Top Stanford football players - 2022

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Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-25-2022

Each of the last several years I've had fun taking a stab at a top 35 for the Stanford football team and thought I'd try again this year. The exercise is meant to predict how good players will be this fall (so upperclassmen will tend to be higher than newcomers). The basic rule of it is I'm trying to predict the top 35 players by snap count at the end of the season and rank them in terms of quality (best understood in terms of things like quality in relation to Pac-12 peers, which can be approximated by year-end PFF grades). Specialists are not ranked here. The top 35 in snaps is essentially synonymous with the non-specialists who matter in a season, those with approximately 200 snaps over the course of a 12 game season give or take a dozen snaps or so.

I did quite well at this for a few years before whiffing last year. Let's see if I can bounce back:

1) Drake Nugent
2) Tanner McKee
3) Walter Rouse
4) Benjamin Yurosek
5) Branson Bragg
6) EJ Smith
7) Elijah Higgins
8) Kyu Blu Kelly
9) Mike Wilson
10) Brycen Tremayne
11) Jake Hornibrook
12) Levani Damuni
13) Barrett Miller
14) Casey Filkins
15) Kendall Williamson
16) John Humphreys
17) Patrick Fields
18) David Bailey
19) Stephen Herron
20) Nicolas Toomer
21) Jacob Mangum-Farrar
22) Jonathan McGill
23) Aaron Armitage
24) Ethan Bonner
25) Jimmy Wyrick
26) Tobin Phillips
27) Salim Turner-Muhammad
28) Lance Keneley
29) Ricky Miezan
30) Myles Hinton
31) Anthony Franklin
32) Tristan Sinclair
33) Collin Wright
34) Bradley Archer
35) Jaxson Moi

Apologies to Jaden Slocum, Aeneas DiCosmo, Bryce Farrell, Sam Roush, Connor McLaughlin, Levi Rogers, and anybody else who might earn significant playing time this season. As always and as should be obvious, there are many very subjective judgment calls in this guesswork. I could keep tinkering with the order as there are still things that don't look quite right to me (e.g., Hornibrook feels too high but I want to take seriously reports he's taken Miller's first team reps, I may be too aggressive in forecasting true freshman impact, the front seven is super tricky to rank given the scheme change, etc.) but I'd rather press post and see what you all think. I'd love to hear any debates/reactions.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - TrumpCard - 08-25-2022

Looks like you believe in the OL and in the offense overall. 12 of the top 14 players on the team. Wow! I hope that’s not just a statement that the D will be horrible.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-25-2022

(08-25-2022, 09:13 PM)TrumpCard Wrote: Looks like you believe in the OL and in the offense overall. 12 of the top 14 players on the team. Wow! I hope that’s not just a statement that the D will be horrible.

Certainly a statement on both. I am indeed bullish on the offense - notable exception of Hinton - and bearish on the defense. Doing this exercise reminded me even more of my fundamental angst about this team - that damn(ed) front seven. The amount of improvement we need from the front seven is staggering. The BEST Pro Football Focus grades last year of any returning players who had significant snaps in our front seven were Herron's 60.6 and Mangum-Farrar's 55.9. That's so, so, so bad. I think the front seven could significantly improve and this would still be a bad defense. If we can crack top 80 defenses in the country I'd probably be relieved.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - TrumpCard - 08-26-2022

Speaking of notable low grades, I see Miezan way down at 29. That’s quite a prediction for a team captain. Do you think JMF will take over that starting role?

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - Phogge - 08-26-2022

It’s all relative. There were 35 top guys on the 1960 team too. Went 0-10. Can even three or four start if at Utah?

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 03:27 AM)TrumpCard Wrote: Speaking of notable low grades, I see Miezan way down at 29. That’s quite a prediction for a team captain. Do you think JMF will take over that starting role?

I don't know who will "start" at ILB but generally view Damuni as more durable and reliable than JMF and Miezan. Last year Damuni played the most followed by Miezan followed by JMF, but all played a lot.

