[BostonCard]

BC, once again, raises the straw man about "if you only enjoy a winner, root for Alabama."  Please.  I've supported Stanford WAY longer than most here and almost all of that period has been for "less than winning" teams.  And in truth, it is YOU who are taking the "root for a winner" position because the "defense" of this regime's pathetic offensive showing is often "hey, look at the W/L record."

Perhaps it seems like a strawman because I am having a hard time parsing your exact complaint.  But I will do my best with your last post.

This goes beyond W/L record.  And if you don't (or won't) see what an underperforming team - and particularly, here, on offense - does to a fan base, then we might as well all throw around straw men in our discussions.

Others have made the points for me, but I will recap:
1) Our performance to date (6-3) is broadly in line with what was expected by neutral observers going into the year.  Hell, Wilner has nailed the result of each and every game so far this year.  More broadly, Shaw has over-performed expectations most years, whether measured by his record against the spread, the final ranking versus pre-season ranking, number of wins versus what was expected, or results versus recruiting rankings.  So, I reject your assertion that generally Shaw puts out an underperforming team generally.  Of course, it is hard to outperform expectations all the time (since expectations eventually catch up), which is why I don't get caught up during those relatively few times when the team does underperform (for example, much of 2014).

2) The offense is not as bad as you make it out to be, whether you use advanced metrics or simpler metrics like yards per play.  If you are going to point to individual games where the offense has sucked (SDSU, OSU, WSU), then you should also point to individual games where the offense has played well (Rice, UCLA, ASU, Oregon).  So, while the complaint about inconsistency is valid, I don't think the complaint about not meeting expectations is.

3) As WIM has pointed out, this is one of the youngest offenses in Shaw's tenure, and features a true freshman left tackle, a redshirt freshman quarterback, very few seniors, and only one player (David Bright) who will exhaust eligibility after this year.  The inconsistency we have seen on offense is thus not all that surprising.

This goes to the heart of program health - unless and until we can all dispense with people in the stands and just put in cardboard cutouts for TV.  Forget the fan boards (which are up in arms), what about your personal emails?  I'm getting a bunch of emails from friends all over the country who are asking WTF is going on?  How can this Stanford team be so pathetic on offense.  And these are my schoolmates from the early '80s - i.e., folks who have attended/supported Stanford football through many non-winning seasons.  A season ticket holder in LA sent me his UW tix and said "I can't watch the game.  I mean, I can, but I won't.  Too frustrating."  That is a very real and growing sentiment.

You seem to be blaming Shaw for a long term secular trend.  The reasons for this thread have been well-discussed, and I don't see those fundamental reasons reversing in the near future. I would love to see a graph of average attendance over time.  My guess is that it has more or less continually declined, aside from the odd/even year cycles and a general correlation to our record.

I'm sorry your friend(s) will not come on Friday.  I assume you will be.  I certainly will.  I mean, you and I may disagree, but by choosing not to watch the game (and saving himself from the frustration he will experience when the offense stalls) he will also miss the excitement when Love (or McCaffrey before him) hit the crease and is gone (10 times so far this year from 50 or more yards out).

Now, you and Goose and others may characterize all these folks as "just band-wagoners who only support a winner," and I can authoritatively say you are full of it if you think that.  Unless Stanford turns this around and wins some games down the stretch, I dread what the stands will look like next season (in the bad, even year schedule).

I don't know these folks so I won't characterize them.  The bottom line is that Stanford has been a winner, but I think a lot of it has to do with context.  If we had a season like this 3 years removed from the 1-10 crapola season that Wlat Harris put up, in the context of not having been to a bowl game in 7 years, I think the excitement would be quite palpable, and we would be delighted to be heading to the Sun Bowl, led by a dynamic running back and featuring a redshirt freshman QB who we would expect to only get better (by the way, interestingly in 2009 we scored 35.5 ppg and averaged 6.5 ypp with an offense that featured junior Toby Gerhart and a RS Frosh QB Andrew Luck; this year we are averaging 33.7 ppg and 6.9 ypp).  And lest you suggest the talent on the squad today is better than 2009, that 2009 team had: Andrew Luck, Toby Gerhart, David DeCastro, Jonathan Martin, Own Marecic, Chris Owusu, Ryan Whalen, Jim Dray, Coby Fleener, Konrad Reuland, Chase Beeler, Chris Marinelli, and Andrew Phillips. 

The results are really not all that much different from 2009; what is vastly different is our perspective.  Becoming bowl eligible is no longer a dramatic accomplishment.  Having a winning season is de rigeur.  Winning 7, 8, or 9 games in a season does not generate excitement; it  generates disappointment because such a win total would be below Shaw's average.  That this is true is actually a testament to Shaw.

I know a lot of people are worried that the trend is towards mediocrity, whereas in 2009 the trend was unmistakably towards improvement. The "other shoe will drop" crowd keeps expecting a return to the days when we would struggle to have a winning season.  And yes, someday it will happen; we will have a losing season and may even find ourselves mired in a prolonged slump.  But with 6 winning seasons under his belt, I'm ready to give Shaw the benefit of the doubt and wait until he actually loses more games than he wins before proclaiming the end of the golden era of Stanford football.

