2023 Stanford Football Personnel

2023 Stanford Football Personnel - Printable Version

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2023 Stanford Football Personnel - Langdude - 02-16-2023

Class:	Freshman	Sophomore	Junior	Senior	Fifth Year
Quarterback	Myles Jackson Brayden Hagle	Ashton Daniels* Charlie Mirer	Ari Patu^ Justin Lamson~	Beau Nelson
Running Back	Sedrick Irvin* Caleb Hampton+++	Ryan Butler*~ Jacob Lowe^ Kenaj Washington	Brendon Barrow	E.J. Smith^ [Casey Filkins]
Tight End	Chico Holt+++	Sam Roush* C.J. Hawkins*	Shield Taylor	[Benjamin Yurosek]^ Lukas Ungar
Wide Receiver	Tiger Bachmeier* Jackson Harris+++ Ismael Cisse++ Ahmari Borden Tyler Kuo Myles Libman	Elic Ayomanor Mudia Reuben* Jason Thompson*	Jayson Raines David Kasemervisz Evan Jackson	[John Humphreys] Bryce Farrell (KR) Silas Starr
Offensive Tackle	Luke Baklenko* Charlie Symonds Allen Thomason	Fisher Anderson	Jack Leyrer	Connor McLaughlin James Pogorelc^	Alec Bank~
Offensive Guard	Simione Pale*	Jake Maikkula Lucas Heyer^	Trevor Mayberry*~ Austin Uke
Center				Levi Rogers Logan Berzins

Defensive Line	BMO+ RJ Gaskins+	Jaxson Moi*^ Zach Rowell Pat Caughey	Anthony Franklin Zach Buckey Aaron Armitage Aristotle Taylor	Tobin Phillips Zephron Lester^ Matthew Merritt
Outside Linebacker	Gavin Geweniger Omar Staples Tre Williams	Tevarua Tafiti David Bailey* Ernest Cooper	Wilfredo Aybar	Lance Keneley Kiersten Lee	Spencer Lytle~
Inside Linebacker	Miles McGee Carson Berger	Benjamin Hudson Matt Rose Anson Pulsipher	Ese Dubre Gaethan Bernadel*~		Tristan Sinclair Spencer Jorgensen
Cornerback	JFR* (NB) Aaron Morris* Caymus Rooney+ Adam Rourke	Collin Wright Joshua Thompson Terian Williams^	Jaden Slocum Caleb Ellis		Zahran Manley
Safety	Ché Ojarikre*	[Scotty Edwards]	[Jimmy Wyrick] Mitch Leigber Kale Lucas	[Alaka'i Gilman]^ Omari Porter

Kicker			Emmet Kenney	Joshua Karty (KO)
Punter	Aidan Flintoft*		Connor Weselman (H)
Long Snapper		Alejandro Chavez Peyton Warford~ (LS)		Bailey Parsons (SS)

Scholarships	19	21	19	16	5
Walk-Ons	10	8	5	6
Players	29	29	24	22	5

Total Scholarships: 80 (max 85)

Total Walk-Ons: 29

Total Players: 109

Bold = starter

Italics = non-scholarship

* = burnt shirt

+ = redshirt game played

[player] = injured

(position) = other positional responsibilities

~ = transfer in

^ = transfer out

2023 Stanford Football Personnel Notes - Langdude - 02-16-2023

Notes on the 2023 Stanford Football Personnel grid:

