[OutsiderFan]

Is there any particular reason Stanford has such a difficult time finding/developing WRs lately?

It seemed Stanford had better luck finding WRs in the 1990s and 2000s, with guys like Ed McCaffrey, Troy Walters, DeRonnie Pitts, Luke Powell, Even Moore, Richard Sherman (while at WR), and Mark Bradford.  On the last four Stanford teams, only Chris Owusu, the Whalens, and Doug Baldwin have really shown anything above mediocre.  But honestly, none of those other three are close to as good as Doug Baldwin (since proven in the NFL).

Montgomery is having a dreadful Soph year after a pretty solid Frosh year.  Drew Terrell seems to catch well, but struggles mightily to get open. Patterson is a well-documented disappointment.  Roberts was moved to TE because he is so bad at WR.  Whitfield has been on the field in every game but has no catches in six of them.

I'm convinced Nunes is a significant part of the problem, but even when these guys played with Luck they weren't offering too much.  That said, Griff Whalen, Chris Owusu, and Ty Mongtomery were leaps and bounds better than Montgomery, Terrell, and whoever else Stanford has thrown out there in 2012.

Is this simply bad recruiting luck?  Is Stanford looking for the wrong things in WRs?  Does it need a new WR coach? 

Will the '13 and '14 WR classes finally end this spell of below par WRs on the Farm?

As I see it, Stanford has been able to recruit better athletes and better players across the board, and WR is the only position on the field where Stanford is at a brobdingnagian disadvantage.   

[OutsiderFan]

Is there any particular reason Stanford has such a difficult time finding/developing WRs lately?

It seemed Stanford had better luck finding WRs in the 1990s and 2000s, with guys like Ed McCaffrey, Troy Walters, DeRonnie Pitts, Luke Powell, Even Moore, Richard Sherman (while at WR), and Mark Bradford.  On the last four Stanford teams, only Chris Owusu, the Whalens, and Doug Baldwin have really shown anything above mediocre.  But honestly, none of those other three are close to as good as Doug Baldwin (since proven in the NFL).

Montgomery is having a dreadful Soph year after a pretty solid Frosh year.  Drew Terrell seems to catch well, but struggles mightily to get open. Patterson is a well-documented disappointment.  Roberts was moved to TE because he is so bad at WR.  Whitfield has been on the field in every game but has no catches in six of them.

I'm convinced Nunes is a significant part of the problem, but even when these guys played with Luck they weren't offering too much.  That said, Griff Whalen, Chris Owusu, and Ty Mongtomery were leaps and bounds better than Montgomery, Terrell, and whoever else Stanford has thrown out there in 2012.

Is this simply bad recruiting luck?  Is Stanford looking for the wrong things in WRs?  Does it need a new WR coach? 

Will the '13 and '14 WR classes finally end this spell of below par WRs on the Farm?

As I see it, Stanford has been able to recruit better athletes and better players across the board, and WR is the only position on the field where Stanford is at a brobdingnagian disadvantage.   

[needle]

Well, not taking a single WR in the 2010 recruiting class certainly doesn't look too good in hindsight.

[needle]

Well, not taking a single WR in the 2010 recruiting class certainly doesn't look too good in hindsight.

[jayasena]

I raised this question in another thread yesterday.

As I pointed out in that post, we have 5+ WR recruits on the roster who were rated 3-star or higher. What's the probability of none of them developing into at least average D1 players? Really, the only elite WR of the Harbaugh-Shaw era is Baldwin, and even he only blossomed in his senior year after being mediocre at best until then (seemed more like a light bulb going off in his head at some point between junior and senior years rather than a gradual progression through good coaching). The Whalens were invaluable but they seemed to remain on a plateau rather than improve through the years. Maybe they had a low(er) ceiling or maybe they never progressed much beyond whatever they showed to get from walk-ons to scholarships. Owusu did seem to progress through his career at Stanford but hard to really tell because of all the injury-related ups and downs. So I also wonder if there's a WR coaching issue given the near-complete lack of player development at this position.