BC

[BostonCard]

BC, once again, raises the straw man about "if you only enjoy a winner, root for Alabama."  Please.  I've supported Stanford WAY longer than most here and almost all of that period has been for "less than winning" teams.  And in truth, it is YOU who are taking the "root for a winner" position because the "defense" of this regime's pathetic offensive showing is often "hey, look at the W/L record."

Perhaps it seems like a strawman because I am having a hard time parsing your exact complaint.  But I will do my best with your last post.

This goes beyond W/L record.  And if you don't (or won't) see what an underperforming team - and particularly, here, on offense - does to a fan base, then we might as well all throw around straw men in our discussions.

Others have made the points for me, but I will recap:
1) Our performance to date (6-3) is broadly in line with what was expected by neutral observers going into the year.  Hell, Wilner has nailed the result of each and every game so far this year.  More broadly, Shaw has over-performed expectations most years, whether measured by his record against the spread, the final ranking versus pre-season ranking, number of wins versus what was expected, or results versus recruiting rankings.  So, I reject your assertion that generally Shaw puts out an underperforming team generally.  Of course, it is hard to outperform expectations all the time (since expectations eventually catch up), which is why I don't get caught up during those relatively few times when the team does underperform (for example, much of 2014).

2) The offense is not as bad as you make it out to be, whether you use advanced metrics or simpler metrics like yards per play.  If you are going to point to individual games where the offense has sucked (SDSU, OSU, WSU), then you should also point to individual games where the offense has played well (Rice, UCLA, ASU, Oregon).  So, while the complaint about inconsistency is valid, I don't think the complaint about not meeting expectations is.

3) As WIM has pointed out, this is one of the youngest offenses in Shaw's tenure, and features a true freshman left tackle, a redshirt freshman quarterback, very few seniors, and only one player (David Bright) who will exhaust eligibility after this year.  The inconsistency we have seen on offense is thus not all that surprising.

This goes to the heart of program health - unless and until we can all dispense with people in the stands and just put in cardboard cutouts for TV.  Forget the fan boards (which are up in arms), what about your personal emails?  I'm getting a bunch of emails from friends all over the country who are asking WTF is going on?  How can this Stanford team be so pathetic on offense.  And these are my schoolmates from the early '80s - i.e., folks who have attended/supported Stanford football through many non-winning seasons.  A season ticket holder in LA sent me his UW tix and said "I can't watch the game.  I mean, I can, but I won't.  Too frustrating."  That is a very real and growing sentiment.

You seem to be blaming Shaw for a long term secular trend.  The reasons for this thread have been well-discussed, and I don't see those fundamental reasons reversing in the near future. I would love to see a graph of average attendance over time.  My guess is that it has more or less continually declined, aside from the odd/even year cycles and a general correlation to our record.

I'm sorry your friend(s) will not come on Friday.  I assume you will be.  I certainly will.  I mean, you and I may disagree, but by choosing not to watch the game (and saving himself from the frustration he will experience when the offense stalls) he will also miss the excitement when Love (or McCaffrey before him) hit the crease and is gone (10 times so far this year from 50 or more yards out).

Now, you and Goose and others may characterize all these folks as "just band-wagoners who only support a winner," and I can authoritatively say you are full of it if you think that.  Unless Stanford turns this around and wins some games down the stretch, I dread what the stands will look like next season (in the bad, even year schedule).

I don't know these folks so I won't characterize them.  The bottom line is that Stanford has been a winner, but I think a lot of it has to do with context.  If we had a season like this 3 years removed from the 1-10 crapola season that Wlat Harris put up, in the context of not having been to a bowl game in 7 years, I think the excitement would be quite palpable, and we would be delighted to be heading to the Sun Bowl, led by a dynamic running back and featuring a redshirt freshman QB who we would expect to only get better (by the way, interestingly in 2009 we scored 35.5 ppg and averaged 6.5 ypp with an offense that featured junior Toby Gerhart and a RS Frosh QB Andrew Luck; this year we are averaging 33.7 ppg and 6.9 ypp).  And lest you suggest the talent on the squad today is better than 2009, that 2009 team had: Andrew Luck, Toby Gerhart, David DeCastro, Jonathan Martin, Own Marecic, Chris Owusu, Ryan Whalen, Jim Dray, Coby Fleener, Konrad Reuland, Chase Beeler, Chris Marinelli, and Andrew Phillips. 

The results are really not all that much different from 2009; what is vastly different is our perspective.  Becoming bowl eligible is no longer a dramatic accomplishment.  Having a winning season is de rigeur.  Winning 7, 8, or 9 games in a season does not generate excitement; it  generates disappointment because such a win total would be below Shaw's average.  That this is true is actually a testament to Shaw.

I know a lot of people are worried that the trend is towards mediocrity, whereas in 2009 the trend was unmistakably towards improvement. The "other shoe will drop" crowd keeps expecting a return to the days when we would struggle to have a winning season.  And yes, someday it will happen; we will have a losing season and may even find ourselves mired in a prolonged slump.  But with 6 winning seasons under his belt, I'm ready to give Shaw the benefit of the doubt and wait until he actually loses more games than he wins before proclaiming the end of the golden era of Stanford football.

BC