1. Once again, the grid lists players by class year and not eligibility.

2. To the 2022 Stanford Football Personnel grid, I have added 34 players.
a. The 27-person incoming “CardClass23,” except for OG Zak Yamauchi and walk-on OLB Carter Davis, both of whom will join the team in 2025 after serving two-year church missions
b. Three players returning from layoff
==> Rising 5th year CB Zahran Manley, who retired after the 2021 season (I thought), in which he played four games, but returns to the team for 2023, presumably on scholarship
==> Rising senior walk-on OLB Kiersten Lee, who also retired after the 2021 season, having never appeared in any games, also returns for the 2023 season
==> Rising sophomore walk-on ILB Anson Pulsipher, who returns from his two-year church mission
c. Seven transfer student-athletes
==> Rising junior OT Trevor Mayberry (Penn)
==> Rising 5th year OT Alec Bank (Harvard)
==> Rising junior ILB Gaethan Bernadel (FIU)
==> Rising sophomore RB Ryan Butler (Princeton)
==> Rising junior QB Justin Lamson (Syracuse)
==> Rising 5th year ILB Spencer Lytle (Wisconsin)
==> Rising sophomore walk-on LS Peyton Warford (Northwestern)
Note: Mayberry, Bernadel, and Butler played significantly as freshmen and sophomores, so do not have a redshirt seasons. Bank and Lytle have two years of eligibility remaining due to redshirts plus COVID season voids.
d. One new (true) walk-on
==> Rising sophomore walk-on RB Kenaj Washington, who is small

3. From the 2022 Stanford Football Personnel grid, I have removed 39 players; those who regularly started marked in bold.
a. Seven scholarship players declaring for the NFL draft (all but one with eligibility remaining); NFL draft status and teams will added parenthetically
1) Four fifth-year players
==> WR Michael Wilson (3rd, Zona)
==> WR Brycen Tremayne (UDFA, DC)
==> CB Ethan Bonner (UDFA, Fins)
==> S Kendall Williamson [eligibility exhausted] (7th, Bears)
2) Two seniors
==> WR Elijah Higgins (6th, Fins)
==> CB Kyu Blu Kelly (5th, Ravens)
3) One junior
==> QB Tanner McKee (6th, Philly)
b. Nineteen players who transferred or are seeking a transfer; new schools added parenthetically.
1) Two fifth-year players
==> ILB JMF (Indiana)
==> ILB Ricky Miezan (Virginia (lacrosse))
2) Thirteen seniors
==> WR Colby Bowman (Utah State)
==> OT Walter Rouse (Oklahoma)
==> OG Jake Hornibrook (Duke)
==> C Drake Nugent (Michigan)
==> Edge Aeneas DiCosmo (Vandy)
==> Edge Stephen Herron Jr. (Louisville)
==> ILB Levani Damuni (Utah)
==> CB Nicolas Toomer (Indiana)
==> CB STM (Purdue)
==> S Jonathan McGill (SMU)
==> P Ryan Sanborn (Texas)
==> TE Bradley Archer (Indiana)
==> OG Barrett Miller (Cal)
3) Three juniors
==> OT Myles Hinton (Michigan)
==> C Drake Metcalf (UCF)
==> Edge Duke Reeder (Cornell (lacrosse), non-scholarship at Stanford)
4) One sophomore
==> DL Jacob Katona (Vandy, non-scholarship at Stanford)
5) One freshman
==> RB Arlen Harris (Iowa State); Harris left the team back in October, so he had already been removed from the grid
c. Two players who have exhausted their eligibility
==> S Patrick Fields (5th year, non-scholarship)
==> Edge Thunder Justice Keck (6th year, non-scholarship)
d. Two players graduating (with eligibility remaining) [note: these are projections only; should they want to continue playing and if they were invited back, any of these players could return for a fifth year, though if they are a walk-on it would be on their own dime if they do not receive a scholie]
==> FB Jay Symonds (5th year)
==> ILB Jason Kaul (senior walk-on)
e. Nine players retiring from football
==> OT Kenji Swanson (freshman)
==> CB Brandon Jones (junior)
==> RB Caleb Robinson (junior walk-on)
==> OT Jason Amsler (sophomore walk-on)
==> C Will Gibson (sophomore walk-on)
==> RB Danny McFadden (sophomore walk-on)
==> TE Donovan Jones (freshman walk-on)
==> C Max Kalny (junior walk-on)
==> DL Kaz Melzer (freshman walk-on)

4. Positioning
a. There are three position switches.
==> Rising junior Mitch Leigber is now back at S after his half-season sojourn at RB last season.
==> Rising junior Caleb Ellis has moved from CB to S.
==> Rising junior walk-on Evan Jackson is now listed at WR; apparently, he played at that position last season, though he was listed as a CB.
b. There is no FB in Troy Taylor's offensive system. There were only two remaining FBs on the roster:
==> Rising junior Shield Taylor has moved to TE
==> Rising sophomore walk-on Jacob Lowe has moved to RB. (Last year, Lowe was also listed as a LS, but no longer.)
c. After our brief dalliance with a 4-3, we have returned to a 3-4 defense. All remaining players listed at "Edge" last year are now listed as OLB on the official roster, with one exception:
==> Rising junior walk-on Aristotle Taylor is now listed at DL
d. The official roster does not designate specific positions for any offensive linemen. I have kept OL players at their positions in the grid to help us discern depth, pipeline, and possible starting combinations, though the grid designation of specific players will likely change as positions are determined by the coaching staff.