Miezan being so low is a reflection of the stock I'm putting into PFF grades. Based purely on big plays, Miezan has a soft spot in my heart as somebody who has shown some aptitude for making plays behind the line of scrimmage. But PFF rendered an unequivocal verdict that it wasn't worth it and he really, really sucks. They graded him as a 40.9, the 425th of 448 starting linebackers nationally (33rd of 38 in the Pac-12). Compounding that harsh verdict, a former Stanford/NFL ILB opined on TOS that Miezan doesn't have a lot of feel for the game.

Miezan, like Hinton and Franklin, is a potential "starter" I'm predicting a rough season from. I'd love to be wrong on all three, of course.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - JohnR34231 - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 07:09 AM)msqueri Wrote:
(08-26-2022, 03:27 AM)TrumpCard Wrote: Speaking of notable low grades, I see Miezan way down at 29. That’s quite a prediction for a team captain. Do you think JMF will take over that starting role?

I don't know who will "start" at ILB but generally view Damuni as more durable and reliable than JMF and Miezan. Last year Damuni played the most followed by Miezan followed by JMF, but all played a lot.

Miezan being so low is a reflection of the stock I'm putting into PFF grades. Based purely on big plays, Miezan has a soft spot in my heart as somebody who has shown some aptitude for making plays behind the line of scrimmage. But PFF rendered an unequivocal verdict that it wasn't worth it and he really, really sucks. They graded him as a 40.9, the 425th of 448 starting linebackers nationally (33rd of 38 in the Pac-12). Compounding that harsh verdict, a former Stanford/NFL ILB opined on TOS that Miezan doesn't have a lot of feel for the game.

Miezan, like Hinton and Franklin, is a potential "starter" I'm predicting a rough season from. I'd love to be wrong on all three, of course.

I'm having a hard time understanding why Hinton is struggling so much. He has good size, good bloodlines, and he was highly rated and recruited coming out of HS. Anyone have any thoughts as to what his problem is?

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 07:54 AM)JohnR34231 Wrote:
(08-26-2022, 07:09 AM)msqueri Wrote:
(08-26-2022, 03:27 AM)TrumpCard Wrote: Speaking of notable low grades, I see Miezan way down at 29. That’s quite a prediction for a team captain. Do you think JMF will take over that starting role?

I don't know who will "start" at ILB but generally view Damuni as more durable and reliable than JMF and Miezan. Last year Damuni played the most followed by Miezan followed by JMF, but all played a lot.

Miezan being so low is a reflection of the stock I'm putting into PFF grades. Based purely on big plays, Miezan has a soft spot in my heart as somebody who has shown some aptitude for making plays behind the line of scrimmage. But PFF rendered an unequivocal verdict that it wasn't worth it and he really, really sucks. They graded him as a 40.9, the 425th of 448 starting linebackers nationally (33rd of 38 in the Pac-12). Compounding that harsh verdict, a former Stanford/NFL ILB opined on TOS that Miezan doesn't have a lot of feel for the game.

Miezan, like Hinton and Franklin, is a potential "starter" I'm predicting a rough season from. I'd love to be wrong on all three, of course.

I'm having a hard time understanding why Hinton is struggling so much. He has good size, good bloodlines, and he was highly rated and recruited coming out of HS. Anyone have any thoughts as to what his problem is?

I really hope I'm wrong but I fear he's just bad. It happens, whether because evaluators missed something that was obscured by high school mauling of 230 pounders or because of a debilitating mentality/intangible issue.

When Hinton committed to us he was the definition of a mega whale, one of the biggest recruits in our history: composite #12, with all three services having him among the top 17 recruits in the nation. By the end of the cycle he was composite #74 and all three services had moved him down. 247, which is arguably the best evaluator, nuked his ranking down to #218. In my three dimensional analyses I list comparable players based on Rivals ratings but that's arbitrary and if I did it for Hinton based on 247 rankings, which is just as reasonable, Hinton was comparable to Brendon Austin, Kevin Reihner, Graham Shuler, Brandon Fanaika, Casey Tucker, Brian Chaffin, Clark Yarbrough, Devery Hamilton, Barrett Miller, Levi Rogers, James Pogorelc, Austin Uke, and Fisher Anderson.

