Forbes Article on Stanford's Rise to Football Prominence

[GT Man]

May be old news to some of you, but I found this article pretty insightful.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciaj...stanfords-emergence-as-a-football-powerhouse/

Some things that stood out to me:

“What has also helped, is winning. Winning games on a national stage gets you attention."

Shaw notes that the coaching staff’s ability to reach recruits early in the recruiting process has been critical to the team’s success in recent years. “Our junior days are huge for us to get guys the information they need about AP classes, finishing with their graduating class and having high enough SAT scores to come to Stanford.”

“I give a lot of credit to Bowlsby for increasing our budget as far as recruiting goes. We needed to be a national recruiter. Now, we go from coast-to-coast, and at any given time, we have seven coaches in seven different states. Sometimes, the next day, those guys will be in seven different states,” Shaw noted.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

That last comment is a doosey. Sounds li

“I give a lot of credit to Bowlsby for increasing our budget as far as recruiting goes. We needed to be a national recruiter. Now, we go from coast-to-coast, and at any given time, we have seven coaches in seven different states. Sometimes, the next day, those guys will be in seven different states,” Shaw noted.

They must have an unlimited recruiting budget to do that. We could never do that.

 

[IronJacket7]

That last comment is a doosey. Sounds li

They must have an unlimited recruiting budget to do that. We could never do that.

Why?

 

[ATL1]

Here's how they get that budget. I've posted this before.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304672404579181803355000052

Stanford is a Beast virtually a West Coast Ivy League school, I don't GT could match what Stanford does but I do think it would help to replicate what they do at GT.

They also don't take special admissions into their program. GT has a leg up on them in that regard.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

They also don't take special admissions into their program.

Unless you are the registrar at Stanford, you're just making this up.

 

[ATL1]

Unless you are the registrar at Stanford, you're just making this up.

yep

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...ds-help-stanford-elevate-itself-in-recruiting

"As for the speculation the Cardinal football program can now get admissions to look the other way on an elite talent or two?

"That's all conjecture," says Sanford, who came to Palo Alto after having coached at Yale. "Stanford's not going to make exemptions. They're going to bring in the best group of people they can bring into this place. They're looking at the whole applicant. We don't have, say, two special exceptions a year. Nothing like that will ever happen. There's just too much pride in this place.""

Here's another one:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf-...onventional-recruiting-mandate-044557382.html

"Shaw became convinced that there is more to it than just strong academics, although a 3.5 GPA, advanced placement classes and a strong standardized score are essentially required."

Here's one two:
http://thehuskyhaul.com/2012/05/16/comparing-the-acceptance-rates-of-athletes-to-the-general-public/

"Some universities are known for not making any exceptions to their high academic standings. Stanford for instance actually takes advantage of that by only recruiting athletes who would have already made it through the admissions process (or at least would have been competitive) without sports. Perhaps there is a little bit of rule bending, benefit of the doubt, or advantage to being a star recruit, but for the most part, the players who are on the field for Stanford were straight-A high school students with high SAT scores. "

Straight out of thin air.

 

[WreckinGT]

Here is a better article from 2009 before Stanford really blew up.
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/colleg...s-look-at-the-rise-from-1-11-to-the-sun-bowl/

Stanford essentially doubled their recruiting budget, started paying coaches much more than they had in the past, improved facilities, and "streamlined" the recruiting and admissions process with a new Dean of Admissions who is a football fan. With Harbaugh and Luck coming in at the same time as well it created a perfect storm for them and they have been riding the wave ever since.

 

[WreckinGT]

Here's another one:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf-...onventional-recruiting-mandate-044557382.html

"Shaw became convinced that there is more to it than just strong academics, although a 3.5 GPA, advanced placement classes and a strong standardized score are essentially required."

Not that I want to call David Shaw a liar but his current starting QB had a 3.1 GPA in high school. There have been other recent admissions to Stanford that were fairly questionable as well.

 

[RLR]

Why?

Well,

1. Stanford is the alma matter of 30 living billionaires.
2. Stanford is one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress.
3. Companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world.
4. Stanford endowment: 18.7 billion (17 billion greater than GT’s)

Source: Wikipedia, citing various articles.

 

[AE 87]

I'm convinced that Stanford was putting out press-releases as Forbes, ESPN, yahoo all told similar stories. They don't make exceptions because they don't have an objective formula like many places. Their admission-standards for ALL students include no minimum GPA, no minimum standardized test scores, and no required classes from High School but do include recognition of special skills or talents. It's not just their athletes that benefit from this approach but also their schools of fine arts, as I understand it.

If you're a typical student wanting to major in Chemistry or Engineering, you may have an easier time getting into Tech than Stanford. If you're a 4* athlete wanting to major in business or marketing, I reckon it's the other way around.

Comparing Stanford's "no exceptions" to GT's "a few exceptions" as if that means GT is more lenient is ignorant, imo.

I've posted other articles about Stanford's admitting in another thread in this forum if people are interested enough to look.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

And then's there's the now infamous "list" of courses/professors for Stanford players to take.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/stanford-athletes-had-acc_n_833655.html

A drama class in "Beginning Improvising" and another in "Social Dances of North America III" were among dozens of classes on a closely guarded quarterly list distributed only to Stanford athletes to help them choose courses.

Since this story broke, the "list" seems to have vanished, but that doesn't mean the courses did as well.

 

[augustabuzz]

Well,

1. Stanford is one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress.Source: Wikipedia, citing various articles.

Is this listed under "Pro" or "Con"?

 

[GT Man]

I know GT is trying to recruit on a more national level, but does anyone know how many guys we've got out there, and where they go?

 

[GT Man]

Is this listed under "Pro" or "Con"?

They're ALL "cons" in my opinion.

 

[IronJacket7]

Well,

1. Stanford is the alma matter of 30 living billionaires.
2. Stanford is one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress.
3. Companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world.
4. Stanford endowment: 18.7 billion (17 billion greater than GT’s)

Source: Wikipedia, citing various articles.

Thanks. That answered my question.

 

[gtdrew]

Stanford is a private school, right?

 

[takethepoints]

Just one thing.

Politics - that means political science - is number 10 on the list of college majors that produce millionaires. (See: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/...opular-college-degrees-earned-by-millionaires.) Why Tech, with the Nunn school and the way Big Data is influencing the social sciences and, through them, the world, doesn't have a pol sci major is beyond me. But there it is.

Btw, here's another article on that: http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/king14.pdf. Pay special attention to the description of Ansolabehere's research on the second page. Yep, the world is changing alright. And, regrettably, Tech is behind the curve on this. Stanford sure isn't.

 

[IEEEWreck]

Just one thing.

Politics - that means political science - is number 10 on the list of college majors that produce millionaires. (See: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/...opular-college-degrees-earned-by-millionaires.) Why Tech, with the Nunn school and the way Big Data is influencing the social sciences and, through them, the world, doesn't have a pol sci major is beyond me. But there it is.

Why don't the BS International Affairs, BS INTA and Econ, and BS INTA and Modern Language count?

 

[forensicbuzz]

Public Policy is the same information from a different perspective. My wife received her PhD from Tech in PP and teaches a lot of PolySci classes. She says the difference is just perspective.

 

[DCSS]

One can admire highly regarded universities that field successful football teams, but how many institutes do the same? Are we the only ones who try? Seems like beating a dead horse to me. Math and science are not just a hard sell to athletes, but are to youth in general as well.