5. The grid is fluid. Players projected to graduate or transfer could return, transfers could join, or players could retire. I will update the grid as decisions are made.

6. When a player is rostered at two positions, I have listed them according to the position named on the front side of the slash. For instance, if a player is rostered as offensive tackle/guard, I have listed them as a tackle. The only exception to this is the Devery Hamilton Rule, according to which, if a player ends up getting more playing time at the position named at the backside of the slash, they are considered rostered at that position; e.g., if a tackle/guard ends up playing guard, I switch them to guard in the grid.

7. I have removed all injury designations, though I realize that some players are still injured. I have kept other positional responsibility designations when the player is returning.

8. You will note that I have projected starters marked for some positions based on past starts or various projections. I will adjust once position status clears.

9. As always, I appreciate any corrections or input.

-m.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - MVDan - 02-16-2023

Zak Yamauchi is LDS and will be on a mission for two years.
I believe PWO Anson Pulsipher is supposed return from his mission in 2023.
Mitch Leigber has returned to the safety position.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - msqueri - 02-16-2023

In addition to Yamauchi being LDS and Leigber being a safety, I think there are a few players you'll need to remove. We'll need to wait for the roster but I had thought Jay Symonds, Ethan Bonner, and maybe another one or two (Spencer Jorgensen?) had departed. I also heard Kenji Swanson may be gone but I haven't seen that corroborated. Based on some tea leaf reading, I suspect Caleb Ellis may have moved to corner. If he's still on the roster he doesn't seem to be a safety based on various group photos Gregory has posted.

On the projected starters, Berzins, Giilman, and Porter strike me as too speculative to list as starters. Maybe they will be but I think it will be competitive and it's not obvious those guys would win out. I don't see them as any more likely to start than the players you didn't bold.

I don't know if Ojarikre will be a safety or a corner.

Generally, I'm interested to see the roster and what other information it provides us. That could even include tweaks in front seven position designations to reflect a new defensive scheme.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - BostonCard - 02-16-2023

Pinned to the top and unpinning our 2022 roster.

I expect lots of changes between now and September.

BC

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - SamuelMcF - 02-16-2023

Duke Reeder transferred to Cornell for lacrosse.

I think Jay Symonds and Ethan Bonner are done. (For Matt: I believe Spencer Jorgensen is back.)

Miles McGee is a walk-on.

I'm sure plenty will be clearer once the spring roster comes out, but a bunch of the OL positions will change. Trevor Mayberry is 6'3" and definitely won't be a tackle, for example. (My completely uneducated guess is he starts at C, not Logan Berzins who is a walk-on.)

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - old spanish trail - 02-16-2023

Wow! Listed like that the transfer portal skinned us. Remainder is going to get trounced.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - martyup - 02-16-2023

Thanks for all your great work Langdude.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - Langdude - 02-18-2023

Thanks for the feedback, all.

