Posts: 1,065
Threads: 80
Joined: Aug 2017
Four dimensional analysis on Bachmeier:
Services: On3 industry #168 (#12 QB), 247 composite #190 (#11 QB), On3 #178 (#16 QB), 247 #204 (#15 QB), Rivals #133 (#8 pro-style QB, 5.9 grade, same grade as Tanner McKee, Ryan Burns, Brett Nottingham), ESPN #262 (#6 dual threat QB)
Offers: Stanford, Alabama, Arkansas, Boise State, BYU, Colorado, Colorado State, Florida Atlantic, Kansas, Louisiana Tech, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, Oregon, Oregon State, Purdue, San Diego State, Texas A&M, Utah, Washington State
Production: As a junior against outstanding competition (top eight percent of Stanford recruits), Bachmeier completed 65.5 percent of his passes for 2,613 yard (8.43 yards per attempt, 201 yards per game) with 21 touchdowns and 8 interceptions; on the ground he had 631 yards rushing and 7 touchdowns on 8.4 yards per carry. With big bro Tiger no longer around Bear distributed the ball very evenly, with three targets getting exactly 39 catches each and two others getting 22, with no one player accounting for more than a quarter of the passing offense. As a sophomore against very solid competition (top 37 percent of Stanford recruits), Bachmeier completed 72.5 percent of his passes for 2,853 yards (10.45 yards per attempt, 285 yards per game) with 26 touchdowns against only 4 interceptions; he also ran for a lot, 644 yards and 18 touchdowns (!) on 13.7 yards per carry. That year was playing catch with Tiger, who accounted for a dominant 52 percent of the passing offense. The upshot here is Bear's production dropped off significantly without Tiger. That also coincided with a big step up in competition. The junior production is less than you'd typically see from a blue chip QB prospect but I have never found sheer production to be all that predictive for future success at QB (e.g., KJ Costello and Kevin Hogan were also on the low end for junior production). Bear Bachmeier also plays baseball, though has yet to play varsity baseball in high school. It will be interesting to see how this spring goes on the diamond. In basketball, he was supposedly sixth in minutes played as a sophomore (most minutes of any underclassman) but produced much more than that, with 11.1 points per game (third on the team), 7.7 rebounds per game (first), 0.9 assists per game (tied for sixth), 3.0 steals per game (first), 0.6 blocks per game (second). He didn't get a full season in because he was transitioning from football but the play he did get was clearly the straw that stirred the drink. All in all across sports this is a BMOC.
Highlights: As you can imagine from the stats, the sophomore highlights are fun. There's a lot of off-platform throws and tough running. There's some zip and some touch on throws. Unfortunately, for some reason Bachmeier missed the sophomore year game against the best opponent that year, Corona Centennial. He did play lesser but still notable Bishop Amat, and in that one Bear fired a bullet at Tiger on a crossing route and the ball ricocheted off Tiger's hands to Cal Poly DB Delano Franklin for an interception. There's also a play on Franklin's highlights shadowing Tiger while Bear scrambles and eventually dumps off to Tiger for what ends up being about an eight yard gain. Franklin also put on tape an open field tackle on a play that showed Bear delivering a strike to another receiver for a first down in the middle of the field. There is one where Bear heaves one kind of desperately to Tiger in the end zone and Franklin has good coverage and the ball falls harmlessly. And finally there's a ball Bear chucks 55 yards in the air to Tiger and I'm not sure why it's on Franklin's tape as it was a very deep completion Bear also put on his tape (maybe just sticking down field with a prominent recruit is why Franklin showed it). Bear's own tape of that game showed some ropes but it didn't feature much targeting Franklin and I'm kind of more interested in seeing how Bear looked on the opponent's tape in that one. Cal DL Tiumalu Afalava, among others, also played in that game but his only highlight was a run play where Bachmeier handed it off. Against Chaparral, incoming BYU LB Blake Lowe's highlights show a manic, madcap play in which Bachmeier evades an edge rusher, escapes the pocket by scrambling toward the sidelines, fumbles the ball in his haste, picks up the ball on one bounce, gets molested by two closing defenders and in panic jump throws toward the goal line (but with lord knows what in mind in terms of how the ball is going to get to somebody with his jersey) and has one defender tip it and another intercept it, ruining a red zone trip. Bachmeier's highlights for that game are long and not very judiciously edited but have at least one gorgeous throw, one dominant run darting past everybody, and some gritty red zone runs. In the San Clemente game now incoming Stanford DL Connor Bachhuber had a tackle of Bear on a draw that went for about five or six yards. Looking at the sophomore basketball highlights, Bachmeier plays well below the rim but is nonetheless a solid athlete who steps in front of a lot of passes to nab steals.
