Class of 2016 - Printable Version

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Re: Class of 2016 - BostonCard - 02-04-2016

13-2 was record against Michigan and Ohio State, combined.

BC

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2016 Walk-on Safety Kelly Burke - FrankO - 02-04-2016

6-1, 185 from Loyola HS in Los Angeles...

story on him from earlier this past fall in LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/la-sp-loyola-blake-sondheimer-20150918-column.html

we have 7 walk-ons coming in this class... and each has their own story...

part of what makes College sports so great

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Re: Class of 2016 - CTcard - 02-04-2016

Going 'round the horn ...

(02-04-2016, 12:23 PM)terry link Wrote:I don't know what Fox is doing this year. If he is attending a college or junior college as a full-time student (12 units or more), his five-year eligibility clock started running. If he is attending a college or JC less than full-time, his eligibility clock did not start. If he is doing a 5th year of high school at a prep school, his eligibility clock did not start. I assume he worked with our staff to avoid using any eligibility.

Fox could be in a unique situation. I have never before heard of a kid who was an initial counter the year before his eligibility clock started. If it's possible, I am sure it has happened, but gotta be rare.

(02-04-2016, 01:58 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:13-2 against Michigan/tOSU is unprecedented. As Hulk will tell you, those kids are the toughest to pull out of state.

Not sure how tOSU was operating, but the 9-2 vs Michigan should be taken with a grain of salt. We know that Harbaugh likes to offer most any kid who can breathe - but not all offers are offers and some evolve into not-offers depending on circumstances.

I also think we only beat Michigan for someone from the midwest in one border-line case. We did beat them for guys from the northeast, the mid-Atlantic, the South, and the west coast. I think our midwestern guys were Powell, Swann, Schaffer who I don't think had Michigan offers. Pryts did. He is from western Pennsylvania, and at least that side of the state seems borderline midwest. 

(02-04-2016, 01:26 PM)TrumpCard link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=9617.msg155596#msg155596 date=1454613400]
Traded Ulloa for Pryts = could see staff preferring Pryts
Traded Edmonds for Eboh = could see staff preferring Eboh
Traded Stephens for Maddox = could see staff preferring Maddox
Traded Bisharat for Hamilton or Powell = could see staff preferring either or both to Bisharat

This is absurd. 
[/quote]

Absolutely.
As you note, the timing of the Stanford offers can give us pretty good hints as to their preferences. Pryts is the one guy in that list it would seem the staff would have preferred. On the other hand, as a Plan B things worked out awfully well.
Well, the staff clearly wanted Hamilton as well, but there wasn't really any trade involving Bisharat.

I also don't believe the Bisharat complaint - at least mostly. There might have been a downgrade in the staff's relative evaluation of his skills as sent to admission - but no way they dropped him for Maddox and there was no way they would have him out for the big visit weekend if they didn't want him. The specific quotation in the newspaper article is also not something the Stanford coaches would have said, even if they weren't being very noble:

Quote:Two weeks ago, Bisharat said, he was told he was no longer in Stanford’s plans.
“They told me they found someone they wanted more at that position,” Bisharat said.

Broadly speaking, this class was very good but has it's strengths and weaknesses.

- The class gets very high marks for covering all the bases and providing depth.
- There seems to be a top-flight QB, the critical position.
- Good depth and some star power on the lines - the next critical position.
- But, no apparent game changing skill guys ala McCaffrey, Love, Irwin (hopefully?). More broadly, WR continues to be an issue for Stanford - not necessarily surprising given our offensive approach. 
- And only one super-highly ranked guy on defense, though Treyjohn Butler is on the border of a second as he makes top 300 on 247-composite.

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Re: Class of 2016 - BostonCard - 02-04-2016

(02-04-2016, 03:56 PM)CTcard link Wrote:- But, no apparent game changing skill guys ala McCaffrey, Love, Irwin (hopefully?). More broadly, WR continues to be an issue for Stanford - not necessarily surprising given our offensive approach. 