1) Did not know Yamauchi was LDS. I would have had I paid more attention. I'll remove his name.
2) Also did not realize that they were moving Mitch Leigber back to S. Will make adjustment.
3) Had completely forgotten about Anson Pulsipher! Glad for his return.
4) I had read somewhere that Ethan Bonner was returning, and I had simply made an assumption regarding Jay Symonds and Spencer Jorgensen. But I could be wrong about all three. Since Jorgensen is only a 5th year, and Bonner and Symonds are starters, I'll leave them on the grid until we have confirmation of any of them staying or going.
5) I'll also wait to hear if Kenji Swanson has retired or if Caleb Ellis has switched positions. (BTW, that guy certainly has fallen out of favor. Played a lot as a true freshman.)
6) Regarding prospective starters, I only posted Logan Berzins as a starter at center because he is the only returning center that we have that has played significant minutes. But he is a walk-on, so I would not be surprised if he is supplanted by a transfer or position switch. Anyway, I'll remove starter status until we find out.
7) Also regarding prospective starters, both Alaka'i Gilman and Omari Porter were starting at the end of last season, so I left them listed as starters. Granted, they were only starting because of a bevy of injuries, but I really wonder who would start in front of them barring a position switch. Jimmy Wyrick and Jaden Slocumb did not play a lot last season relative to their freshman year. Perhaps Scotty Edwards, who did play a lot last year? Leigber? We'll see, but I'll leave them listed as starters for now. Their positions to lose! :)
8) It is strange that freshman defensive back recruits were only listed as "defensive backs," so I basically slotted them where they had played in high school or were listed by recruiting services, which is why I listed Kenji Ojarikre at safety. (Interestingly, all offensive linemen were also listed in this way, so I had to make some judgment calls.) But I grant that he could absolutely end up a CB. I hope he doesn't, because we are trending toward the same dearth of safeties that has plagued us in recent years.
9) Did not know about Duke Reeder! Good for him to find some PT somewhere in some sport. Odd to leave before he finished his degree (unless he finished early).
10) I totally knew Babyface McGee was a walk-on! Not sure why I did not put his name in italics. Will correct.

And, yes, we got totally decimated by the transfer portal!

-m.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - SamuelMcF - 02-18-2023

(02-18-2023, 03:58 PM)Langdude Wrote: 5) I'll also wait to hear if Kenji Swanson has retired or if Caleb Ellis has switched positions. (BTW, that guy certainly has fallen out of favor. Played a lot as a true freshman.)
6) Regarding prospective starters, I only posted Logan Berzins as a starter at center because he is the only returning center that we have that has played significant minutes. But he is a walk-on, so I would not be surprised if he is supplanted by a transfer or position switch. Anyway, I'll remove starter status until we find out.
7) Also regarding prospective starters, both Alaka'i Gilman and Omari Porter were starting at the end of last season, so I left them listed as starters. Granted, they were only starting because of a bevy of injuries, but I really wonder who would start in front of them barring a position switch. Jimmy Wyrick and Jaden Slocumb did not play a lot last season relative to their freshman year. Perhaps Scotty Edwards, who did play a lot last year? Leigber? We'll see, but I'll leave them listed as starters for now. Their positions to lose! :)

My theory here is that Ellis, Wyrick, and Slocum - all of whom burnt their redshirts as true frosh - were held out in order to actually use said burnt shirts and keep another eligible season. Patrick Fields coming in, McGill being healthy again, and Williamson continuing to start made that possible. Even when injuries happened the staff decided we had Gilman and Porter who are older ("seniority" over talent was a Shaw hallmark). None of those first 3 are returning, so we'll need these guys again now.

This is supported by the official site stating that all 3 played in a handful of games - Ellis in 3, Wyrick in 4, Slocum in 2.

Also, according to the official site, Scotty Edwards played in 4 games and thus DID NOT burn his shirt. I can't remember whether that's accurate.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - msqueri - 02-19-2023

Thanks Langdude. I think you're misreading what Gilman and Porter playing vis-a-vis Wyrick and Slocum at the end of last season meant. As SamuelMcF noted, there's a pretty obvious elective redshirt explanation for the latter two not being in the playing time mix at the end of last season. If you're going to put so much stock into playing time at Stanford, Gilman has played 523 defensive stats, Wyrick 510, Slocum 275, Porter 116, and Edwards 30 (by the way, SamuelMcF, PFF says Edwards played seven games on special teams). In terms of snaps per game available, Wyrick is BY FAR the top dog. He was the starting nickel back for three quarters of his true freshman season.

