[CTcard]

 12 years ago, the best AND the brightest wanted to play football here, so much they coined Intellectual Brutality and were proud to don the nerd glasses; now not so much. . . .

247 Recruiting Rankings.

Year      Natl Rank    Pac12 Rank     Coach
2001          14                2              Willingham
2002          32                6              Teevens
2003          26                6              Teevens
2004          60               11             Teevens
2005          24                5              Harris
2006          63               12             Harris
2007          51                8              Harbaugh
2008          47                9              Harbaugh
2009          21                3              Harbaugh
2010          25                6              Harbaugh
2011          22                4              Shaw
2012           7                 1              Shaw
2013          52               11             Shaw
2014          13                2              Shaw
2015          24                5              Shaw
2016          16                3              Shaw
2017          14                2              Shaw
2018          40                7              Shaw
2019          19                3              Shaw
2020          21                3              Shaw
2021          53                8              Shaw

It's hard to see a trend here that says 12 years ago things were great in recruiting, but are terrible now.

There is a popular story out there that Harbaugh turned the program around by energizing recruiting. That is partly true in that getting Andrew Luck was the single most important component of the turnaround - but that was one guy in the 2008 class. More broadly, he got guys already in the program who were not particularly highly recruited to work extremely hard and get better.

For the most part, Shaw's recruiting has been good by Stanford historical standards.
He's been head coach on signing day for 11 classes.
8 of the 11 were nationally top 25 (5 top 20).
3 of the 11 were bad, worse than 40th nationally. All 3 of those were small: 12, 15, 15.
By eye, there appears to be a negative trend among just the Shaw years, but it doesn't look much beyond the noise level.

The trend that concerns me most has been the decline of the defense over the past five years or so. That seems to span recruiting, player development, and schemes.
In my history of Stanford fandom, Stanford has struggled on that side of the ball. Perhaps because of that, my impression (without checking) is that the defense being good or not has been more determinative of whether the team has been good than the same measure for the offense.

[CTcard]

 12 years ago, the best AND the brightest wanted to play football here, so much they coined Intellectual Brutality and were proud to don the nerd glasses; now not so much. . . .

247 Recruiting Rankings.

Year      Natl Rank    Pac12 Rank     Coach
2001          14                2              Willingham
2002          32                6              Teevens
2003          26                6              Teevens
2004          60               11             Teevens
2005          24                5              Harris
2006          63               12             Harris
2007          51                8              Harbaugh
2008          47                9              Harbaugh
2009          21                3              Harbaugh
2010          25                6              Harbaugh
2011          22                4              Shaw
2012           7                 1              Shaw
2013          52               11             Shaw
2014          13                2              Shaw
2015          24                5              Shaw
2016          16                3              Shaw
2017          14                2              Shaw
2018          40                7              Shaw
2019          19                3              Shaw
2020          21                3              Shaw
2021          53                8              Shaw

It's hard to see a trend here that says 12 years ago things were great in recruiting, but are terrible now.

There is a popular story out there that Harbaugh turned the program around by energizing recruiting. That is partly true in that getting Andrew Luck was the single most important component of the turnaround - but that was one guy in the 2008 class. More broadly, he got guys already in the program who were not particularly highly recruited to work extremely hard and get better.

For the most part, Shaw's recruiting has been good by Stanford historical standards.
He's been head coach on signing day for 11 classes.
8 of the 11 were nationally top 25 (5 top 20).
3 of the 11 were bad, worse than 40th nationally. All 3 of those were small: 12, 15, 15.
By eye, there appears to be a negative trend among just the Shaw years, but it doesn't look much beyond the noise level.

The trend that concerns me most has been the decline of the defense over the past five years or so. That seems to span recruiting, player development, and schemes.
In my history of Stanford fandom, Stanford has struggled on that side of the ball. Perhaps because of that, my impression (without checking) is that the defense being good or not has been more determinative of whether the team has been good than the same measure for the offense.