. After all, if it looks like a professional league and quacks like a professional league…

BC

RE: Administration should be ashamed - cardcrimson - 10-03-2026

If Northwestern, Duke and Wake Forest can figure it out, why can't Stanford? They are respectable, if not pretty good. Think Tavita would have the self confidence to bring in a OC like Chip? Not a chance. We had Pete Kwiatkowski coming from Texas, but Tavita nixed him for Reeshard. . . .

Fortunately I missed most of today's debacle, instead watching a team put up 56 on a ranked opponent . . . .

RE: Administration should be ashamed - needle - 10-03-2026

(10-03-2026, 12:53 PM)Row80Critic Wrote:  Worst football loss in 72 years today -- second worst in school history -- against Wake Forest.   When they hired Luck, I had some hope the administration wanted change.  When they hired Tavita, I knew they didn't.  Not that it's Luck or Pritchard's fault, per se.  The administration looked for people that would honor the "Stanford way," which not-so-subtle code for 'don't rock the boat" or else.  The admin has this fantasy that everything can stay the same -- academic arrogance and all -- yet somehow the results will be different.  It is logic unbecoming of the University.  The administration should be ashamed of itself.

I would like to know what Emeka Ugorji, a tackle last year at Stanford who showed raw potential as a frosh, is being paid at Florida (where he's a starter on an undefeated team coming into today) compared to the highest and best offer Stanford came up with.

That said, Wake Forest at least is probably pretty good--maybe 10-win good. So, I'd agree with KartyFan that it is smart not to act like Kal fans and give this admin a bit more time before declaring it all a sham.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - fullmetal - 10-03-2026

Are we outraged that we lost to a good Wake Forest team?  Or are we outraged that the defense missed tackles and the OL had a hard time protecting Warren or blocking for Ford?  I don't think the latter merits a wholesale coaching staff change.  And if anyone was surprised that Stanford did not beat Wake Forest...well, there's an apocryphal attribution (probably wrong) to PT Barnum for that.

What I'm curious about is whether Bobby April was the last DC to emphasize tackling.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - qwerty49 - 10-03-2026

(10-03-2026, 01:57 PM)BobK Wrote:  4 years with 13 wins and and after 5 games it’s Tavita’s fault. We simply can’t get great football players with that kind of performance. 
Imagine how Georgia Tech  fans must feel today

A good friend of mine is a GATech alum.  He's happy this week b/c they have a bye.  :)

RE: Administration should be ashamed - ADPinWDC - 10-03-2026

YES!  ASHAMED 

I posted this to Andrew Luck on Stanford Football Facebook 

If you were General Manager of Football... what do you think the REAL problem is after suffering the worst loss since Pearl Harbor?  
Do you just say, "One play at a time -- One game at a time?" ... until we are 2-10 and then think about it over Christmas?  
Is that the current train we are on? 

Cuz that's not a remedy.  
We are not stupid... are we?  

RE: Administration should be ashamed - Row80Critic - 10-03-2026

Most estimates say they are paying Urgoji between $750k and a million, with $960k seeming to show up most often.  

[rant_font] Stanford hired a first-time athletic director, a first-time football GM, and a first-time head coach. John Donahoe, Andrew Luck and Tavita Pritchard. All Stanford alumni. Three chummy names, three people with zero experience in their roles.

Meanwhile:

— Stanford ranks near the bottom of the ACC in estimated football player spending.
— The administration has expressly ruled out general university funds for direct athlete compensation. Even public schools like Kal impose no such handicap on their team.

— Stanford expressly imposes “tight limits” on admitting transfer athletes. Its 2026 transfer class ranked dead last in the ACC by a wide margin: six players, all from elite schools and all three-stars. Since others mentioned Kal, note that they brought in 32 players, including seven four-stars. 

— The recruit-and-develop strategy requires (a) great recruiting, and (b) keeping the players you develop. David Bailey left for Texas Tech, where his NIL deal reportedly exceeded $3 million. That is the market Stanford has to compete in, but they simply aren't.  