[jayasena]

I raised this question in another thread yesterday.

As I pointed out in that post, we have 5+ WR recruits on the roster who were rated 3-star or higher. What's the probability of none of them developing into at least average D1 players? Really, the only elite WR of the Harbaugh-Shaw era is Baldwin, and even he only blossomed in his senior year after being mediocre at best until then (seemed more like a light bulb going off in his head at some point between junior and senior years rather than a gradual progression through good coaching). The Whalens were invaluable but they seemed to remain on a plateau rather than improve through the years. Maybe they had a low(er) ceiling or maybe they never progressed much beyond whatever they showed to get from walk-ons to scholarships. Owusu did seem to progress through his career at Stanford but hard to really tell because of all the injury-related ups and downs. So I also wonder if there's a WR coaching issue given the near-complete lack of player development at this position.

[Treebound]

One interesting point that has surfaced over the past 4-5 years for me is that David Shaw was a wideout.  He coached them for the first year or two as well.  I just don't understand why we haven't been able to recruit more game breakers at flanker and wideout?    One would think that recruiting people around Andrew after year one or year two would have been a breeze.    We need a game changer or two, especially now that QB skills have fallen off significantly.  My hat goes off to Ertz and Toilolo as they have made some very good catches on poorly thrown balls this year.

What I wouldn't give for a pump fake to Toilolo in the middle followed by a throw to Patterson on the post!  Nunes makes it easy for DBs to key on his eyes (and LBs) if you watched Teo's hand signals on Saturday.  Painful!  Look off your primary....with our pass protection it shouldn't be a problem.

[Treebound]

One interesting point that has surfaced over the past 4-5 years for me is that David Shaw was a wideout.  He coached them for the first year or two as well.  I just don't understand why we haven't been able to recruit more game breakers at flanker and wideout?    One would think that recruiting people around Andrew after year one or year two would have been a breeze.    We need a game changer or two, especially now that QB skills have fallen off significantly.  My hat goes off to Ertz and Toilolo as they have made some very good catches on poorly thrown balls this year.

What I wouldn't give for a pump fake to Toilolo in the middle followed by a throw to Patterson on the post!  Nunes makes it easy for DBs to key on his eyes (and LBs) if you watched Teo's hand signals on Saturday.  Painful!  Look off your primary....with our pass protection it shouldn't be a problem.

[doug]

The roster on the official athletic website lists all the coaches. No one is identified as the wide receivers coach, though we do have a TE coach. Do we have a WR coach? Is this perhaps why the WRs seem not to develop?

[doug]

The roster on the official athletic website lists all the coaches. No one is identified as the wide receivers coach, though we do have a TE coach. Do we have a WR coach? Is this perhaps why the WRs seem not to develop?

[GoodGrief]

Nunes makes it easy for DBs to key on his eyes (and LBs) if you watched Teo's hand signals on Saturday. 

Treebound (or anybody), can you elaborate on that? What exactly was Teo doing?

[GoodGrief]

Nunes makes it easy for DBs to key on his eyes (and LBs) if you watched Teo's hand signals on Saturday. 

Treebound (or anybody), can you elaborate on that? What exactly was Teo doing?

[needle]

My best hope is that Terrell can become a guy who gets consistent targets every game, along with a return to form by Montgomery.

I don't think anyone else is ready to step up, though it would be intriguing to see Kelsey Young become basically a full-time wide receiver.

[needle]

My best hope is that Terrell can become a guy who gets consistent targets every game, along with a return to form by Montgomery.

I don't think anyone else is ready to step up, though it would be intriguing to see Kelsey Young become basically a full-time wide receiver.

