College football's early signing day - Printable Version
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College football's early signing day - needle - 12-20-2023
Will there be any surprises today for Stanford?
https://admin.gostanford.com/signingday/football/football/26/?utm_source=gs-main&utm_medium=otherlp_1A2B4C&utm_campaign=football_otherpd_recruits__
RE: College football's early signing day - 82lsju - 12-20-2023
Stanford-bound Benedict Umeh has a new appreciation for football … and life
behind a paywall
https://theathletic.com/5144596/2023/12/20/benedict-umeh-stanford-football-lymphoma/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983
RE: College football's early signing day - newguy - 12-20-2023
(12-20-2023, 08:14 AM)82lsju Wrote: Stanford-bound Benedict Umeh has a new appreciation for football … and life
behind a paywall
https://theathletic.com/5144596/2023/12/20/benedict-umeh-stanford-football-lymphoma/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983
Inspiring.
Here's a free link to an article i posted a few weeks ago in another thread:
https://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/stanford-football-benedict-umeh-cancer-recruit-18460603.php
RE: College football's early signing day - 82lsju - 12-20-2023
in Elijah Brown's page it says
Quote:Will enroll at Stanford in January of 2024
https://admin.gostanford.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=20932
in a quick scan of the other 22 commit pages currently posted I didn't see any others indicating they are enrolling in Jan 2024
RE: College football's early signing day - BobK - 12-20-2023
Only Ricky Johnson not signed.
RE: College football's early signing day - SamuelMcF - 12-20-2023
(12-20-2023, 09:31 AM)82lsju Wrote: in Elijah Brown's page it says
Quote:Will enroll at Stanford in January of 2024
https://admin.gostanford.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=20932
in a quick scan of the other 22 commit pages currently posted I didn't see any others indicating they are enrolling in Jan 2024
There are 6, and it's surprising the other 5 don't have that.
RE: College football's early signing day - 82lsju - 12-20-2023
(12-20-2023, 09:57 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote:(12-20-2023, 09:31 AM)82lsju Wrote: in Elijah Brown's page it says
Quote:Will enroll at Stanford in January of 2024
https://admin.gostanford.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=20932
in a quick scan of the other 22 commit pages currently posted I didn't see any others indicating they are enrolling in Jan 2024
There are 6, and it's surprising the other 5 don't have that.
unfortunately not that surprising given the past accuracy and timeliness of materials on gostanford.com.....
RE: College football's early signing day - 82lsju - 12-20-2023
(12-20-2023, 09:32 AM)BobK Wrote: Only Ricky Johnson not signed.
looks like he took an official visit to Miss St on Dec 15, 2023.....
https://247sports.com/player/ricky-johnson-46138680/
press conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqqSWZFZaEY
RE: College football's early signing day - terry - 12-20-2023
Stanford's recruiting rankings currently are as follows --
According to Rivals, Stanford is 27th nationally and 6th in the ACC (out of 17 teams).
According to 247Sports, Stanford is 30th nationally and 6th in the ACC.
RE: College football's early signing day - BobK - 12-20-2023
https://x.com/allcardinal/status/1737576402646618273?s=46
The 6 early enrollees
RE: College football's early signing day - StanfordMatt - 12-20-2023
Ricky Johnson officially to Miss State.
RE: College football's early signing day - msqueri - 12-20-2023
Press conference reactions:
* Will start with the super petty because I'm reacting chronologically as I watch the press conference and this was the first thing said: what's with the Cardprint branding? Is that like footprint? Fingerprint? Some meaning that's going over my head? CardClass made more sense to me but whatever, this doesn't matter and I hope the branding reaches some audience.
* Taylor gonna Taylor, right to questions as always. If ever there was time to have a set piece and to market this is it. This is where you get your deliberate messages and spin out there, a free platform to sell your program and the progress it's making. That's not how he rolls. Gotta respect the authenticity at least. And it's no harm because he predictably used the first question to hit the toplines/main message anyway.
* Taylor contrasted this year with last year by noting they stuck with the previous staff's recruits. The subtext here is this is his first class with his own guys. That's obvious to all of us but Taylor subtly framing it as such is notable. There are probably guys, maybe a fair number of guys, in our 2023 class who would not be here if the new staff's evaluation and approach were previously in place. That's a reminder that it will take years for Taylor to have his full imprint, errr Cardprint, on the program.