In any case, I think it's a real mistake to put so much stock into Akina's playing time decisions when it came to the scraps at the end of last year. Akina is gone and, as you noted, those "decisions" were really just throwing healthy bodies out there in the face of a dearth of options. We now have two new DB coaches and two DB rooms in which there isn't a single player who's ever been a bona fide college starter aside from Wyrick. (I know you're not taking Bonner off your chart yet, but I've seen no evidence whatsoever he's back, thought I saw a pretty well connected poster on TOS saw Bonner is gone, and I believe Bonner posted an Instagram thank you/wouldn't change a thing kind of post about Stanford) To say this competition is wide open is an understatement.

Forced to hazard a guess about the two DB rooms, for my money Collin Wright and Wyrick are probably the two players most likely to start. In addition to the big open questions of corner competition and safety competition, there's also a big open question of the new staff's philosophy and evaluation when it comes to nickel. That has a big bearing on the safety competition whether Wyrick, another "safety," or somebody not in that room at all becomes the nickel. Regardless of all of this, the one thing I think we know is pretty much nobody is proven or a sure thing (arguable exception of Wyrick, but it's a new staff and that matters) and it will be a competition. I chafed at you listing Gilman and Porter as starters as I think there's essentially no reason to assume they have a leg up over Slocum and Leigber, for instance, not to mention the real stretch in assuming Porter is the starting nickel back.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - BobK - 02-20-2023

Adams our OL coach must have been Confused he just left for the arizona cardinals

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - BostonCard - 02-20-2023

Well, that didn't last long...

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfballupdate/status/1627838450207494144?s=20[/tweet]

Sorry, it took me a bit to understand what BobK was saying.

BC

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - vataha - 02-20-2023

My first thought was of Spicoli’s response to Mr.Hand after Mr. Hand ripped up his class schedule.

Just a knee jerk response.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - SamuelMcF - 02-21-2023

Personnel notes:

Trevor Mayberry and Gaethan Bernadel should both have asterisks as they burnt their shirts as frosh at their original schools.
I remember seeing a couple pictures on Twitter a little bit ago of a new walk-on RB training with the team. I don't remember his name off the top of my head but he's a small kid from Texas. The roster should be updated in early-mid March so we'll probably see him on it.

A couple comments on positions/scheme:

Bobby April will be running a 3-4 defense with multiple front looks, so I posit we'll be back to OLB instead of EDGE and DE/DT instead of DL. That's how Wisconsin did it.
Troy Taylor's offenses don't use fullbacks. Given that, I posit Shield Taylor will be labeled a TE. Walk-on fullback Jacob Lowe may have actually burnt his shirt(?) as a long snapper this past season, so I posit he could be labeled a LS.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - old spanish trail - 02-21-2023

(02-20-2023, 06:42 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Well, that didn't last long...

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stanfballupdate/status/1627838450207494144?s=20[/tweet]

Sorry, it took me a bit to understand what BobK was saying.

BC

Too bad. I thought he was best offensive hire at most important position for us.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - msqueri - 02-23-2023

The new roster is out. What we've learned:

* The only fifth year players back are Tristan Sinclair, Spencer Jorgensen, Bradley Archer, and big news I'll get to in a moment. We knew this would be the case but shockingly young to have so few grown men on the team. Major order of business for Taylor to build a culture where it's attractive for players to play fifth and sixth years at Stanford. I don't know how you compete in the trenches otherwise. Some had been holding out hope (despite the total lack of evidence and even existence of evidence he was gone) that Ethan Bonner might return, but he didn't.

* But we arguably made up for that with the return of a familiar face: Zahran Manley is back! I don't know whether the year absence was academic, personal, or beef with Akina but regardless we now have a guy with several career starts under his belt at a position (corner) that just lost its four key contributors. In 2021, Manley's PFF grade was only a tick behind Kelly and Toomer. In 2020 it was at about the same level, which was the best of any corner on the roster that year. He didn't play a significant amount of snaps in 2019 but graded at a comparable level. The bottom line is that a position at which we feared we returned nothing at all we're getting an extremely proven average Pac-12 corner (18th of 40 corners in 2020, 29th of 61 in 2021). brobdingnagian news. Coupled with Gaethan Bernadel at ILB we have two plug and play "newcomers" on defense.

* I wanted to celebrate the good news before the bad. Those who read above the fifth year players who are back may have read between the lines to see that Barrett Miller is gone. This is devastating. He legitimately could have been the favorite to start at four if not all five of the offensive line positions. The OL rebuild is now even more daunting.