That's all fine, college football is tragically broken, but if Stanford wants to stand on principle, they should do it at the FCS level.  It's just hard to swallow all the big turn-around talk when the administration's actions seems to suggest (scream) an unwavering commitment not to change anything that is producing year after year of sub-Stanford results.  [/rant_font]

RE: Administration should be ashamed - Spiny_Norman - 10-03-2026

(10-03-2026, 03:02 PM)needle Wrote:  I would like to know what Emeka Ugorji, a tackle last year at Stanford who showed raw potential as a frosh, is being paid at Florida (where he's a starter on an undefeated team coming into today) compared to the highest and best offer Stanford came up with.

I watched some of the Florida-Missouri game today. Ugorji and his teammates were not very good. Missouri's D-line pushed them around all day. Missouri had 11 tackles for loss. 

Stanford prioritized retaining players this past season and selectively adding transfers. They were reasonably successful against that goal. Rose, Ford, Green, Prongos all came back rather than transfer. Stanford added a starting QB (Warren), CB (Bryant) and WR (Brown) through the transfer portal. They had a transfer starting center (Kilstrom) until he got injured. 

But as we have seen, this is just not enough. Maybe Stanford talent and coaching can be competitive against a wounded or lesser opponent. But against, let's say, top 30 or 40 teams, Stanford is not competitive, especially on the road. Stanford has routinely been killed on the road during ACC play. Stanford has lost 9 straight road conference games by scores of 40-14, 58-28, 24-21, 48-20, 34-10, 42-7, 20-15, 35-7 and 57-3. 

I don't know how you can turn this around with much better players.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - norcard10 - 10-03-2026

(10-03-2026, 06:26 PM)Row80Critic Wrote:  Most estimates say they are paying Urgoji between $750k and a million, with $960k seeming to show up most often.  

[rant_font] Stanford hired a first-time athletic director, a first-time football GM, and a first-time head coach. John Donahoe, Andrew Luck and Tavita Pritchard. All Stanford alumni. Three chummy names, three people with zero experience in their roles.

Meanwhile:

— Stanford ranks near the bottom of the ACC in estimated football player spending.
— The administration has expressly ruled out general university funds for direct athlete compensation. Even public schools like Kal impose no such handicap on their team.

— Stanford expressly imposes “tight limits” on admitting transfer athletes. Its 2026 transfer class ranked dead last in the ACC by a wide margin: six players, all from elite schools and all three-stars. Since others mentioned Kal, note that they brought in 32 players, including seven four-stars. 

— The recruit-and-develop strategy requires (a) great recruiting, and (b) keeping the players you develop. David Bailey left for Texas Tech, where his NIL deal reportedly exceeded $3 million. That is the market Stanford has to compete in, but they simply aren't.  

That's all fine, college football is tragically broken, but if Stanford wants to stand on principle, they should do it at the FCS level.  It's just hard to swallow all the big turn-around talk when the administration's actions seems to suggest (scream) an unwavering commitment not to change anything that is producing year after year of sub-Stanford results.  [/rant_font]

Nike stock further collapsed this week to 13 year low.

RE: Administration should be ashamed - Mick - 10-04-2026

(10-03-2026, 02:31 PM)martyup Wrote:  This was the worst loss by a Stanford football team in my lifetime.  And, I ain't no spring chicken.

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2FCrlSE...ipo=images]

Same here. I was born in 1962. Worst loss ever was 72-0 in 1954 against UCLA. But UCLA was 9-0 in 1954 and won the NCAA championship that season (with tOSU) according to the AP. Wake Forest isn't winning the NCAA championship this year. Not by a long shot.

Interestingly, UCLA didn't go to the Rose Bowl that season because the Pac-8 had a rule that a team couldn't go to the Rose Bowl in consecutive seasons. USC (who lost to UCLA 34-0 that season) went instead and lost to tOSU 20-7.

BTW, Stanford wasn't that bad in 1954. They started 3-0 and were ranked #17, ultimately went 4-6 and beat #16 Oregon that year. That season was sandwiched between two 6-3-1 seasons in which they were ranked in the top 20 both times. This year's Stanford team couldn't see the Top 20 with the Hubble telescope. Maybe with the JWST...

RE: Administration should be ashamed - BobK - 10-04-2026

Not being close to a spring chicken I listened to the entire
72-0 ucla loss.