Bachmeier has not posted full season junior highlights as far as I can tell. Junior year Bachmeier played Rancho Cucamonga twice, which is quite interesting because they have incoming Duke DB Kyren Condoll, incoming Arizona LB Stacy Bey, and incoming Washington DB Rahim Wright. The first game was Bear's first game without Tiger and Bear was picked off twice, both by the same guy (not one of the big names). One was a quick screen Bachmeier threw in too much traffic and the guy read perfectly and the other was a deep ball Bachmeier threw 45 yards in the air into double coverage and his guy didn't come down with it. Bachmeier's highlights show a play going right at Condoll and Bey on an underneath route, which is kind of fun. Also fun is a play in the red zone where Condoll had perfect coverage but Bachmeier threw a back shoulder pass to get down to the goal line. On their tapes, Condoll had a pass breakup and another play that looked like it could have been ruled a breakup while Wright had three plays of excellent hard-hitting tackling on a receiver, including one forced fumble....after Bachmeier had connected for decently sizable chunk gains. Aside from those contests, the headline is that Bachmeier played three national top 100 teams junior year. Against San Clemente, 2025 whale Matai Tagoa'i, among others, really made Bachmeier work for it, which makes the efficient, gritty performance in a 39-38 win all the more impressive. Unfortunately, the top dog powerhouse Bachmeier played, Corona Centennial, and the other top 100 national team, Mission Viejo, ate him for breakfast and he didn't even bother to post highlights for those games. Against Centennial, Bachmeier didn't throw for a touchdown and had a miserable 3.6 yards per attempt, with incoming San Diego State DB Tayten Beyer getting an interception in the red zone when Bachmeier tried to target Beyer in man-to-man coverage and the throw sailed a bit on Bachmeier. Against Mission Viejo, the most recent game Bachmeier has played, he threw for a totally uncharacteristic 84 yards with 2 interceptions, one by incoming Boise State DB Travis Anderson on a deep ball Bachmeier played three flies up on into double coverage.
We have a 4-star QB to build the class around! What is most exciting to me is what it means for our pipeline/competition/resilience against misevaluation or injury or attrition to get 4-star QBs in back-to-back classes. Historically this has not been rare for Stanford and, indeed, both Elijah Brown and Bear Bachmeier are very average recruits by the historical Stanford standard. But it's been some time since we've recruited at our standard at QB. Mills-West is the last time we've had back-to-back years of matriculating 4-star QBs.....six years. This matters to me because QB is really hard. I want to believe Brown will be great and I want to believe Bachmeier will be great but the truth is I don't know if either will be. Having both of them substantially raises confidence we can find a QB1. Still no sure thing but the odds are improving. In terms of the specific individuals, it's quite an interesting contrast. If we thought from the Brown recruitment that Taylor would stick to a type in getting a cool, calm, and collected game manager to be accurate and distribute, I think Bachmeier confounds that. Bear is not those things as much as he's a frenetic, physically imposing off-platform improvisor. This will be an interesting competition. I see enticing promise and red flags in both but have little doubt this duo is a preferable way to stock a pipeline than what we were recruiting in the half decade following McKee's commitment. Personally my gut feeling is that Brown is who you want if you have a well-oiled machine and supporting cast but Bachmeier may have a shot of being what we will need in a gritty, tortuous rebuild.