* Taylor called it a "really good recruiting class" and noted that it includes a player from every position other than kicker and punter. His bottom line is it accomplishes all of our goals. He of course should say all that. Looking at the class a bit more objectively, the most established recruiting service (247) has us at #30 while the rising force in recruiting evaluation (On3) has us #37, while the others have us a bit higher. This compares to a 247 Talent Composite baseline for us of #37 and a five year median of #21. When you consider the relatively bigger boosts Power Five competitors will tend to get via the transfer portal, it's hard to view this class as anything more than treading water. It may even be less than that on paper (i.e., it is possible we drop to #38 or #39 or something in next year's 247 Talent Composite). But we have been getting far less than our on paper talent for years and IMHO a stabilizing class that injects some credible talent is a big step forward in the rebuild. This class is - or should be - part of the healing process.
* Recruiting a player from every position other than kicker and punter is a nice thing to sell. It slightly oversells the balance insofar as there are only three OL. We did not recruit every position on the OL. But by and large it is a very notable amount of balance in one class. Part of that healing process I mentioned is now we have a foundation for the rebuild of a large, balanced class of the staff's own guys that can go forth and compete while starting from a common place culturally.
* Not recruiting a scholarship specialist is a choice. Arguably kicker was a pretty big need in this class. I continue to think Taylor may be the type to want to fill specialists via the walk-on route. As with his eschewing of a dedicated special teams coach it's a choice with tradeoffs but it's defensible. In addition to the opportunity cost argument a fair case can be made that Stanford institutionally should be able to attract very solid specialists as walk-ons. The proof will be in the overall pudding.
* Taylor noted at the end of his version of a big picture set piece that recruiting never ends and you just go to the next cycle. Amen. It seems like our offer rhythms so far back up this rhetoric. Minds should be on 2025 recruiting basically now, though I admit my mind is probably lagging where I hope the coaches are. For instance, I haven't given much thought yet to 2025 class size or needs. Well, for needs, I can tell you based on what we just signed that I will have OL at the top of the list bar none and I also think we could be bringing in better athleticism on the edges.
* For 2024, Taylor rightly talked about having needs at every position and signing the best players we could. As others have noted, this is above all a function of our depleted roster and that we need to improve everywhere. Taylor gets that. That being said, I do like to assess how classes do in terms of the needs I assess heading into them. I thought far and away the biggest need for us, to Taylor's point about best available players, was to get some studs. We got zero composite top 100 players and three composite top 400 players. That's sobering and not very impressive but it's a hell of a lot better than 2023 (and also 2021 but not 2022). The other thing I really wanted was to change the culture in a positive way. There is no objective way for me to measure that but I will choose optimism. In terms of concrete positional need, our biggest needs for volume/depth were at OL, DL, ILB, and DB and our greatest needs relative to Power Five standards were QB, RB, and ILB. As noted in the balance point, we got volume everywhere but OL (a big but unfortunately). RB and ILB remain question marks relative to Power Five standards, but the volume helps a lot to give confidence in the competition.
* Continuing this discussion on need, my view on need was: 1) Stud QB, 2) Stud ILB (but depth also extremely important since that room is so troubled), 3) DL volume (would love a stud of course), 4) OL volume (would love a stud of course), 5) Stud RB (but depth also important since that room is so troubled). I give Taylor an A- on #1, a B- on #2 (probably generous but points for multiple guys), an A on #3, a C on #4, and a B on #5 (very similar to ILB but even better on the volume front). That's a 3.08 GPA. That won't get you into Stanford, but it's a lot better than I was grading Shaw by the end.
* The reference to guys knowing they are coming in to play right away and compete reinforced the sense - no surprise - that Taylor doesn't think highly of the roster. He followed that with discussion of the six mid-year enrollees, so I think it's pretty clear that in his mind these are key guys for 2024. As a refresher, we are talking about Umeh, E. Brown, Mosley, Mattingly, Stephenson, and Richardson. In addition to Taylor's signals, we have the recent history of immediate playing time for mid-year enrollees Bailey, Roush, Reuben, and Bachmeier. Have to figure these six have every opportunity. I'm watching Umeh, Brown, and Mosley most closely but all have a real shot.
