Stanford lucks out

Stanford is front and center of the football universe right now. They scored an impressive 40-12 victory over virginia tech in the orange bowl and since then, Stanford's coach Jim Harbaugh and their QB Andrew Luck have dominated the sports pages across the country. Jim Harbaugh was the most sought after coach in all of football this week - may be ever, and rightfully so. 3 NFL teams - Denver, San Francisco and Miami, were after him and Stanford threw money at him to try and retain him as well. Finally, Harbaugh committed to stick with the Bay Area but not with Stanford. He was announced as the new head coach of the San Francisco 49'ers. What Harbaugh had done at the farm after taking over a 1-11 Stanford team is pretty impressive. In a short time, he took them to a BCS bowl and won it in style. I have always been a big fan of Harbaugh since his "captain comeback" days with the Colts. I wish him good luck in the NFL where is brother is not doing bad either as the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. Of course, Harbaugh should thank his stud QB Luck for a lot of his success this year, but Harbaugh deserves his share of the spotlight too.

Luck was super efficient against Va Tech and the Hokies looked all confused in the second half trying to deal with him and that offense. He has all the pro-skills and looked every bit like the projected first pick in the NFL draft. Obviously, the other major news of the week was concerning his future. He cut the conversation short by shocking everybody. He has decided to stay back at Stanford instead of making millions of dollars. Staying back in school is always risky for pro-prospects and is especially risky for a projected first pick and even more so for Luck given the uncertainty of the labor situation in the NFL right now. The labor situation is one reason he is staying back, but depending on how the NFL resolves it and when they decide to implement the rookie wage scale (starting 2011 or 2012), he could lose tens of millions of dollars. Now add to it the fact that Jim Harbaugh is gone, you really have to say Luck is rolling the dice here. There are several cases of athletes over the years, including Jake Locker - the other popular Pac-10 QB this season, who decided to stay back in school and lost some shine and draft position. As good as Luck is, he can suffer a similar fate especially with the coaching situation now at Stanford.

The closest parallel that comes to my mind is Peyton Manning. He came back to school even when he was guaranteed be a top pick. It worked out well for Peyton as he was still the first pick the next year and is now headed towards being the best QB ever in the history of the NFL. Luck would have to be very lucky to follow in those footsteps. Aside from the obvious dangers of an injury, the problem for Luck is going to be the unsettled coaching situation at Stanford and all the changes in his offensive line. This decision must have been a lot tougher call for Luck than it was for Manning, but he has made the same call nonetheless. Coincidentally, Manning's decision from the late 90's is in the news this week because of his playoff matchup against the NY Jets. One of the suspicion for why Manning went back to school was that he wanted to avoid playing for the Jets, who had the first pick in 1997. Luck is dealing with the same theory involving the Carolina Panthers, who have this year's first pick. I don't think Luck is trying to avoid the Panthers, but only he knows for sure.

In any case, It's great news for Stanford and it's fans. Having Luck back will give them a huge boost, especially after losing Harbaugh. A QB of Luck's stature doesn't come along too often in college and Stanford gets him for another year. This makes their coaching job more attractive as well. The only frustrating part for Stanford is how they are nothing more than a training ground for top coaches. Even if they hire the best, they are going to lose him after a few years because they can't compete with top college programs and NFL teams that came after that successful coach after a few years. However, losing Harbaugh to the NFL is better than losing him to a bigger name college program like Michigan. It would have been a repeat of losing Tyrone Willingham to Notre Dame and that would have been even more frustrating to the cardinal faithful. At least now, they can expect Luck to get them a few wins. They can also pat themselves on the back for spotting and hiring 2 sought after coaching talents in Ty Wilingham and Jim Harbaugh within a few years of each other. Somebody is doing the right hiring at Stanford. Lets see what they do next.