[BostonCard]

Agree with Samuel.  The class of 2021 was a cluster, and we cannot afford to continue like that.  Thankfully, it appears that the staff has (belatedly) reacted, and things should be better next year, and I expect will improve substantially in a couple years when the effects of COVID-19 dissipate.  I agree that some of the effects were unavoidable; Stanford recruits nationally and a pandemic which makes travel more difficult and gives more salience to the benefits of staying close to home is going to disproportionately disadvantage us.  On the other hand, I've noticed that the staff is generally not as nimble in responding to changing recruiting landscape than others.  This is not the first time that this staff has been caught flat-footed (for example, we were slow to respond to changes as a result of the early signing period).  So, if past is prologue, I expect that we will suffer for a couple years, adapt, and then get back to pretty god recruiting (both the classes of 2020 and 2019 were ranked #3 in the Pac-12, and I think top-quartile or top-tertile is what we are capable of), until there is some new change in the recruiting landscape, to which the staff will be slow to react, and so we will see a couple of below average classes (2021 was ranked #7 in the Pac-12, as was 2018).

BC

[BostonCard]

Agree with Samuel.  The class of 2021 was a cluster, and we cannot afford to continue like that.  Thankfully, it appears that the staff has (belatedly) reacted, and things should be better next year, and I expect will improve substantially in a couple years when the effects of COVID-19 dissipate.  I agree that some of the effects were unavoidable; Stanford recruits nationally and a pandemic which makes travel more difficult and gives more salience to the benefits of staying close to home is going to disproportionately disadvantage us.  On the other hand, I've noticed that the staff is generally not as nimble in responding to changing recruiting landscape than others.  This is not the first time that this staff has been caught flat-footed (for example, we were slow to respond to changes as a result of the early signing period).  So, if past is prologue, I expect that we will suffer for a couple years, adapt, and then get back to pretty god recruiting (both the classes of 2020 and 2019 were ranked #3 in the Pac-12, and I think top-quartile or top-tertile is what we are capable of), until there is some new change in the recruiting landscape, to which the staff will be slow to react, and so we will see a couple of below average classes (2021 was ranked #7 in the Pac-12, as was 2018).

BC