Here’s the reality on Hinton: arguably the best service thought he was a low 4-star and most definitely not a whale. Empirically under Shaw those recruits have tended to be between useless and solid starters. Many of our fans and apparently coaches totally deluded themselves into lumping Hinton with guys like Andrus Peat, Kyle Murphy, Joshua Garnett, Walker Little, and Foster Sarell when the reality is that Casey Tucker is the truest comparison and a service with a very good track record made the even less comparable comparisons above. His high school junior season was wiped out due to injury and then he had a shoulder surgery that prevented him from lifting weights or running the entire off-season heading into his senior year. When he did play it was at a level that led to the precipitous drop in his recruiting rankings. He may have dropped further were he not the son and brother of the Chris Hintons. Even during his recruitment there were whispers - some even mentioned in actual press reports - that he’s such a Renaissance Man/polymath that he might not be committed to football or have the right mentality. He’s been quoted as saying he hated football until he realized he wasn’t bad at it, which is quite foreboding about what happened to his confidence now that he had one of the worst seasons in Pac-12 history.

Based on the combination of what we knew about him as a recruit plus what we’ve seen from him in the first two years of his college career, I think it’s more likely he sucks than it is that he’s ever good. If he does develop we shouldn’t hope for more than a Casey Tucker or Devery Hamilton. And with Miller and McLaughlin on the bench my stomach drops every game we assess Hinton is a better option. Hope there's a quick hook if Hinton hasn't massively improved.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - SamuelMcF - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 07:54 AM)JohnR34231 Wrote: I'm having a hard time understanding why Hinton is struggling so much. He has good size, good bloodlines, and he was highly rated and recruited coming out of HS. Anyone have any thoughts as to what his problem is?

1. Every college OT has "good size." That's why they are college OTs in the first place. Saying "good size" is completely irrelevant for a position where literally everyone at that position is a similar size. Size means nothing if your technique sucks and/or you're slow/weak. (To be clear, I haven't keyed too much in on Hinton to diagnose his issues because to be frank I don't know what I'm looking for.)

1a. This is why I laugh so hard at people still insisting QB prospects have "good size." Nobody gives a shit how tall a QB is anymore as long as it starts with a 6 (or he's Kyler Murray/Russell Wilson).

2. A ton of players with "good bloodlines" simply don't live up to the billing. Barry J. Sanders comes to mind. CMac, while obviously being a stud, has 3 other brothers that all come from the same bloodline and, well, yeah.

3. Players that were highly rated/recruited out of HS bust all the time. Sure, the frequency of said busts is lower on average, but it still happens all the time. Matt gave a good synopsis of Hinton's recruiting saga too. We see whales fall from whale status all the time based on many factors, and Hinton was one of them. (To be fair I do think plenty of schools still wanted him, so there are tons of guys that have had even worse falls from a rankings/committable offers perspective.)

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - GK3 - 08-26-2022

(08-25-2022, 08:47 PM)msqueri Wrote: Each of the last several years I've had fun taking a stab at a top 35 for the Stanford football team and thought I'd try again this year. The exercise is meant to predict how good players will be this fall (so upperclassmen will tend to be higher than newcomers). The basic rule of it is I'm trying to predict the top 35 players by snap count at the end of the season and rank them in terms of quality (best understood in terms of things like quality in relation to Pac-12 peers, which can be approximated by year-end PFF grades). Specialists are not ranked here. The top 35 in snaps is essentially synonymous with the non-specialists who matter in a season, those with approximately 200 snaps over the course of a 12 game season give or take a dozen snaps or so.