* In addition to the exodus of upperclassmen, we've lost Brandon Jones, Kenji Swanson, Jason Amsler (walk on), Will Gibson (walk on), Donovan Jones (walk on), Jacob Katona (walk on), Connor McFadden (walk on), Caleb Robinson (walk on). It's disappointing Jones never did more after appearing like an attractive recruit, but he was small and always injured and not a significant loss at all. I'm happy to see corner manned by Manley and a youth movement. Swanson is big news just because he was in his first year and that's a big change to the expected OL pipeline going forward, but I've expected since before we signed him that he could be an early medical retirement. Dude was never healthy and when he was he looked like a giant playing football rather than any sort of athlete. It's probably for the best that we can plan out the OL pipeline without a delusion that we can count on him. Nonetheless, that leaves the three most recent classes with eight scholarship OL, which is disturbingly light. We're getting somewhat healthier - last two classes account for seven of those (still too light but better) - but have a lot of work to do in OL recruiting in 2024. Walk on attrition is never news, but we should note McFadden and especially Robinson given the horrid running back depth. Robinson in particular is a surprise to me.

* Walk on Anson Pulsipher is back after a two year church mission.

* RIP to the short-lived "EDGE" position designation. We are back to listing those players as outside linebackers. At least for now it's a one-for-one switchover at the scholarship level, so for now we can't read anything into it other than nomenclature. I am sure there will be major differences between the Anderson defense and the April defense but the roster doesn't really point the way. Notably, I was wondering whether anybody among Aaron Armitage, Lance Keneley, and Wilfredo Aybar would convert to defensive line. Not so far. By the way, I had to add the scholarship level caveat because walk-on Aristotle Taylor put on six pounds and is now a DL.

* More interesting than that nomenclature change is that we've done away with offensive line sub-positions entirely on the roster. Everybody is just "offensive line." To me this is a nod to reality. The competition is totally wide open and it would have been utterly misleading to list many of these players by position.

* The true freshmen on the roster are Tiger Bachmeier (as expected) and a mystery running back named Kenaj Washington. I assume he's a walk-on and his high school stats certainly don't suggest more. He's just about the tiniest player to ever play at Stanford.

* I read the tea leaves correctly and Caleb Ellis is now a corner rather than a safety. And of course Mitch Leigber is back at safety as the running back move was sheer emergency and never his true position.

* Also as predicted, fullback does not exist on Troy Taylor teams. Shield Taylor is now a tight end and walk-on Jacob Lowe is a running back (though I'm surprised he's no longer listed as a long snapper as well) and has lost ten pounds to try to keep up better with the small guys.

* I or somebody else could do a separate post just on weight gains/losses. One thing that has to be mentioned is Zach Buckey. He was troublingly light last year at 265....and now he's listed at 260! What the hell is this guy doing? Don't want to judge too rashly based just on roster weights, but this guy might be a worthless steak eater (or in this case not eating enough steak). We know the April defense requires DL to have dozens upon dozens of more pounds than Buckey brings to the table and yet we see a weight decrease. Doesn't seem like a good sign. In contrast, Jaxson Moi put on 21 pounds (!!!) to now tip the scales at 303, Anthony Franklin put on 14 pounds to be in a totally different weight class at 281, Zach Rowell is also at that weight after a 9 pound gain, and Pat Caughey put on 19 pounds to surpass Buckey's weight by a few pounds. This is the off-season work on paper one would expect. On balance it seems very welcome, but Buckey is disappointing. For what it's worth, Tobin Phillips stayed exactly even at 295, which is perhaps somewhat disappointing but he started from a higher baseline than the others. Still, it's interesting for Moi to pass him as our largest defensive trench dog. Austin Uke also stayed stable at 290. On the other side of the trenches, Jake Maikkula put on 11 pounds, which I think is significant to make him a contender in the competition. In other news, the weight losses for John Humphreys and Bradley Archer seem significant enough that it probably points to a purposeful attempt to gain speed (same may be true for walk-on David Kasemervisz but that's harder to know with walk ons). Our non-Ese Dubre ILBs are very small compared to recent Stanford standards, but that's potentially consistent with the Wisconsin M.O. and something I welcome. That being said, Matt Rose put on some significant weight. I wonder if tight end is another position the new regime would like lighter as weights across the board indicate a preference around 240. I keep waiting every year for Benjamin Yurosek to put on weight and become a better blocker and he never does. Maybe he's found a staff that doesn't care as much about that (or maybe he is a bad off-season guy). Joshua Thompson's 12 pound weight gain to 207 startled me. Terian Williams gained 9 pounds to get to 184. Also, I know he's a back-up kicker so not really relevant but Emmet Kenney had a shocking 18 pound weight gain.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - Maple Leaf - 02-23-2023