* The Umeh story is great and the way Taylor talked about it was neat. The story gets even better if Umeh stars in college. Here's hoping. I was a bit verklempt reading The Athletic story today. Think this will be one of the favorite players for many Stanford fans.
RE: College football's early signing day - msqueri - 12-20-2023
* Extremely unsurprising but also exciting to hear Taylor say Elijah Brown reminds him a lot of Jake Browning. This is really the obvious comparison for Taylor to make in light of high school pedigree, physical skills (and lack thereof), accuracy, game manager ability, poise, and leadership. Obviously we can't expect Brown to become Pac-12 Player of the Year (at least I hope people realize that is not a reasonable expectation and should be a dream) but there's a lot lining up that we should like in terms of Taylor's first full class including a QB tailor-made (pardon the pun) for his offense and style. As Taylor said later in the press conference, a key similarity seems to be that both are distributors. While Brown's profile does not compare to Luck's, there are some real echoes in terms of the new coach getting the QB1 to build around. (If only we had a DeCastro and Martin......guess we can hope we do in this small but credible OL class but that's asking just as much as Brown becoming Pac-12 Player of the Year).
* Eyebrow-raising phrase for Taylor to say he feels like Stanford is "the only outlier in college football." Pretty stark way to put it but to a degree we've always felt that way and leaning into it is almost inevitable for a Stanford coach. "We have two Plan As here at Stanford" with regard to the NFL and life after football is a great, great phrase. Raise to whoever coined that. We often have occasion to comment on how Taylor doesn't fashion himself or seem good at being a marketer, but these phrases as well as the discussion of 50 years as a non-football player even if you're extraordinary show some nice packaging of things we've been selling for decades.
* I couldn't quite tell if the line about hoping to sign a couple more was a throwaway riff on the numbers he was citing or if we really might not be done. I still don't have a great handle on our roster numbers. Taylor says we are pretty close to 85, indicating he knows (as he should/as I think we knew he would based on the last few weeks) the lay of the land in terms of who is back.
* Taylor always manages expectations with regard to the transfer portal but he seemed to do so even more carefully this time. The more or less writing off of graduate school transfers kind of surprised me. Even before Taylor we had Isaiah Sanders and Patrick Fields. I don't know why we would pooh pooh the idea there could be a good graduate fit (and I would be especially attracted to ones at offensive line in years when our super senior cohort is light there). If we can impress upon the administration to make things a bit easier for grad transfers to find a path it becomes even more possible. I take Taylor's comment as indicating that we tried to do that and it's not going anywhere, but undergrad transfers could be possible.
* Taylor said we're looking at a few transfer possibilities. Eagerly awaiting to see who this might be. I wonder if lack of traction as guys seek out better football opportunities is just as big a factor as Stanford admissions.
* Very interesting point that Taylor admitted (in a polite way) to negative recruiting other schools (or you could say framing our approach as a positive) by contrasting our not bringing in tons of recruits as a better environment for high school prospects. One of several reasons why high school recruiting should be easier for us going forward (along with the decreasingly contested battlespace).
* I liked the point contrasting somebody like Benedict Umeh (obvious Stanford Man) with other recruits whose fit may not be so obvious but when you get to know them they connect to Stanford. Taylor explicitly took this to being open about recruit coming from anywhere and any socioeconomic background. This gives me a good feeling, albeit totally subjectively, that Taylor is not primed to fall into the self-selector trap Stanford coaches have had trouble with for decades. I would much rather Taylor recruit football players and then find ways to tell them/himself stories about their Stanford fit (maybe totally genuinely, maybe a bit contrived) than say that only nerds or only gentlemen or only guys with a firm head on their shoulders consciously prioritizing the 40 year decision should come to Stanford. Liked this answer. Heck, Taylor even said we will "fight those battles" for guys who don't value the Stanford degree! Pretty clear he wants football players.
* Taylor talked about RBs who are explosive and can run through tackles. I don't know if he meant this as shade at Smith and Filkins or not, but probably. Don't know if it means anything that Taylor talked about Ford first then Davis then Tabb, though the Tabb discussion did seem a bit perfunctory and the Ford discussion particularly effusive. The bottom line is Taylor said they can play immediately, reinforcing the pretty obvious sense that we are bringing in a new RB room and these three will be integral to the competition. It's actually a bit surprising to me that none of the RBs are among the early enrollees. At the same time, RB is presumably a lot less dependent on early acclimation than QB, DL, or OLB would be.
