[Maple Leaf]

[quote="GK3" pid='436598' dateline='1757340878']

but I do think we are going to have a lot of problems trying to recruit top QBs after these last years of wandering in the desert.  We really need to hit the Portal hard and bring in a number of proven OLine guys.  We can't win unless we can give our QB time to throw and block consistently for the running game.  Harbaugh turned things around this way, but we don't have time to recruit high school kids and turn them into good OLine guys over two more years.

Agree, but Stanford right now is also not a great destination for OLine guys. Most of the guys in the portal want to move up in visibility and publicity, not down. The number of players who can actually help and will be willing to come is IMO very small. They also have to get accepted. Right now, filling the large talent gaps we have team-wide through the portal is a reach. We are almost certainly relegated to targets of opportunity/best available athlete choices. They may not be OLine players.

This is probably what I understand least about Stanford's football downfall. Offensive linemen routinely test out as the smartest or second-smartest position group of players. I don't understand why we don't get at least two if not four four-star and five-star OLinemen every single year. It seems to me that Stanford shouldn't be a difficult sell to that position group.

To be successful in recruiting really good O-linemen you need to have an excellent O-line coaching.  Really good O-line coaches are not easy to come by and many of them have the desire to move up the coaching ranks.  The last one at Stanford in my opinion was Mike Bloomgren who left to take the head coaching job at Rice (he was fired a year or two ago).  He did have the advantage of having some very talented players when he arrived but was also successful in recruiting some very players himself.

[Maple Leaf]

[quote="GK3" pid='436598' dateline='1757340878']

but I do think we are going to have a lot of problems trying to recruit top QBs after these last years of wandering in the desert.  We really need to hit the Portal hard and bring in a number of proven OLine guys.  We can't win unless we can give our QB time to throw and block consistently for the running game.  Harbaugh turned things around this way, but we don't have time to recruit high school kids and turn them into good OLine guys over two more years.

Agree, but Stanford right now is also not a great destination for OLine guys. Most of the guys in the portal want to move up in visibility and publicity, not down. The number of players who can actually help and will be willing to come is IMO very small. They also have to get accepted. Right now, filling the large talent gaps we have team-wide through the portal is a reach. We are almost certainly relegated to targets of opportunity/best available athlete choices. They may not be OLine players.

This is probably what I understand least about Stanford's football downfall. Offensive linemen routinely test out as the smartest or second-smartest position group of players. I don't understand why we don't get at least two if not four four-star and five-star OLinemen every single year. It seems to me that Stanford shouldn't be a difficult sell to that position group.

To be successful in recruiting really good O-linemen you need to have an excellent O-line coaching.  Really good O-line coaches are not easy to come by and many of them have the desire to move up the coaching ranks.  The last one at Stanford in my opinion was Mike Bloomgren who left to take the head coaching job at Rice (he was fired a year or two ago).  He did have the advantage of having some very talented players when he arrived but was also successful in recruiting some very players himself.