Well, we did get a game changing skill guy... he's just going on a mission.  But there is a lot to like about Fehoko.  And then there is Kaden Smith, who while not a wide receiver, can reasonably be projected to be a game-changing skill guy, especially in our offense

Quote:- And only one super-highly ranked guy on defense, though Treyjohn Butler is on the border of a second as he makes top 300 on 247-composite.

I assume you are talking about Robinson as the super-highly ranked guy.  But also, in addition to Butler, Pryts, Williams, and Eboh are all pretty highly regarded.  Hard to be too disappointed here.

BC

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Re: Class of 2016 - terry - 02-04-2016

(02-04-2016, 03:56 PM)CTcard link Wrote:Fox could be in a unique situation. I have never before heard of a kid who was an initial counter the year before his eligibility clock started. If it's possible, I am sure it has happened, but gotta be rare.

Yes, it's a pretty odd situation. My best guess is this --

Fox came out to campus last June to begin summer training and summer school with the other freshmen. He received some benefits of his athletic scholarship -- maybe housing and food. So, from a scholarship point of view, he received financial aid and became a "counter" against the scholarship limit last year.

I'm guessing that Fox either did not register for summer quarter classes, or registered for fewer than 12 units. So his five-year eligibility clock would not have started at that time.

Some problem arose that prevented Fox's enrollment. Maybe something in his transcript from the last semester of his senior year, but I don't know that. So a deal was worked out to defer enrollment for a year. I'm guessing that since then, he has avoided enrolling full-time at the college level. So his eligibility clock would not have started yet.

A lot of guesswork in there, so this could be wrong.

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Re: Class of 2016 - ColoradoTree - 02-04-2016

CTCard, as for skill players, I think BC nailed it by pointing to Kaden Smith and Simi Fehoko.  I'd argue that Donald Stewart is going to fit in quite nicely as a big WR with speed--there's a reason he was so highly-recruited.  And Hulk could wax poetically for hours about just how darn good Trevor Speights is, what with him rushing for something north of a billion yards in Texas, it seems.  I actually think we did quite nicely at the skill positions, all things considered.   

And regarding defense, I can't complain.  I think our coaching staff did incredibly well to get the guys we did on the DL, then a whale like Robinson, and 4-star caliber DBs in Pryts, Butler, and Eboh.  And if Schaffer had played HS ball all 4 years, I'm confident he'd be a 4-star guy.  He's going to be great for us.   

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Re: Class of 2016 - CTcard - 02-04-2016

(02-04-2016, 04:21 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Well, we did get a game changing skill guy... he's just going on a mission.  But there is a lot to like about Fehoko.  And then there is Kaden Smith, who while not a wide receiver, can reasonably be projected to be a game-changing skill guy, especially in our offense

I thought about both of them in making that statement. Fehoko looks very good to me but he's class of 2018.
Kaden Smith is also very highly rated, and should prove good if his knees recover. But, generally tight ends aren't threats to score from anywhere on the field the way that McCaffrey, Love, and good WRs are. Still extremely valuable, but a different value.

Quote:I assume you are talking about Robinson as the super-highly ranked guy.  But also, in addition to Butler, Pryts, Williams, and Eboh are all pretty highly regarded.  Hard to be too disappointed here.

I'm not disappointed, but the statement still holds.
Robinson looks very impressive, not hard to see why he's highly rated.
247 composite rankings of our defensive guys:
Robinson - #70 overall, #6 OLB
Butler - #230 overall, #21 CB
no one else in top 300

Pryts is the one guy whom it sounds to me like the coaches think is really better than his ranking. Williams is strong at a position of extreme need, but his potential isn't as obviously high as someone like Solomon Thomas.

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I don't know if you are really disagreeing with my comments or not. I don't think you would just say every position is the absolute most wonderful as can be. Those were some thoughts about what were stronger and less strong aspects of the class.
I guess I could also have written about issues of ILBs, but I thought that has already been thoroughly covered.

