[BiffTFinancial]

Originally posted on 01/02/2014:

For the record, Stanford Graduation losses are two starting OL's, two starting RB's including Gaffney, and their FB on offense. They lose one starter on the DL and two starting LB's. That is it. Now other underclassmen may go pro, but this is certainly no big deal.

As far as Shaw is concerned, he has a major problem. He has a "my way or the highway" mentality and his way is obviously not working. All he does is run, run, run. His game plan yesterday was a total disaster. His teams have also lost 5 away games in the past two years. Again, poor coaching. If I were an NFL team looking for a new HC, he is off of my list, unless I need someone to cover the Rooney rule. Then he gets an interview, but nothing more.

As for run, run, run, it's a miracle that Andrew Luck snuck into the NFL playing for this modern-day Woody Hayes. I think that Shaw, like most coaches, goes with the respective strengths of his personnel in a given year. 2013 Stanford team was positively built around the power running game because their personnel dictated it. Should they have thrown on 4th-and-3 or 4th-and-1 yesterday? You could certainly argue that they should've, but if you watched Stanford this season, it wasn't a major surprise. Shaw went with his strength and Sparty run defense beat it, but MSU pass defense is no slouch, so it's not as if there is any guarantee that Stanford would've converted simply by going away from their established strength by passing rather than running on 4th down.

Also, forgot where i was for a second. Thank you for reminding me that i'm at SBR, where a decent percentage of the members still carry around Dixie 1950s attitudes about race. There was a thread yesterday in which people were arguing that Manziel is a better NFL prospect than Bridgewater because the science isn't yet in on whether black people have the intelligence and leadership skills necessary to succeed in the NFL. I checked my watch to make sure that I hadn't fallen into a wayback machine.