[washingtonismoney]

The wide receiver issue is weird. It's not that wide receivers can't improve while at Stanford--look at Whalens and Doug Baldwin. So what is it? Saying there are five wide receivers on the roster three stars or more is not particularly helpful here--the odds of success go discontinuously up between three- and four-star players. Currently there are four four-star wide receivers, if you believe Rivals. Whitfield is a bit young, so there are realistically three four-star wideouts on the roster. Research indicates (http://mgoblog.com/diaries/5-stars-first...ecruit-pro) that about 22% of four-star wideouts are drafted. It seems pretty certain neither Patterson nor Roberts will be drafted, at this point so about 60.48% chance of neither being drafted--as expected. Then again, add in the three-stars (e.g. Keanu Nelson, Drew Terrell) who haven't really panned out, and the team looks, perhaps, mildly unlucky.

An additional impact factor hidden in OutsiderFan's posing of the problem--Stanford's attracting better athletes than ever before. The question might be asked: well, how do we get such great athletes at DB (relative to Stanford, at least) and not at WR? Well, part of the answer here I think is that the coaches allocated some athlete talent to DB that in other coaching regimes might have gone to WR. Jordan Richards was listed at ATH in the recruiting websites, and Alex Carter played a lot of WR in high school. It's entirely conceivable that your alternate universe wideout starters are Richards and Carter...but then your DBs lose their highest-potential corner, and are forced to start Devon Carrington (with highly minimal depth behind) instead. Is that a sound tradeoff? I think so, but damned if it isn't painful.

It's possible the first-half performance is flukish; it's hard to believe they're this bad at catching the ball. But if I were Shaw, I'd be making sure to kill the problem dead: more Kelsey Young now, and the hard sell to Jordan Cunningham and Devon Allen for 2013.

[washingtonismoney]

The wide receiver issue is weird. It's not that wide receivers can't improve while at Stanford--look at Whalens and Doug Baldwin. So what is it? Saying there are five wide receivers on the roster three stars or more is not particularly helpful here--the odds of success go discontinuously up between three- and four-star players. Currently there are four four-star wide receivers, if you believe Rivals. Whitfield is a bit young, so there are realistically three four-star wideouts on the roster. Research indicates (http://mgoblog.com/diaries/5-stars-first...ecruit-pro) that about 22% of four-star wideouts are drafted. It seems pretty certain neither Patterson nor Roberts will be drafted, at this point so about 60.48% chance of neither being drafted--as expected. Then again, add in the three-stars (e.g. Keanu Nelson, Drew Terrell) who haven't really panned out, and the team looks, perhaps, mildly unlucky.

An additional impact factor hidden in OutsiderFan's posing of the problem--Stanford's attracting better athletes than ever before. The question might be asked: well, how do we get such great athletes at DB (relative to Stanford, at least) and not at WR? Well, part of the answer here I think is that the coaches allocated some athlete talent to DB that in other coaching regimes might have gone to WR. Jordan Richards was listed at ATH in the recruiting websites, and Alex Carter played a lot of WR in high school. It's entirely conceivable that your alternate universe wideout starters are Richards and Carter...but then your DBs lose their highest-potential corner, and are forced to start Devon Carrington (with highly minimal depth behind) instead. Is that a sound tradeoff? I think so, but damned if it isn't painful.

It's possible the first-half performance is flukish; it's hard to believe they're this bad at catching the ball. But if I were Shaw, I'd be making sure to kill the problem dead: more Kelsey Young now, and the hard sell to Jordan Cunningham and Devon Allen for 2013.

[Hank 91]

I don't have the time to research this, but this could be an admissions issue. Do you remember a few years ago when there were only two or three 3+ star offensive linemen nationwide who were academically inclined enough to gain admission? I've always felt like this was the greatest roadblock to long term Stanford success. What if, just by chance, there's a three-year stretch during which none of the top twenty guys at a certain position -- quarterback, maybe -- aren't high achievers in the classroom? Maybe something like this happened with wide receivers. Over the past few years, it doesn't seem like we were really in on any of the elite wideouts, while we've at least been on the short lists for the top guys at most every other position.