* Taylor talked about Chase Farrell going to be the fastest guy on the team. Taylor said 10.3 100 meter, which I'll forgive the shady rounding up from 10.38. Obviously 10.38 is really, really, really fast. I've never made bones about my deep skepticism of the football translation of the Farrell brothers but as I've pointed out this fall Chase put together a nice senior year and significantly increased my sense he could translate. Taylor was pretty blunt that he thinks the speed is something we lack and Farrell gives us that, so I would anticipate we are intentional about working it in, maybe even in fairly direct substitution of Bryce Farrell (who Taylor essentially confirmed is coming back).
* Interesting that Taylor was so forthcoming - not just that, volunteering the information totally unsolicited - about Mosley's ACL injury and prognosis. I have some concerns about Mosley's injury propensity. Hope Taylor's optimism is justified and rewarded. By the way, some have talked about Taylor's comments on the WRs as indicating great excitement and I think that's a bit much. It didn't sound any different to me than nice things he says about any player/recruit.
* Very notable that Taylor said Elijah Brown will be able to compete right from the beginning. Cue lots of off-season debate and maybe some drama. I also think it was interesting that Ben gave Taylor an opportunity to talk about managing expectations and, rather than doing so, Taylor talked about how Brown has always played with big expectations and pressure. No expectation management here. In fact, it's striking to hear all the direct, confident praise for Brown after the last year of hearing about how difficult QB is and how nobody is ever perfect and [Daniels/Lamson] do some things really well and other things need more consistency. We may be seeing the difference in how Taylor talks about a QB he thinks is good and ones he thinks he has to get by with. That may be too harsh on our current guys, especially Daniels who is at least capable of being mediocre, and it also could be a reflection on setting (Signing Day is a time to tout potential, the rest of the year is when things get more real) but it was a pretty interesting juxtaposition.
* Kind of an interesting statement that the majority of outgoing transfers "have thought through it." What, they all haven't thought through it? Might this be subtle sour grapes at Yurosek?
RE: College football's early signing day - msqueri - 12-20-2023
* Very surprised but grateful we got a specific question about the lack of a scholarship kicker. Interesting insight that it will be Kenney competing with somebody we bring in. I assume this means a PWO true freshman but we'll see. Equally interesting that Taylor talks about two punters who will compete for the job, presumably Flintoft and Weselman again. Weselman being back makes me think again, where are our 85 scholarships going to come from? Maybe later we (fans, Taylor seems to/hopefully has a good handle on it) can start trying to count that. To my earlier point about tradeoffs of having scholarship specialists or not, Taylor talked about the model that's worked at Stanford for a very long time being bringing in walk-ons to compete and then whoever wins typically gets put on scholarship. He must have missed all the specialist scholarships Shaw gave. But the model does have a compelling logic. Again, though, have to get to 85.
* On OL, talking about Gunter, House, and Brown in that order is one of those things where you wonder if it was intentionally in reverse order of excitement (which is what recruiting profiles might indicate and also a rhetorical tactic Shaw often used in such settings), an indication our internal evaluation differs from recruiting services, or not meaningful in any way. I don't know. I also don't think I read Taylor-speak quite fluently enough to know whether his "it's just a great group" was protesting too much with regard to a relative weak spot for the class or genuine excitement. Also always have to wonder how much of all of this is coachspeak. The idea Gunter, for instance, has a chance to come in and play immediately (which Taylor said was the case for each), despite being 6'7" 265 right now, does not strike me as very credible.
* Very interesting that Taylor admitted that there are certain positions we're interested in scouring the transfer portal for but that he didn't want to go into that. Based on tea leaves uncovered by others, it seems like ILB and OL could be positions Taylor had in mind for that but I don't know. I continue to think we aren't good enough anywhere and are mediocre enough everywhere that our philosophy should be Best Player Available. But our actual transfer strategy appears to be much more targeted than that.
