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Player Development question from a casual fan - SamuelMcF - 07-19-2017

I've been watching Stanford football religiously since I arrived on campus for undergrad, about 5 years ago. I'm 5'8" 150 pounds and my only experience actually playing was in 5th grade flag football when they put me on the OL because I couldn't throw or catch. For those of you closer to the fold or who understand this stuff better, I have always wondered...

What causes a player to "develop" super well and "overperform" (Blake Martinez, Ben Gardner, Harrison Phillips...) their recruiting ranking? Or, on the flipside, what causes a player to "underperform" (high 4 star Noor Davis, winner of the High School Butkus award, comes to mind)? Does a player just all of a sudden become more superhuman than anticipated in high school? Does play recognition get trained better? Does a player become lazy and lose whatever "spark" they had in high school? I would love some insight because I really don't know how player development works...at all.

Thanks in advance for quenching my preseason thirst.  :)



Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - winflop - 07-19-2017

Not having been an NCAA athlete, I can't speak from the inside but I would say the determining factors include:
- Conditioning. Especially at Stanford, "Turley training" is not likely the same as anything they have experienced prior to coming to the Farm
- Motivation, especially self-motivation but also motivating your teammates
- Technique. This is emphasized to a much greater degree than in HS. When the skill level of everyone around you goes up, all the little things start to matter more
- "Coachability" in some cases these players' sheer underlying talent has gotten them to where they are, but it won't get them further unless they are open to learning different things from their coaches, trusting them, listening to what they say, and recognizing that no matter how the message is delivered (sometimes harshly or poorly) the coach wants you to be successful

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - djones - 07-19-2017

Motivation.

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - CTcard - 07-19-2017

(07-19-2017, 01:02 PM)SamuelMcF link Wrote:What causes a player to "develop" super well and "overperform" their recruiting ranking? Or, on the flipside, what causes a player to "underperform" ?

I'd say the main components are:
- how well they were evaluated in the first place.
- when (and how) they physically mature.
- how hard they work.

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - Durty Nelly - 07-19-2017

Sometimes it is just how players mature.  Some stop growing in high school while others continue to develop in their college years. 

A naturally gifted athlete in high school may not have the passion and work effort to excel at the next level.

I was a walk-on basketball player at my first university.  Despite being sub 6 ft, I was a starter and the co-captain of the team after a couple of years.  Lots of highly rated players fell by the wayside due to academics, distractions (girls &/or booze), or homesickness.  I loved basketball and played with athleticism, intensity, and passion.  I always believed that the game started with defense.  Many of my team mates were still drinking the kool-aid of their high school press clippings. 

The game got so much quicker than at high school.  I saw many players get discouraged, and they were not willing to stick it out.  They expected immediate success and very few found it.

There were also so cases of some of the taller players actually losing coordination as they got older.  We had a starting forward who was 6' 7" my freshman year who was only a warm body by my junior year.  He could drain 15 footers like clock work when I joined the team and was a fluid player at both ends of the floor.  When I left after my junior year, he could barely hit a 5 footer and was an awkward mess of a player.

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - Hulk01 - 07-19-2017

A recruiting ranking is a best guess projection, based on limited information and at a specific point in time.  So there are bound to be many players who appear to outperform or underperform, but who in fact simply performed to their real potential. 

It's very hard to project how an 18 year old high school athlete might fare as a 21 year old, playing against much bigger, faster, and better coached players.  The change in the game itself, from high school to college, is a leap some guys can't make.

We've never had an outstanding player who was not talented, but we've had talented players who didn't become outstanding.  Sheer desire, aided by a love of the game, probably counts most. 

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - Hank 91 - 07-20-2017

(07-19-2017, 01:02 PM)SamuelMcF link Wrote:I've been watching Stanford football religiously since I arrived on campus for undergrad, about 5 years ago. I'm 5'8" 150 pounds and my only experience actually playing was in 5th grade flag football when they put me on the OL because I couldn't throw or catch. For those of you closer to the fold or who understand this stuff better, I have always wondered...

What causes a player to "develop" super well and "overperform" (Blake Martinez, Ben Gardner, Harrison Phillips...) their recruiting ranking? Or, on the flipside, what causes a player to "underperform" (high 4 star Noor Davis, winner of the High School Butkus award, comes to mind)? Does a player just all of a sudden become more superhuman than anticipated in high school? Does play recognition get trained better? Does a player become lazy and lose whatever "spark" they had in high school? I would love some insight because I really don't know how player development works...at all.

Thanks in advance for quenching my preseason thirst.  :)

I've always wondered about this, so I'll add this to my list of questions for Coach Shaw next week.

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - washingtonismoney - 07-20-2017

One other possibility: a player can be highly-rated generally but suffer from scheme fit issues that make the rating deficient for a specific school. For example Levine Toilolo was a four-star. I doubt he would've performed up to that level with, say, Oregon; on the other hand, with Stanford, he was an important contributor.

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - Red State - 07-20-2017

A longtime UCLA assistant coach told me several years ago that he would never miss on a recruit if he could know two things in advance: #1 Has he peaked yet? #2 And most importantly, Does he have heart? Very hard to predetermine.

Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - CompSci87 - 07-20-2017

Our coaches would probably say that they pay no attention to star ratings by the services, instead relying on their own evaluation. But it would still be interesting to ask how often a player ultimately does much worse or better than the coaches' evaluation from when he was being recruited, and why.


Re: Player Development question from a casual fan - 81alum - 07-21-2017

I can't speak authoritatively about football.  Observing WBB and my own daughter in track I think a lot really is motivation.  Motivation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for athletic excellence, and not all students at elite colleges possess motivation in equal measure.

A lot of very bright high school athletes put their efforts into sports because high school academics were easy or boring and athletics (and extracurriculars in general) challenged them.  When they get to Stanford on scholarship, of course they are obligated to give their sport their best effort.  But they may become more genuinely interested and motivated by their academic pursuits than they ever expected--in fact we hope that this happens.  Social and cultural opportunities also abound--perhaps for the first time in their lives.  Stanford is such a great place to be--but that means lots and lots of things can compete for the attention of the student-athlete.  And it is not exactly a "failure" if something beside athletics becomes the top priority of the student.

Where this really shows up is how much athletes are willing to work on their sport when out-of-season or on their own time--and how conscientious they are about rehab when coming back from injuries.  For example, in WBB you notice that certain players improve remarkably over the summer, and others seem to come back at about the same level. 

A great case to study is Mikaela Ruef, who admits she did not really understand or absorb the degree of effort required during her first couple of years.  She was injured during her third year, and looked to be finishing up after an exceedingly mediocre career.  But something happened to her motivation.  She rehabbed and came back for two outstanding seasons--one as a grad student.  The difference?  She grew up and became much more disciplined with her time.  I could not find the exact interview where she talked about this, but this video of Ruef as a grad student is still enlightening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z4wrnrB_pA

The contrasting player would be Kailee Johnson.  Kailee came in with similar promise as Mikaela and had similar mediocre seasons early in her career.  She also was also hampered with injury--and was called out by Tara in the press after her junior year "Kailee just needs to decide how important basketball is to her.  She could be a lot better."  Rather than do a Ruef, Kailee retired from basketball, graduated, and went into real estate. 

Ruef and Johnson both probably made the right decisions--for them.