[jayasena]

Unless/until he calls for a punt on third down, I'm not going to start criticizing Shaw's play-calling...

To me, that seems like setting the bar extremely low. I don't think it's completely unreasonable to criticize some aspects of coaching and play-calling in this game. As WIM said, we were clearly out-coached.

Of course, that does not justify calling for Shaw's head. He may not have lived up to cupcake-fed, outsized mid-season expectations but, provided we win the remaining regular-season games, he will have handily outperformed pretty much every reasonable person's preseason expectations. That's no mean feat, even in a down year for the conference. Kelly has clearly turned out to be one of the best strategists in the college game (plus he seems to have Les Miles' "mad hatter" gene) but even he looked completely lost at times during his first season (anyone remember the disaster that was their season opener at Boise State in 2009?)

If we are giving up anything with Shaw as opposed to Harbaugh, then so be it.  Shaw is an incredible face for the program.  He is going to have to do pretty awful for me to want him out, and I am not even going to consider that for a few years.

I'm always a bit uncomfortable when people point to "incredible face of the program" (or something of that sort) as the primary consideration. It's certainly a prerequisite at a place like Stanford but not a substitute for performance. Otherwise BuddyTeevens would still be our coach.

[jayasena]

Unless/until he calls for a punt on third down, I'm not going to start criticizing Shaw's play-calling...

To me, that seems like setting the bar extremely low. I don't think it's completely unreasonable to criticize some aspects of coaching and play-calling in this game. As WIM said, we were clearly out-coached.

Of course, that does not justify calling for Shaw's head. He may not have lived up to cupcake-fed, outsized mid-season expectations but, provided we win the remaining regular-season games, he will have handily outperformed pretty much every reasonable person's preseason expectations. That's no mean feat, even in a down year for the conference. Kelly has clearly turned out to be one of the best strategists in the college game (plus he seems to have Les Miles' "mad hatter" gene) but even he looked completely lost at times during his first season (anyone remember the disaster that was their season opener at Boise State in 2009?)

If we are giving up anything with Shaw as opposed to Harbaugh, then so be it.  Shaw is an incredible face for the program.  He is going to have to do pretty awful for me to want him out, and I am not even going to consider that for a few years.

I'm always a bit uncomfortable when people point to "incredible face of the program" (or something of that sort) as the primary consideration. It's certainly a prerequisite at a place like Stanford but not a substitute for performance. Otherwise BuddyTeevens would still be our coach.