Again, there's no research -- or even much deep thought -- involved in that response. Please correct the error of my thinking, because I'd like to know the answer to this whole thing too. (I'm guessing it has more to do with being unlucky.)

[Hank 91]

I don't have the time to research this, but this could be an admissions issue. Do you remember a few years ago when there were only two or three 3+ star offensive linemen nationwide who were academically inclined enough to gain admission? I've always felt like this was the greatest roadblock to long term Stanford success. What if, just by chance, there's a three-year stretch during which none of the top twenty guys at a certain position -- quarterback, maybe -- aren't high achievers in the classroom? Maybe something like this happened with wide receivers. Over the past few years, it doesn't seem like we were really in on any of the elite wideouts, while we've at least been on the short lists for the top guys at most every other position.

Again, there's no research -- or even much deep thought -- involved in that response. Please correct the error of my thinking, because I'd like to know the answer to this whole thing too. (I'm guessing it has more to do with being unlucky.)

[needle]

Jai Miller is a name from the past I had forgotten about. He was actually a 2003 recruit. He's still toiling away in the minor leagues, though he's had 68 major league at bats.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/player...ja04.shtml

Here's an interesting story that maybe explains why he chose baseball over Stanford. His mother and grandmother died in a car accident when he was 13:

"I think his mother always wanted Jai to become a professional athlete," Randall Miller said. [jai's grandfather] "He was all set to go to Stanford, but he had to opportunity to play professional baseball, and I think he thought that's what his mother would have wanted." 

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-03...r-accident

[needle]

Jai Miller is a name from the past I had forgotten about. He was actually a 2003 recruit. He's still toiling away in the minor leagues, though he's had 68 major league at bats.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/player...ja04.shtml

Here's an interesting story that maybe explains why he chose baseball over Stanford. His mother and grandmother died in a car accident when he was 13:

"I think his mother always wanted Jai to become a professional athlete," Randall Miller said. [jai's grandfather] "He was all set to go to Stanford, but he had to opportunity to play professional baseball, and I think he thought that's what his mother would have wanted." 

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-03...r-accident

[fullmetal]

He can always come back and play football.

[fullmetal]

He can always come back and play football.

[Extra Point]

"The roster on the official athletic website lists all the coaches. No one is identified as the wide receivers coach, though we do have a TE coach. Do we have a WR coach? Is this perhaps why the WRs seem not to develop?"

I was wondering the same thing and also went to GoStanford.com to get the answer. The wide receiver coach is Pep Hamilton. Oddly enough, wherever the coaches and their responsibilities are listed, wide receiver is omitted, with the exception of one obscure page.

I don't know how long Pep has been the wide receiver coach or which receivers he has mentored. Perhaps someone else can tell us.

[Extra Point]

"The roster on the official athletic website lists all the coaches. No one is identified as the wide receivers coach, though we do have a TE coach. Do we have a WR coach? Is this perhaps why the WRs seem not to develop?"

I was wondering the same thing and also went to GoStanford.com to get the answer. The wide receiver coach is Pep Hamilton. Oddly enough, wherever the coaches and their responsibilities are listed, wide receiver is omitted, with the exception of one obscure page.

I don't know how long Pep has been the wide receiver coach or which receivers he has mentored. Perhaps someone else can tell us.