I did quite well at this for a few years before whiffing last year. Let's see if I can bounce back:

1) Drake Nugent
2) Tanner McKee
3) Walter Rouse
4) Benjamin Yurosek
5) Branson Bragg
6) EJ Smith
7) Elijah Higgins
8) Kyu Blu Kelly
9) Mike Wilson
10) Brycen Tremayne
11) Jake Hornibrook
12) Levani Damuni
13) Barrett Miller
14) Casey Filkins
15) Kendall Williamson
16) John Humphreys
17) Patrick Fields
18) David Bailey
19) Stephen Herron
20) Nicolas Toomer
21) Jacob Mangum-Farrar
22) Jonathan McGill
23) Aaron Armitage
24) Ethan Bonner
25) Jimmy Wyrick
26) Tobin Phillips
27) Salim Turner-Muhammad
28) Lance Keneley
29) Ricky Miezan
30) Myles Hinton
31) Anthony Franklin
32) Tristan Sinclair
33) Collin Wright
34) Bradley Archer
35) Jaxson Moi

Apologies to Jaden Slocum, Aeneas DiCosmo, Bryce Farrell, Sam Roush, Connor McLaughlin, Levi Rogers, and anybody else who might earn significant playing time this season. As always and as should be obvious, there are many very subjective judgment calls in this guesswork. I could keep tinkering with the order as there are still things that don't look quite right to me (e.g., Hornibrook feels too high but I want to take seriously reports he's taken Miller's first team reps, I may be too aggressive in forecasting true freshman impact, the front seven is super tricky to rank given the scheme change, etc.) but I'd rather press post and see what you all think. I'd love to hear any debates/reactions.

My guess is that by end of season Patrick Fields will have moved up, a lot. He is a proven player from a major football school who has started multiple years. If Bryce Tremayne is truly back to full strength, I think he has the talent to pass Wilson and perhaps make the top 5.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 10:21 AM)GK3 Wrote:
(08-25-2022, 08:47 PM)msqueri Wrote: Each of the last several years I've had fun taking a stab at a top 35 for the Stanford football team and thought I'd try again this year. The exercise is meant to predict how good players will be this fall (so upperclassmen will tend to be higher than newcomers). The basic rule of it is I'm trying to predict the top 35 players by snap count at the end of the season and rank them in terms of quality (best understood in terms of things like quality in relation to Pac-12 peers, which can be approximated by year-end PFF grades). Specialists are not ranked here. The top 35 in snaps is essentially synonymous with the non-specialists who matter in a season, those with approximately 200 snaps over the course of a 12 game season give or take a dozen snaps or so.

I did quite well at this for a few years before whiffing last year. Let's see if I can bounce back:

1) Drake Nugent
2) Tanner McKee
3) Walter Rouse
4) Benjamin Yurosek
5) Branson Bragg
6) EJ Smith
7) Elijah Higgins
8) Kyu Blu Kelly
9) Mike Wilson
10) Brycen Tremayne
11) Jake Hornibrook
12) Levani Damuni
13) Barrett Miller
14) Casey Filkins
15) Kendall Williamson
16) John Humphreys
17) Patrick Fields
18) David Bailey
19) Stephen Herron
20) Nicolas Toomer
21) Jacob Mangum-Farrar
22) Jonathan McGill
23) Aaron Armitage
24) Ethan Bonner
25) Jimmy Wyrick
26) Tobin Phillips
27) Salim Turner-Muhammad
28) Lance Keneley
29) Ricky Miezan
30) Myles Hinton
31) Anthony Franklin
32) Tristan Sinclair
33) Collin Wright
34) Bradley Archer
35) Jaxson Moi

Apologies to Jaden Slocum, Aeneas DiCosmo, Bryce Farrell, Sam Roush, Connor McLaughlin, Levi Rogers, and anybody else who might earn significant playing time this season. As always and as should be obvious, there are many very subjective judgment calls in this guesswork. I could keep tinkering with the order as there are still things that don't look quite right to me (e.g., Hornibrook feels too high but I want to take seriously reports he's taken Miller's first team reps, I may be too aggressive in forecasting true freshman impact, the front seven is super tricky to rank given the scheme change, etc.) but I'd rather press post and see what you all think. I'd love to hear any debates/reactions.

My guess is that by end of season Patrick Fields will have moved up, a lot. He is a proven player from a major football school who has started multiple years. If Bryce Tremayne is truly back to full strength, I think he has the talent to pass Wilson and perhaps make the top 5.