(02-23-2023, 09:23 AM)msqueri Wrote: The new roster is out. What we've learned:

* The only fifth year players back are Tristan Sinclair, Spencer Jorgensen, Bradley Archer, and big news I'll get to in a moment. We knew this would be the case but shockingly young to have so few grown men on the team. Major order of business for Taylor to build a culture where it's attractive for players to play fifth and sixth years at Stanford. I don't know how you compete in the trenches otherwise. Some had been holding out hope (despite the total lack of evidence and even existence of evidence he was gone) that Ethan Bonner might return, but he didn't.

* But we arguably made up for that with the return of a familiar face: Zahran Manley is back! I don't know whether the year absence was academic, personal, or beef with Akina but regardless we now have a guy with several career starts under his belt at a position (corner) that just lost its four key contributors. In 2021, Manley's PFF grade was only a tick behind Kelly and Toomer. In 2020 it was at about the same level, which was the best of any corner on the roster that year. He didn't play a significant amount of snaps in 2019 but graded at a comparable level. The bottom line is that a position at which we feared we returned nothing at all we're getting an extremely proven average Pac-12 corner (18th of 40 corners in 2020, 29th of 61 in 2021). of immense proportions news. Coupled with Gaethan Bernadel at ILB we have two plug and play "newcomers" on defense.

* I wanted to celebrate the good news before the bad. Those who read above the fifth year players who are back may have read between the lines to see that Barrett Miller is gone. This is devastating. He legitimately could have been the favorite to start at four if not all five of the offensive line positions. The OL rebuild is now even more daunting.

* In addition to the exodus of upperclassmen, we've lost Brandon Jones, Kenji Swanson, Jason Amsler (walk on), Will Gibson (walk on), Donovan Jones (walk on), Jacob Katona (walk on), Connor McFadden (walk on), Caleb Robinson (walk on). It's disappointing Jones never did more after appearing like an attractive recruit, but he was small and always injured and not a significant loss at all. I'm happy to see corner manned by Manley and a youth movement. Swanson is big news just because he was in his first year and that's a big change to the expected OL pipeline going forward, but I've expected since before we signed him that he could be an early medical retirement. Dude was never healthy and when he was he looked like a giant playing football rather than any sort of athlete. It's probably for the best that we can plan out the OL pipeline without a delusion that we can count on him. Nonetheless, that leaves the three most recent classes with eight scholarship OL, which is disturbingly light. We're getting somewhat healthier - last two classes account for seven of those (still too light but better) - but have a lot of work to do in OL recruiting in 2024. Walk on attrition is never news, but we should note McFadden and especially Robinson given the horrid running back depth. Robinson in particular is a surprise to me.

* Walk on Anson Pulsipher is back after a two year church mission.

* RIP to the short-lived "EDGE" position designation. We are back to listing those players as outside linebackers. At least for now it's a one-for-one switchover at the scholarship level, so for now we can't read anything into it other than nomenclature. I am sure there will be major differences between the Anderson defense and the April defense but the roster doesn't really point the way. Notably, I was wondering whether anybody among Aaron Armitage, Lance Keneley, and Wilfredo Aybar would convert to defensive line. Not so far. By the way, I had to add the scholarship level caveat because walk-on Aristotle Taylor put on six pounds and is now a DL.

* More interesting than that nomenclature change is that we've done away with offensive line sub-positions entirely on the roster. Everybody is just "offensive line." To me this is a nod to reality. The competition is totally wide open and it would have been utterly misleading to list many of these players by position.

