09-28-2020, 09:54 AM
I'm still on the Shaw bandwagon, but my biggest concern is recruiting, not playcalling or coaching philosophy. I chalk up last year's clusterf*** to not having quality, ready-to-play depth at way too many positions.
Having said that, if the season is actually played and the injury plague does not resurface, I think Stanford will win most of its games this year. We'll see what the schedule looks like, but UW and WSU are breaking in new coaches and new QBs, UO has the most talent overall but is breaking in a new QB and, I think, has the most quality opt-outs in the Pac-12, OSU is breaking in a new QB. Cal should be good, but they needed a last-minute rally to beat a crappy Stanford team last year.
So I would rate the state of the program for 2020 as in the top third of the Pac-12. But if the 2020 recruiting class looks like the at-the-moment 2021 recruiting class. the state of the program will decline.
Having said that, if the season is actually played and the injury plague does not resurface, I think Stanford will win most of its games this year. We'll see what the schedule looks like, but UW and WSU are breaking in new coaches and new QBs, UO has the most talent overall but is breaking in a new QB and, I think, has the most quality opt-outs in the Pac-12, OSU is breaking in a new QB. Cal should be good, but they needed a last-minute rally to beat a crappy Stanford team last year.
So I would rate the state of the program for 2020 as in the top third of the Pac-12. But if the 2020 recruiting class looks like the at-the-moment 2021 recruiting class. the state of the program will decline.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)