* Also interesting to say that there are certain positions we definitely would not bring a transfer in. I wonder if there are any positions other than QB for which that is the case. I am not sure what the logic could be anywhere else. At QB I can at least understand the logic. It would be interesting to know whether Taylor's determination we would not bring in a transfer QB is due to a philosophical opposition to rentals at the marquee position, a sense we have the guys we want, a long-term play that Brown is the future and we aren't messing with that mojo, or some combination. I can buy the logic for any of that, but I think a permanent philosophy of not renting QBs could be self-defeating if this transfer era continues for the foreseeable future. Taylor is putting a lot of faith in his own evaluation and coaching abilities if he thinks it will be a sustainable strategy to rely on high school QBs when everybody we play is shopping to get proven good QBs. We just saw in the Pac-12 the vast delta between our QB play and what the shoppers got to play with. Next year in the ACC we already know that Kyle McCord (Syracuse), Grayson McCall (NC State), Chandler Rogers (Cal), Tyler Shough (Louisville), and Max Johnson (North Carolina) are transferring in, with the really big prize Cam Ward reportedly a strong possibility as well as DJ Uiagalelei, among probably others. If the teams we play can get Ward and McCall or their equivalents to transfer in every year, it is really making a pretty audacious bet that we can compete with that strictly off of high school evaluation and college coaching. Of course, I feel better about it if we actually get good recruits so I am thrilled we have ended our high-end QB recruiting drought.
* I appreciated the process question on recruiting, framed around how Taylor handles defensive recruiting. Taylor said a reassuring thing about all hands on deck in recruiting and all the coaches being involved in recruiting, but also acknowledged that he trusts the defensive coaches and they know what they're looking for in their system. Taylor's praise of the defensive class of recruits eventually sounded pretty box-checking/coachspeaky but it started out sounding pretty genuine and I do think he thinks we got better with this defensive class.
* BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to Dave's question about whether there will be an emphasis on NorCal recruits down the line. GTFO with this parochial garbage and please do not press our coach to prioritize stupid things that make our team worse. Northern California is not good at football and it is so close-minded and stupid to think it should matter at all for Stanford whether a football player comes from the Bay Area as opposed to Nashville or Tampa. But YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY to Taylor shooting the question down for exactly the reason he should, that there are so few guys in Northern California who meet what we're looking for.
* Fun exchange on Mosley and his soccer player mom, like Christian McCaffrey. I wonder if Taylor had Julie Ertz in mind, though it's asking too much to think Taylor might be around for the class of 2041 when Madden is ready to sign. Also on Mosley, I have to say I was pretty surprised at how detailed and transparent Taylor was on numerous things in this press conference, and Mosley is one of the best examples. Talking openly about an ACL injury and the details of the recovery and the AP classes and other work needed to overcome hurdles to enroll early (read: not an advanced enough student that it was a no brainer) is not the talk of the feed 'em shit and keep 'em in the dark mentality it sometimes seemed like Taylor had in past press conferences. Just in general a very relaxed, honest Taylor in this press conference it seemed to me. He's always authentic but this seemed, yeah, relaxed.
RE: College football's early signing day - Mick - 12-20-2023
(12-20-2023, 08:51 PM)msqueri Wrote: Press conference reactions:
* Taylor contrasted this year with last year by noting they stuck with the previous staff's recruits. The subtext here is this is his first class with his own guys. That's obvious to all of us but Taylor subtly framing it as such is notable. There are probably guys, maybe a fair number of guys, in our 2023 class who would not be here if the new staff's evaluation and approach were previously in place. That's a reminder that it will take years for Taylor to have his full imprint, errr Cardprint, on the program.
* The reference to guys knowing they are coming in to play right away and compete reinforced the sense - no surprise - that Taylor doesn't think highly of the roster. He followed that with discussion of the six mid-year enrollees, so I think it's pretty clear that in his mind these are key guys for 2024. As a refresher, we are talking about Umeh, E. Brown, Mosley, Mattingly, Stephenson, and Richardson. In addition to Taylor's signals, we have the recent history of immediate playing time for mid-year enrollees Bailey, Roush, Reuben, and Bachmeier. Have to figure these six have every opportunity. I'm watching Umeh, Brown, and Mosley most closely but all have a real shot.
Great post, msqueri, as always. This reminds me of Harbaugh's arrival post-Harris. EUTM was able to take Wlat's 2006 1-11 class and go 4-8 the next year (Harbaugh's first year), including the Greatest Upset Ever, 24-23...and Harbaugh went 5-7 the next year. But it wasn't until Harbaugh's recruits were upperclassmen in Harbaugh's third year that he started to hit the heights at 8-4 in the regular season, then a close loss to Oklahoma in the Sun Bowl. And of course, Harbaugh went 12-1 in his final year with a 40-12 victory over Va Tech (with Shaw and Darth Vader as his DC), leading to a #5 overall ranking. Perhaps Taylor is headed for a similar result.
RE: College football's early signing day - needle - 12-20-2023
So two of the top four guys in Stanford's class--Mosley and Umeh--have already dealt with serious health issues?
I am certainly rooting for those guys in life and on the field.
RE: College football's early signing day - terry - 12-21-2023
Really good post, msqueri. Thanks!
RE: College football's early signing day - SkiBum80 - 12-22-2023
Great posts msqueri and all.
I think the CardGlass is half empty or half full just depending on how you hold it up to the light and whether looking up or down at it.
To agree with the half empty folks:
-- we used to get 5-star recruits, and tons of 4 stars. Now we getting a few 4-stars and by far mostly 3-stars and some are barely 3-stars.
-- there's no apparent "team changer" in the recruits, unless you count maybe QB Brown, but tough to count on a freshman QB no matter how good, to be able to turn a team around on his own
-- we started with 26 (or more) recruits and a few bolted away, and a couple of these were in the top 1/3 of our recruit group
-- our best player, Karty, will be gone and not even a kicker/punter in this class!
-- very little hope of anyone great coming in by portal, as hard to do at Stanford, and what room is there for them anyway?
To agree with the half full folks:
-- we have a very balanced recruit class, with someone adding to almost every position
-- we had highly ranked recruits for the last Shaw years, and still managed to lose to many teams staffed by 3-star recruits or less that still kicked our butts! (better motivated, better cohesion, playing above their stars while we played below). So recruit stars doesn't tell the whole story on the class.
-- some good and needed experienced seniors / 5th years coming back for another year
-- Coach TT and Co will have had yet more time to work with all the returning players
-- improved facilities (weight training) might help some?
-- for the 6 recruits enrolling early, it might help them get going in the program quicker
RE: College football's early signing day - norcard10 - 12-23-2023
(12-20-2023, 08:51 PM)msqueri Wrote: * Extremely unsurprising but also exciting to hear Taylor say Elijah Brown reminds him a lot of Jake Browning. This is really the obvious comparison for Taylor to make in light of high school pedigree, physical skills (and lack thereof), accuracy, game manager ability, poise, and leadership. Obviously we can't expect Brown to become Pac-12 Player of the Year (at least I hope people realize that is not a reasonable expectation and should be a dream) but there's a lot lining up that we should like in terms of Taylor's first full class including a QB tailor-made (pardon the pun) for his offense and style. As Taylor said later in the press conference, a key similarity seems to be that both are distributors. While Brown's profile does not compare to Luck's, there are some real echoes in terms of the new coach getting the QB1 to build around. (If only we had a DeCastro and Martin......guess we can hope we do in this small but credible OL class but that's asking just as much as Brown becoming Pac-12 Player of the Year).
* Eyebrow-raising phrase for Taylor to say he feels like Stanford is "the only outlier in college football." Pretty stark way to put it but to a degree we've always felt that way and leaning into it is almost inevitable for a Stanford coach. "We have two Plan As here at Stanford" with regard to the NFL and life after football is a great, great phrase. Raise to whoever coined that. We often have occasion to comment on how Taylor doesn't fashion himself or seem good at being a marketer, but these phrases as well as the discussion of 50 years as a non-football player even if you're extraordinary show some nice packaging of things we've been selling for decades.
* I couldn't quite tell if the line about hoping to sign a couple more was a throwaway riff on the numbers he was citing or if we really might not be done. I still don't have a great handle on our roster numbers. Taylor says we are pretty close to 85, indicating he knows (as he should/as I think we knew he would based on the last few weeks) the lay of the land in terms of who is back.
* Taylor always manages expectations with regard to the transfer portal but he seemed to do so even more carefully this time. The more or less writing off of graduate school transfers kind of surprised me. Even before Taylor we had Isaiah Sanders and Patrick Fields. I don't know why we would pooh pooh the idea there could be a good graduate fit (and I would be especially attracted to ones at offensive line in years when our super senior cohort is light there). If we can impress upon the administration to make things a bit easier for grad transfers to find a path it becomes even more possible. I take Taylor's comment as indicating that we tried to do that and it's not going anywhere, but undergrad transfers could be possible.
* Taylor said we're looking at a few transfer possibilities. Eagerly awaiting to see who this might be. I wonder if lack of traction as guys seek out better football opportunities is just as big a factor as Stanford admissions.
* Very interesting point that Taylor admitted (in a polite way) to negative recruiting other schools (or you could say framing our approach as a positive) by contrasting our not bringing in tons of recruits as a better environment for high school prospects. One of several reasons why high school recruiting should be easier for us going forward (along with the decreasingly contested battlespace).
* I liked the point contrasting somebody like Benedict Umeh (obvious Stanford Man) with other recruits whose fit may not be so obvious but when you get to know them they connect to Stanford. Taylor explicitly took this to being open about recruit coming from anywhere and any socioeconomic background. This gives me a good feeling, albeit totally subjectively, that Taylor is not primed to fall into the self-selector trap Stanford coaches have had trouble with for decades. I would much rather Taylor recruit football players and then find ways to tell them/himself stories about their Stanford fit (maybe totally genuinely, maybe a bit contrived) than say that only nerds or only gentlemen or only guys with a firm head on their shoulders consciously prioritizing the 40 year decision should come to Stanford. Liked this answer. Heck, Taylor even said we will "fight those battles" for guys who don't value the Stanford degree! Pretty clear he wants football players.
* Taylor talked about RBs who are explosive and can run through tackles. I don't know if he meant this as shade at Smith and Filkins or not, but probably. Don't know if it means anything that Taylor talked about Ford first then Davis then Tabb, though the Tabb discussion did seem a bit perfunctory and the Ford discussion particularly effusive. The bottom line is Taylor said they can play immediately, reinforcing the pretty obvious sense that we are bringing in a new RB room and these three will be integral to the competition. It's actually a bit surprising to me that none of the RBs are among the early enrollees. At the same time, RB is presumably a lot less dependent on early acclimation than QB, DL, or OLB would be.
* Taylor talked about Chase Farrell going to be the fastest guy on the team. Taylor said 10.3 100 meter, which I'll forgive the shady rounding up from 10.38. Obviously 10.38 is really, really, really fast. I've never made bones about my deep skepticism of the football translation of the Farrell brothers but as I've pointed out this fall Chase put together a nice senior year and significantly increased my sense he could translate. Taylor was pretty blunt that he thinks the speed is something we lack and Farrell gives us that, so I would anticipate we are intentional about working it in, maybe even in fairly direct substitution of Bryce Farrell (who Taylor essentially confirmed is coming back).
* Interesting that Taylor was so forthcoming - not just that, volunteering the information totally unsolicited - about Mosley's ACL injury and prognosis. I have some concerns about Mosley's injury propensity. Hope Taylor's optimism is justified and rewarded. By the way, some have talked about Taylor's comments on the WRs as indicating great excitement and I think that's a bit much. It didn't sound any different to me than nice things he says about any player/recruit.
* Very notable that Taylor said Elijah Brown will be able to compete right from the beginning. Cue lots of off-season debate and maybe some drama. I also think it was interesting that Ben gave Taylor an opportunity to talk about managing expectations and, rather than doing so, Taylor talked about how Brown has always played with big expectations and pressure. No expectation management here. In fact, it's striking to hear all the direct, confident praise for Brown after the last year of hearing about how difficult QB is and how nobody is ever perfect and [Daniels/Lamson] do some things really well and other things need more consistency. We may be seeing the difference in how Taylor talks about a QB he thinks is good and ones he thinks he has to get by with. That may be too harsh on our current guys, especially Daniels who is at least capable of being mediocre, and it also could be a reflection on setting (Signing Day is a time to tout potential, the rest of the year is when things get more real) but it was a pretty interesting juxtaposition.
* Kind of an interesting statement that the majority of outgoing transfers "have thought through it." What, they all haven't thought through it? Might this be subtle sour grapes at Yurosek?
One thing is guaranteed - Elijah will not be pac-12 player of the year.