* The true freshmen on the roster are Tiger Bachmeier (as expected) and a mystery running back named Kenaj Washington. I assume he's a walk-on and his high school stats certainly don't suggest more. He's just about the tiniest player to ever play at Stanford.

* I read the tea leaves correctly and Caleb Ellis is now a corner rather than a safety. And of course Mitch Leigber is back at safety as the running back move was sheer emergency and never his true position.

* Also as predicted, fullback does not exist on Troy Taylor teams. Shield Taylor is now a tight end and walk-on Jacob Lowe is a running back (though I'm surprised he's no longer listed as a long snapper as well) and has lost ten pounds to try to keep up better with the small guys.

* I or somebody else could do a separate post just on weight gains/losses. One thing that has to be mentioned is Zach Buckey. He was troublingly light last year at 265....and now he's listed at 260! What the hell is this guy doing? Don't want to judge too rashly based just on roster weights, but this guy might be a worthless steak eater (or in this case not eating enough steak). We know the April defense requires DL to have dozens upon dozens of more pounds than Buckey brings to the table and yet we see a weight decrease. Doesn't seem like a good sign. In contrast, Jaxson Moi put on 21 pounds (!!!) to now tip the scales at 303, Anthony Franklin put on 14 pounds to be in a totally different weight class at 281, Zach Rowell is also at that weight after a 9 pound gain, and Pat Caughey put on 19 pounds to surpass Buckey's weight by a few pounds. This is the off-season work on paper one would expect. On balance it seems very welcome, but Buckey is disappointing. For what it's worth, Tobin Phillips stayed exactly even at 295, which is perhaps somewhat disappointing but he started from a higher baseline than the others. Still, it's interesting for Moi to pass him as our largest defensive trench dog. Austin Uke also stayed stable at 290. On the other side of the trenches, Jake Maikkula put on 11 pounds, which I think is significant to make him a contender in the competition. In other news, the weight losses for John Humphreys and Bradley Archer seem significant enough that it probably points to a purposeful attempt to gain speed (same may be true for walk-on David Kasemervisz but that's harder to know with walk ons). Our non-Ese Dubre ILBs are very small compared to recent Stanford standards, but that's potentially consistent with the Wisconsin M.O. and something I welcome. That being said, Matt Rose put on some significant weight. I wonder if tight end is another position the new regime would like lighter as weights across the board indicate a preference around 240. I keep waiting every year for Benjamin Yurosek to put on weight and become a better blocker and he never does. Maybe he's found a staff that doesn't care as much about that (or maybe he is a bad off-season guy). Joshua Thompson's 12 pound weight gain to 207 startled me. Terian Williams gained 9 pounds to get to 184. Also, I know he's a back-up kicker so not really relevant but Emmet Kenney had a shocking 18 pound weight gain.

Thanks for your write up, very informative as always. As far as Mr. Kenaj Washington his size reminds me of a former Stanford RB by the name of Darin Nelson when he played as a true freshman, another Stanford RB who deserved the Voldemort. Mr. Zach Buckey weight lost could be an error in typing or he feels his best chance to compete is to be an underweight but quick DL.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - msqueri - 02-23-2023

Comparing a walk-on running back who rushed for 34 yards per game as a senior in high school to Darrin Nelson is a new one for me. This is like when I used to play whiffle ball and say I was Matt Williams or half court basketball on a six foot hoop and say I was Shawn Kemp.

Neither of your hypotheses on Buckey are close to Occam's Razor. It's almost certainly not a typo or something Kolodziej and Deatrick want. Buckey was a nobody recruit who in his first two years in the program totaled zero tackles and 21 snaps (6 outside of emptying the bench against the #223 team in the nation in Colgate) despite playing in a room with no seniority and little competition. I had hoped given the Stanford football dad bloodlines it could be a happy story like Drew Dalman or to a lesser extent Tucker Fisk, but my optimism is quickly dissipating.

RE: 2023 Stanford Football Personnel - needle - 02-24-2023

Bailey and Cooper still on the roster.

Tight end room really good or at least promising.

Hoping for no more attrition. (No idea whether that is realistic.)