Fields is proven in the sense Damuni is. They've both had moderately high highs and moderately low lows. 2019 Fields would be one of our better defenders of recent years. 2018, 2020, and 2021 Fields is somebody for whom my projection in this thread is probably too generous. I like Fields and Williamson and think I've maybe erred somewhat on the optimistic side, but I don't at all rule out that you're right. He was quite good in 2019.

Folks make too much of Fields starting multiple years at a major football school. Lincoln Riley's defenses weren't world-beaters for the most part. Fields' college career has been worse/less notable, for instance, than Frank Buncom (albeit one of our more underrated players of the era). Our closest comparison to Fields is probably.....Williamson.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - Langdude - 08-26-2022

Re: Hinton. It reminds me of a linebacker that we recruited years ago. He was one of our most highly-rated recruits in our history, and he turned out to be a middling player at best. Does someone remember who that was?

-m.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 11:31 AM)Langdude Wrote: Re: Hinton. It reminds me of a linebacker that we recruited years ago. He was one of our most highly-rated recruits in our history, and he turned out to be a middling player at best. Does someone remember who that was?

-m.

I suspect you're talking about Michael Craven. The 247 evaluation for Hinton puts him significantly lower than Craven's reputation, which was indeed rarefied. Craven was a really big disappointment.

Plenty of plausible guesses to your question though. Noor Davis. Curtis Robinson (misused). Blake Lueders (eventually a serviceable DL).

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - Langdude - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 11:35 AM)msqueri Wrote:
(08-26-2022, 11:31 AM)Langdude Wrote: Re: Hinton. It reminds me of a linebacker that we recruited years ago. He was one of our most highly-rated recruits in our history, and he turned out to be a middling player at best. Does someone remember who that was?

-m.

I suspect you're talking about Michael Craven. The 247 evaluation for Hinton puts him significantly lower than Craven's reputation, which was indeed rarefied. Craven was a really big disappointment.

Plenty of plausible guesses to your question though. Noor Davis. Curtis Robinson (misused). Blake Lueders (eventually a serviceable DL).

Yes; Michael Craven was the one of whom I was thinking. Maybe the biggest delta between expectation and performance.

-m.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - TrumpCard - 08-26-2022

I know what you mean, but looking on the bright side, I might go with Ben Gardner (0 other major conference offers, outside 247composite 2000 —> 1st team all-conference) or David Parry (walk-on —> HM all-conference and 5th rounder).

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-26-2022

Yeah, some enormous deltas of hype to performance in both directions.

Foster Sarell belongs in the conversation too. I know he started two years (though kind of a year and a half due to the pandemic), but he was a significantly bigger recruit than even Craven and was a mediocre college player. Walker Little also a mammoth disappointment, but we did get one great pass blocking year out of him.

Craven and Sarell were useful players but being only useful with that kind of hype sucks.

Mark Anderson might be the answer on biggest delta in the negative direction.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - TrumpCard - 08-26-2022

Ryan Whalen also a big delta in the other direction. Doug Baldwin. Johnson Bademosi. Trying to keep this conversation positive. ;-)

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - Langdude - 08-26-2022

Brycen Tremayne could end up biggest negative delta of them all!

-m.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - msqueri - 08-26-2022

Michael Rector, Johnny Caspers, Anthony Kimble, Brandon Harrison, Pannel Egboh, Thomas Keiser, Griff Whalen.

RE: Top Stanford football players - 2022 - Red80 - 08-26-2022

(08-26-2022, 03:04 PM)TrumpCard Wrote: Ryan Whalen also a big delta in the other direction. Doug Baldwin. Johnson Bademosi. Trying to keep this conversation positive. ;-)

Troy Walters and Greg Camarillo. TW was the last scholarship offer in his class. I think he might have had one offer. I watched him practice as freshman and quickly concluded that he was the most polished, football-ready player in the class of '95.

Camarillo was a walk-on. It took me a couple of practices to see that he was easily the best WR on the roster, a roster with plenty of guys with high star rankings.

Yet just a couple of examples of how ridiculous recruiting rankings and evaluations can be.

Also, Jon Alston. 2 Star LB from Louisiana with no other D1 offers. Watched him practice as a frosh and it was clear that Craven, the nation's #1 ranked LB couldn't hold his jock.