[stan01]

Aaron Moorehead
@Amo8685
Asst Wr's Coach Stanford Univ. Former Indianapolis Colts WR & SB Champ - Illini Alum - Grindin Daily

[stan01]

Aaron Moorehead
@Amo8685
Asst Wr's Coach Stanford Univ. Former Indianapolis Colts WR & SB Champ - Illini Alum - Grindin Daily

[Treebound]

Responding to GoodGrief's query:

Some of the most successful DB's and LBs are taught to read the quarterback's eyes.  If you can get yourself into proper position and understand and adjust to where the QB is looking you can put yourself in position to break up a pass play or better yet, make the pick.  There was a point in the game where the camera panned onto Teo and he was speaking to a team mate about reading Nune's eyes (it was a passing situation).  With someone like Nunes, who apparently has problems checking down on his passing options and locks into his primary, reading his eyes causes a problem for us (see pick #2 vs ND).  He's too damn obvious (not always) with where and who he is going to throw to.  Add this to Shaw's consistently predictable play calling and it's no wonder poor Taylor is getting hit in the backfield.  Smash mouth is one thing, but you need to adjust to what the defense is doing or you're going to get beat with 8-9 in the box. 

Look for more of the same from Tedford/Braun this Saturday.  If Shaw is going to be stubborn and run the same damn thing, then every DC is going to stack the box on us.  Run a pitch out, counter, option or even a naked QB boot that Andrew would run from time to time.  Power to the fourth isn't going to get it done against a very good D (ND) let alone a good D (UW and Kal).  I hope Shaw has seen enough to understand that it's time to make some changes in his play calling and possibly his QB (if we are down at the half).  We should win this one in the trenches, but with Big Game you just never know.

[Treebound]

Responding to GoodGrief's query:

Some of the most successful DB's and LBs are taught to read the quarterback's eyes.  If you can get yourself into proper position and understand and adjust to where the QB is looking you can put yourself in position to break up a pass play or better yet, make the pick.  There was a point in the game where the camera panned onto Teo and he was speaking to a team mate about reading Nune's eyes (it was a passing situation).  With someone like Nunes, who apparently has problems checking down on his passing options and locks into his primary, reading his eyes causes a problem for us (see pick #2 vs ND).  He's too damn obvious (not always) with where and who he is going to throw to.  Add this to Shaw's consistently predictable play calling and it's no wonder poor Taylor is getting hit in the backfield.  Smash mouth is one thing, but you need to adjust to what the defense is doing or you're going to get beat with 8-9 in the box. 

Look for more of the same from Tedford/Braun this Saturday.  If Shaw is going to be stubborn and run the same damn thing, then every DC is going to stack the box on us.  Run a pitch out, counter, option or even a naked QB boot that Andrew would run from time to time.  Power to the fourth isn't going to get it done against a very good D (ND) let alone a good D (UW and Kal).  I hope Shaw has seen enough to understand that it's time to make some changes in his play calling and possibly his QB (if we are down at the half).  We should win this one in the trenches, but with Big Game you just never know.

[BobK]

I've always considered Fleener more of a WR so that would be 5 pros from the past 3 years.  Including the 4 outsider fan named.  That's pretty fantastic to me.

The drops this year are a mystery and very upsetting.  As is the lack of contribution by Whitfield who looked so great in practice. 

Shaw the Pep and Moreland have coached the WRs.  We developed them wonderfully until this year.  Lots of prime recruits on the roster yet none have stepped up. 

[BobK]

I've always considered Fleener more of a WR so that would be 5 pros from the past 3 years.  Including the 4 outsider fan named.  That's pretty fantastic to me.

The drops this year are a mystery and very upsetting.  As is the lack of contribution by Whitfield who looked so great in practice. 

Shaw the Pep and Moreland have coached the WRs.  We developed them wonderfully until this year.  Lots of prime recruits on the roster yet none have stepped up. 

[washingtonismoney]

I'm not so worried about Whitfield, actually. Like Ty Montgomery last year, it might just take him some time to emerge. Whitfield's also been targeted a couple of times by Nunes...but never got a chance to make a player on the ball due to, ah, questionable throws from the QB.

It seems like Whitfield's been getting more PT as time has gone on this season--he just got listed on the depth chart--so whatever he's doing the coaches like it.

[washingtonismoney]

I'm not so worried about Whitfield, actually. Like Ty Montgomery last year, it might just take him some time to emerge. Whitfield's also been targeted a couple of times by Nunes...but never got a chance to make a player on the ball due to, ah, questionable throws from the QB.

