During a 9am (PST) meeting with Bob Bowlsby that lasted half an hour, Stanford Football head coach
Walt Harris was fired today. The Cardinal coach on Saturday completed his second
year at Stanford with its losingest season in season in school history and a
1-11 record. Harris totaled a 6-17 record in his two years. He
delivered some improvement for the program in his first season, with a 5-6
record and three narrow losses in the final minute which would have propelled
Stanford to their first bowl game since 2001.
But the wheels fell off for Harris and Stanford this season, losing his first
nine games in a long and painful season. The closest the Cardinal came to
competing through a full four quarters in any of those losses came in Week Two
at San Jose State. Stanford blew a 34-14 lead and were outscored 21-0 by
the Spartans in a stunning loss. Harris and Stanford ironically also lost their
second game as huge favorites in 2005, at home versus transitional Division I-AA UC Davis.
Injuries upended Stanford and the offense early in the 2006 season, but the
entirety of the team's performance in all three phases of the game contributed
to blowout losses throughout the year. That included losing all five home
games in the Cardinal's spectacular new stadium by a combined 167-33 margin.
Stanford has now suffered through five straight losing seasons, and Bowlsby
will soon hire the Cardinal's fourth head coach in the last six years. He
will first meet with the breadth of the Stanford Football team in an emergency
meeting scheduled for 11am. Bob Bowlsby is just months into this job at
Stanford, having taken reins of the Stanford Athletic Department less than six months ago. He
previously was the athletic director at Iowa, hiring Kirk Ferentz and helping to
build a football program that appeared in four straight January bowl games
through last season.
Stay tuned to The Bootleg for more details on Harris' ouster and
Bowlsby's upcoming moves to bring new leadership and direction to Stanford
Football.
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