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Re: Class of 2016 - cardfan77 - 02-05-2016

I wonder if Thomas Schaffer is interested in joining the Stanford menʻs volleyball team.

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Re: Class of 2016 - Hulk01 - 02-05-2016

Speights:
Guys in Rio Grande Valley can recite the exploits of the best players there back to pre-Bobby Lackey, the Longhorn's quarterback in the late 50's.  And the consensus is that Speights is the best running back ever to play there, a group that includes a two-time All SWC (Big Six?) running back for Rice way back when.  Watch his tape; we haven't seen tape like his before; it really does look like a video game.

Game breakers
If your criteria for big time skill players is freakish talents like Christian, to whom I can compare no one, and Bryce Love, then we've failed in recruiting there twelve years in every 13.  We've landed guys who can move the ball down the field and score: Smith, Stewart, Costello, Fehoko--who proved himself against the nations' best in the US Army Bowl--and Speights.  And regardless of what the services say, Pryts is a lethal weapon on defense, capable of discouraging most wide receivers from running a crossing pattern for fear of a later life with CTE. 

I predict again, and have never said this of a class before or since 2012: This will be the best class we've ever recruited. 

McCaffrey II
Nothing better illustrates the sheer silliness of recruiting ranks than younger Mac's rankings.  They almost certainly are predicated on dozens of assumptions that he has most of his brother's DNA.  He's a good QB; he is not one of the 150 best recruits in the country.

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Re: Class of 2016 - CTcard - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 05:16 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:Speights:
Watch his tape; we haven't seen tape like his before; it really does look like a video game.

Do you have a good tape to recommend?

What I have seen on the official site and the Scout site don't look in-kind that different from other good Stanford RBs. All HS highlight tapes look like video games. With Speights, the most notable aspect looks like running tough - bouncing off defenders - rather than brilliant vision, cuts, and speed. He's listed as having a 4.62 forty, which would be on the slower side for our RBs over recent years.

In fact both Maddox and Speights are listed at 5'10'', 200 lbs the recruiting sites (a few pounds heavier on the Stanford official site - which may be more up to date) with 40 times of 4.62 and 4.70.

I don't see any reason Speights can't develop into being an excellent back for us, but as a type of back, I don't see an above-average home run threat.

Quote:Game breakers
If your criteria for big time skill players is freakish talents like Christian, to whom I can compare no one, and Bryce Love, then we've failed in recruiting there twelve years in every 13.  We've landed guys who can move the ball down the field and score:

That was rather the point. Stanford landed guys who can move the ball down the field, presumably leading to nice long, ball control drives - and we hope controlling the game and winning. That's great, and something that Stanford is more or less built on lately.

But guys who can score at any time add something else to an offense. McCaffrey and Love were listed as a type rather than a standard of quality. And while by definition it means Stanford hasn't missed more than 11 of 13 times (those guys were in two different classes), it is indeed an area where Stanford has more or less always struggled to get guys. Fehoko looks to me like he has a bit of that - but he's class of 2018.

Quote:I predict again, and have never said this of a class before or since 2012: This will be the best class we've ever recruited. 

Of course we all hope that is true, and it's not that hard to see how it could be. That doesn't mean it doesn't have it's own relative strengths and weaknesses.

If you really want to dazzle us with your prognostication powers, you'd tell us you had predicted that the 2009 class would be our best ever.
It wasn't out of the blue, it was rated pretty high - especially compared to what had come before for us. But, go back and look at that class: the hit rate was amazing. That class also contained the ironic turn that two (one and a half?) of the misses were two of the highest rated guys and two of the highest rated WRs we had recruited in ages before Irwin and now Fehoko.

http://stanford.247sports.com/Season/2009-Football/Commits

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Re: Class of 2016 - Hank 91 - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 05:16 AM)Hulk01 link Wrote:I predict again, and have never said this of a class before or since 2012: This will be the best class we've ever recruited. 

I had been saying for a while that this would be our best class ever, but I backed off of that after the January casualties. It's good to know that Hulk has faith. So Hulk has written, so it shall be. I trust his analysis over anything else out there.

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Re: Class of 2016 - TrumpCard - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 01:46 PM)Hank 91 link Wrote:[quote author=Hulk01 link=topic=9617.msg155740#msg155740 date=1454674569]

I predict again, and have never said this of a class before or since 2012: This will be the best class we've ever recruited. 

I had been saying for a while that this would be our best class ever, but I backed off of that after the January casualties. It's good to know that Hulk has faith. So Hulk has written, so it shall be. I trust his analysis over anything else out there.
[/quote]

Hulk is the eternal optimist but he does have one thing heavily in his favor with this prediction. This is likely the most numerous recruiting class in Stanford history, so there are destined to be some difference makers in the group.

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Re: Class of 2016 - BostonCard - 02-05-2016

Some interesting tidbits about Pac-12 recruiting, including Stanford...

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/97900/the-geography-of-the-pac-12s-2016-recruiting-class

Quote:The Frequent Flyer Miles award goes to Stanford, which drew 25 players from 14 different states.

I think we always win this award.  We are by far the school with the most geographic diversity.

Quote:With the exception of Stanford, every other school drew the most recruits in its class from California. Stanford had three from California, but six from Texas.

That is pretty amazing.

Quote:Stanford and Utah were the biggest poachers, with the Cardinal getting six players from Texas and the Utes signing five from Florida.

Texas is not a bad place to establish a strong recruiting base.  Anyone know whose territory Texas was?

BC

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Re: Class of 2016 - Rally - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 04:22 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Texas is not a bad place to establish a strong recruiting base.  Anyone know whose territory Texas was?

BC

Mexico.

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Re: Class of 2016 - yvonne - 02-05-2016

Here we go:

As a territory
Spain
France
Mexico

Independent country

US state
Confederate state
US state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_flags_over_Texas

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Re: Class of 2016 - BostonCard - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 05:04 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=9617.msg155803#msg155803 date=1454714563]

Texas is not a bad place to establish a strong recruiting base.  Anyone know whose territory Texas was?

BC

Mexico.
[/quote]

touché

Now, anyone know which coach was in charge of recruiting in Texas?

BC

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Re: Class of 2016 - Rally - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 05:07 PM)Yvonne link Wrote:Here we go:

As a territory
Spain
France
Mexico

Independent country

US state
Confederate state
US state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_flags_over_Texas

Yes, but I was discounting the gringo era.  Does this count as thread drift?

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Re: Class of 2016 - Bruce Wang - 02-05-2016

To bring it back on topic and relevant to this drift, can somebody explain how Speights only merited 3 stars?  Seems to me a Parade All-American with those statistics and good offers should get at least 4 stars.

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Re: Class of 2016 - Extra Point - 02-05-2016

(02-05-2016, 05:29 PM)Publius link Wrote:To bring it back on topic and relevant to this drift, can somebody explain how Speights only merited 3 stars?  Seems to me a Parade All-American with those statistics and good offers should get at least 4 stars.

Do you really think that Scout, Rivals, ESPN, and 247 have people with coaching experience making these evaluations? Do you think they have the time and money for each of these experts to see a thousand or so recruits in person?

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Re: Class of 2016 - TrumpCard - 02-05-2016

MaxPreps put Speights on its first team all-american team as well.  And deservedly so because all-american honors are based largely on HS stats, not projected value for an FBS team, and his HS stats were all-american level.  There are often 2-star recruits on these AA teams.

Nevertheless, Speights is a very good prospect, as reflected by the fact that he was in the top 400 on the 247 composite index and 4-star on Scout.  The counter to that is that Speights is not blazingly fast (4.6 40-yd), even though he looks it on film against the mediocre competition he faced.  Speights also didn't report offers from 3 of the 4 big in-state schools.  His TAMU and OU offers indicate that he's at least solid.  I'm optimistic he'll be better than solid, but I think we'll have to wait and see.

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