It seems like Whitfield's been getting more PT as time has gone on this season--he just got listed on the depth chart--so whatever he's doing the coaches like it.

[jayasena]

We developed them wonderfully until this year.

Really? I remember lots of griping last year about how Luck would have so much better stats if he had even a single decent WR to throw to (besides the TEs). This was a recurring theme in the Luck vs. media-darling-QB-du-jour discussions, especially in the context of the Voldemort race. Montgomery did step up somewhat in the latter part of the season but, at least from what I remember, this is certainly not the only year in recent memory where we were not wonderful in this regard (Baldwin's senior year being the one real exception).

[jayasena]

We developed them wonderfully until this year.

Really? I remember lots of griping last year about how Luck would have so much better stats if he had even a single decent WR to throw to (besides the TEs). This was a recurring theme in the Luck vs. media-darling-QB-du-jour discussions, especially in the context of the Voldemort race. Montgomery did step up somewhat in the latter part of the season but, at least from what I remember, this is certainly not the only year in recent memory where we were not wonderful in this regard (Baldwin's senior year being the one real exception).

[washingtonismoney]

I thought the wideouts were fine in 2009 and '10, mediocre in '11 and pretty abysmal so far this year. Some of the '11/'12 malaise is recruiting busts (Roberts/Patterson), some of it is injuries (Owusu), some of it is assigning talent to DB rather than WR (Richards, Carter, lesser extent Amanam), some of it is poor roster management (blowing G. Whalen's redshirt on gunner duty in the monsoon blowout of Washington State), some of it are odd Harbaughian recruiting lacuna, and some of it is odd, seemingly inexplicable regression (Montgomery, though hopefully TBD). It's a lot of weird stuff.

Maybe with the four WR recruits in class of '12 and then Owusu + Cunningham and/or Allen in '13, we can finally kill the problem dead with sheer numbers.

[washingtonismoney]

I thought the wideouts were fine in 2009 and '10, mediocre in '11 and pretty abysmal so far this year. Some of the '11/'12 malaise is recruiting busts (Roberts/Patterson), some of it is injuries (Owusu), some of it is assigning talent to DB rather than WR (Richards, Carter, lesser extent Amanam), some of it is poor roster management (blowing G. Whalen's redshirt on gunner duty in the monsoon blowout of Washington State), some of it are odd Harbaughian recruiting lacuna, and some of it is odd, seemingly inexplicable regression (Montgomery, though hopefully TBD). It's a lot of weird stuff.

Maybe with the four WR recruits in class of '12 and then Owusu + Cunningham and/or Allen in '13, we can finally kill the problem dead with sheer numbers.

[fullmetal]

I don't think I've ever seen JN look off a safety or pump fake.  C'mon Josh, help yourself out!

[fullmetal]

I don't think I've ever seen JN look off a safety or pump fake.  C'mon Josh, help yourself out!

[OutsiderFan]

Devon Allen would seem to be an extremely high priority recruit, maybe the most important one for the near term success of the team in the 2013 class.  And yes Cunningham could be a good get, but what about Taijuan Thomas? 

His videos show a kid who can catch the ball, has a solid build, and is really good running after the catch.  He's a slot receiver, not an outside deep threat.

There would be nothing wrong with a WR class of Owusu, Thomas, and Allen or Owusu, Thomas and Cunningham.

[OutsiderFan]

Devon Allen would seem to be an extremely high priority recruit, maybe the most important one for the near term success of the team in the 2013 class.  And yes Cunningham could be a good get, but what about Taijuan Thomas? 

His videos show a kid who can catch the ball, has a solid build, and is really good running after the catch.  He's a slot receiver, not an outside deep threat.

There would be nothing wrong with a WR class of Owusu, Thomas, and Allen or Owusu, Thomas and Cunningham.