[teejers1]

At a minimum, it is an extra six months of time, but it can be as much as a year if we compare winter quarter to winter quarter.  Moreover, it is another cycle of spring practices, spring/summer conditioning, and summer practices, and the fall season.  Players don't just show up in the fall and play; football is basically a year round commitment.

This is not just a Stanford phenomenon, though I think we are affected more than most.  While Christian McCaffrey was the first prominent player to skip a lower tier bowl, that is now routine.  Look at Florida's shell of a team this year in the Cotton Bowl.  Hell, we had a thread about a player bailing on the team at halftime, having shown what he thought he needed to show scouts in the first half.  I don't follow other teams as closely as Stanford, but looking at rosters I see fewer fifth year seniors than used to be the case.  Here's the data from the final 2020 two-deep (based on depth charts on ourlads) for the various Pac-12 schools:
Arizona 4 RS SR (1 of whom is a transfer)
ASU 2
UCLA 2
USC 6 (2 of whom are transfers)
Colorado 3
Utah 6 (1 of whom transferred in)
Cal 10 (5 of whom are transfers)
Oregon 3 (1 of whom is a transfer)
OSU 7 (1 transfer)
Washington 6 (1 transfer)
WSU 9 (3 transfers)

That compares to 4 at Stanford (Schaffer, Harrington, Robinson, Antoine) none of whom transferred in.  We were right around the median in the Pac-12 for redshirt seniors in our two-deep, and if you were to take away transfers in (which were basically not an option for us) our number was typical.  When I was a student, it was a rare player who didn't redshirt, and a plurality of the players on the two-deep were redshirt seniors.

The world has changed since I was in school (and I suspect the same for you).  Forget football; we used to joke about professional students who loved being in school so much that they would do what they could to prolong their stay.  That's not really a thing anymore.  Obviously, a college education has always been a means to an end, but "back in the day", it was an end in itself as well.  Increasingly, though, it is viewed more pragmatically; just look at the share of graduates who major in the humanities, which has plummeted.  I suspect that has to do with its cost, the student debt crisis that hit millennials, and increasing uncertainty in the job market for college graduates.  While when I was going through, a college degree was viewed as a recipe for success, increasingly it is viewed as insufficient.  So now, instead of "enjoy your four (or more) years in college; you will have nothing to worry about when you get out" the message kids are increasingly hearing is that they need to use college tactically to major in the right major, land the right internships and position themselves for life after graduation.  Football players are little different, but for the fact that at least they don't graduate with (as much) student debt.

Shaw has been slow to react to the changing world, so I don't give him a pass on this.  But he has not been the cause of the changing world as you intimate.  I suspect this will be a problem for us going forward, as one of our competitive advantages had always been less attrition (due to academic or legal failings), and who wouldn't want to stay at Stanford a fifth year, for free.  At the least, Shaw needs to plan for it, by recruiting as if fifth year players will be the exception and not the rule.  I agree with calls for him to adapt to the new reality, but we do need to understand that some of the tools available to other teams (having freshmen enroll early, for example) will not be available to us.

BC

The only "changing world" I hold Shaw potentially responsible for is the change in the allure of staying with the football team for a fifth year because it's going to be a kick-ass year.  That prospect, including in the early Shaw years, used to be pretty strong.  No more.

[teejers1]

At a minimum, it is an extra six months of time, but it can be as much as a year if we compare winter quarter to winter quarter.  Moreover, it is another cycle of spring practices, spring/summer conditioning, and summer practices, and the fall season.  Players don't just show up in the fall and play; football is basically a year round commitment.

This is not just a Stanford phenomenon, though I think we are affected more than most.  While Christian McCaffrey was the first prominent player to skip a lower tier bowl, that is now routine.  Look at Florida's shell of a team this year in the Cotton Bowl.  Hell, we had a thread about a player bailing on the team at halftime, having shown what he thought he needed to show scouts in the first half.  I don't follow other teams as closely as Stanford, but looking at rosters I see fewer fifth year seniors than used to be the case.  Here's the data from the final 2020 two-deep (based on depth charts on ourlads) for the various Pac-12 schools:
Arizona 4 RS SR (1 of whom is a transfer)
ASU 2
UCLA 2
USC 6 (2 of whom are transfers)
Colorado 3
Utah 6 (1 of whom transferred in)
Cal 10 (5 of whom are transfers)
Oregon 3 (1 of whom is a transfer)
OSU 7 (1 transfer)
Washington 6 (1 transfer)
WSU 9 (3 transfers)

That compares to 4 at Stanford (Schaffer, Harrington, Robinson, Antoine) none of whom transferred in.  We were right around the median in the Pac-12 for redshirt seniors in our two-deep, and if you were to take away transfers in (which were basically not an option for us) our number was typical.  When I was a student, it was a rare player who didn't redshirt, and a plurality of the players on the two-deep were redshirt seniors.

The world has changed since I was in school (and I suspect the same for you).  Forget football; we used to joke about professional students who loved being in school so much that they would do what they could to prolong their stay.  That's not really a thing anymore.  Obviously, a college education has always been a means to an end, but "back in the day", it was an end in itself as well.  Increasingly, though, it is viewed more pragmatically; just look at the share of graduates who major in the humanities, which has plummeted.  I suspect that has to do with its cost, the student debt crisis that hit millennials, and increasing uncertainty in the job market for college graduates.  While when I was going through, a college degree was viewed as a recipe for success, increasingly it is viewed as insufficient.  So now, instead of "enjoy your four (or more) years in college; you will have nothing to worry about when you get out" the message kids are increasingly hearing is that they need to use college tactically to major in the right major, land the right internships and position themselves for life after graduation.  Football players are little different, but for the fact that at least they don't graduate with (as much) student debt.

Shaw has been slow to react to the changing world, so I don't give him a pass on this.  But he has not been the cause of the changing world as you intimate.  I suspect this will be a problem for us going forward, as one of our competitive advantages had always been less attrition (due to academic or legal failings), and who wouldn't want to stay at Stanford a fifth year, for free.  At the least, Shaw needs to plan for it, by recruiting as if fifth year players will be the exception and not the rule.  I agree with calls for him to adapt to the new reality, but we do need to understand that some of the tools available to other teams (having freshmen enroll early, for example) will not be available to us.

BC

The only "changing world" I hold Shaw potentially responsible for is the change in the allure of staying with the football team for a fifth year because it's going to be a kick-ass year.  That prospect, including in the early Shaw years, used to be pretty strong.  No more.