[BostonCard]

How many national championships did these trip down memory lane teams win?

I'm not talking about a Top 10-level team.  I'm talking Top 2-level and asserting that Stanford has never had so many elite players at these key positions all at the the same time before, in my memory.  They've had them at different times, and have had a few elite talents and other really good players, but not so many elite players all at the same time.  If Shaw pulls in even one elite WR recruit in 2018, he will have the offensive firepower to compete for a national championship, is what I am asserting.  A Hall or St. Brown would fit that bill, IMO.

You seem to be changing the goalposts here.  Your original point was that guys like that were the type of guys that Stanford has historically had trouble recruiting.  I disagree.  I would say that QB, TE, and OL are historically areas that Stanford recruits well in. Now, maybe not all in one year, but certainly we've recruited QB's as highly touted as Mills (some guy named Elway, I hear was pretty highly touted coming out of high school), and more recently Luck.  We've had monstrous OL classes before, most recently in 2012 when we recruited Garnett, Peat, Murphy; all three were top-5 players at their positions.  And we have had no trouble recruiting elite tight ends.  Hell, just the year before we signed #2 Kaden Smith; two years before we signed #1 Dalton Schultz (which means we will have 2 #1 ranked TE's and a #2 ranked tight end on the roster this fall), and in 2009 we signed #4 Zach Ertz and #6 Levine Toilolo.  I struggle to find a position where we've consistently recruited as well.  Wide receiver is maybe the only place you might have a case, but Trent Irwin's ranking is comparable to St. Brown's.

It is of course a nice happenstance that we signed all these awesome players in the same year.  But, I really don't think that it would be accurate to say that we haven't signed guys like that before.

BC

[BostonCard]

How many national championships did these trip down memory lane teams win?

I'm not talking about a Top 10-level team.  I'm talking Top 2-level and asserting that Stanford has never had so many elite players at these key positions all at the the same time before, in my memory.  They've had them at different times, and have had a few elite talents and other really good players, but not so many elite players all at the same time.  If Shaw pulls in even one elite WR recruit in 2018, he will have the offensive firepower to compete for a national championship, is what I am asserting.  A Hall or St. Brown would fit that bill, IMO.

You seem to be changing the goalposts here.  Your original point was that guys like that were the type of guys that Stanford has historically had trouble recruiting.  I disagree.  I would say that QB, TE, and OL are historically areas that Stanford recruits well in. Now, maybe not all in one year, but certainly we've recruited QB's as highly touted as Mills (some guy named Elway, I hear was pretty highly touted coming out of high school), and more recently Luck.  We've had monstrous OL classes before, most recently in 2012 when we recruited Garnett, Peat, Murphy; all three were top-5 players at their positions.  And we have had no trouble recruiting elite tight ends.  Hell, just the year before we signed #2 Kaden Smith; two years before we signed #1 Dalton Schultz (which means we will have 2 #1 ranked TE's and a #2 ranked tight end on the roster this fall), and in 2009 we signed #4 Zach Ertz and #6 Levine Toilolo.  I struggle to find a position where we've consistently recruited as well.  Wide receiver is maybe the only place you might have a case, but Trent Irwin's ranking is comparable to St. Brown's.

It is of course a nice happenstance that we signed all these awesome players in the same year.  But, I really don't think that it would be accurate to say that we haven't signed guys like that before.

BC