Bay Area earthquake: Stanford coach David Shaw steps down after season-ending loss

David Shaw would have coached Stanford the next few years if he wanted … but he didn’t want to. Another #Pac12 job opens up.

So, is there anything happening in Pac-12 football right now — you know, other than Arizona State hiring a new head coach, Utah making an improbable last-minute run to the Pac-12 Championship Game, USC coming within one win of the College Football Playoff, Oregon collapsing in remarkable fashion against Oregon State, Colorado offering Deion Sanders its head coaching position, Washington winning 10 games under Kalen DeBoer, and Oregon State going 9-3 essentially without a functioning quarterback?

Man, what a time.

In addition to all the other big, headline-grabbing news stories in the conference, a huge one broke overnight while you were either sleeping or celebrating USC’s win over Notre Dame: Stanford football coach David Shaw decided to step down.

Let’s go through the many dimensions of this story and what it means: