I ended up liking that article much more than I expected to after reading the comments here. Maybe it is just the contrarian in me.
Of course there were annoying things. It appears that this Nick Martin guy thinks his schtick is being the sarcastic, annoying guy. I guess it worked - he was annoying.
He's also apparently totally bought into the standard sports-reporter line that college sports should be professional sports. He apparently hasn't bothered to figure out what Shaw is trying to say about the issue (and I would note that Shaw so clear on the matter, but I think I understand his position). Mr. Martin might still disagree with Shaw, but his disagreement would carry more weight if he bothered to understand what Shaw's position actually is.
The third really annoying thing (to me), is that he uses phrases in a manner different than their standard meaning. As far as I can tell, he calls Stanford's recruiting approach "small-ball" not because Stanford isn't trying to recruit the very best, but rather simply that they put out a smaller number of offers and the offers tend to be real. [Or at least that is what the article he links to says. His own following sentence meant to back up his statement refers to a small Stanford incoming class - which is an entirely different thing associated with Stanford not running off many players.] It would seem that was meant to be a compliment.
But, after the annoying parts, he does describe Stanford's football situation in a manner that is roughly correct and may be useful to the rather broad college football audience that does not follow Stanford in particular.
Most likely, Stanford will be led by its offense this year, and the offense will feature Love. Stanford's offense should be "one of the best offenses it has fielded since the time when Andrew Luck could still throw a football." [Of course that is a bit of a minimalist statement, it doesn't take all that much to be "one of" the best offenses at Stanford in the past six years.]
I take some exception to his description of Costello's potential, but he is correct that QB play is probably Stanford's biggest open question on offense.
The defense, at the least, has to find some answers up front. The author had some issues discussing Stanford's personnel - and he's a little too dependent upon what 247sports designated recruits' positions rather than checking what Stanford viewed their position to be - but he is correct that Stanford has had some LB recruiting issues (which will be more of an issue starting next year than this).
And if you want faint praise, this article is better than his 2015 preview of Stanford where he claimed that the team had no chance to win 10 games, would be a defense-only team, and just maybe that McCaffrey guy could manage 700 yards on the season.
Of course there were annoying things. It appears that this Nick Martin guy thinks his schtick is being the sarcastic, annoying guy. I guess it worked - he was annoying.
He's also apparently totally bought into the standard sports-reporter line that college sports should be professional sports. He apparently hasn't bothered to figure out what Shaw is trying to say about the issue (and I would note that Shaw so clear on the matter, but I think I understand his position). Mr. Martin might still disagree with Shaw, but his disagreement would carry more weight if he bothered to understand what Shaw's position actually is.
The third really annoying thing (to me), is that he uses phrases in a manner different than their standard meaning. As far as I can tell, he calls Stanford's recruiting approach "small-ball" not because Stanford isn't trying to recruit the very best, but rather simply that they put out a smaller number of offers and the offers tend to be real. [Or at least that is what the article he links to says. His own following sentence meant to back up his statement refers to a small Stanford incoming class - which is an entirely different thing associated with Stanford not running off many players.] It would seem that was meant to be a compliment.
But, after the annoying parts, he does describe Stanford's football situation in a manner that is roughly correct and may be useful to the rather broad college football audience that does not follow Stanford in particular.
Most likely, Stanford will be led by its offense this year, and the offense will feature Love. Stanford's offense should be "one of the best offenses it has fielded since the time when Andrew Luck could still throw a football." [Of course that is a bit of a minimalist statement, it doesn't take all that much to be "one of" the best offenses at Stanford in the past six years.]
I take some exception to his description of Costello's potential, but he is correct that QB play is probably Stanford's biggest open question on offense.
The defense, at the least, has to find some answers up front. The author had some issues discussing Stanford's personnel - and he's a little too dependent upon what 247sports designated recruits' positions rather than checking what Stanford viewed their position to be - but he is correct that Stanford has had some LB recruiting issues (which will be more of an issue starting next year than this).
And if you want faint praise, this article is better than his 2015 preview of Stanford where he claimed that the team had no chance to win 10 games, would be a defense-only team, and just maybe that McCaffrey guy could manage 700 yards on the season.