Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year

Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - Printable Version

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RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - Hulk01 - 12-05-2018

Shaw has beaten whichever of the coach Kellys you mean in your comment. He hasn't played the others,

No one here has ever been, or is now, witness to how little or how much effort Shaw makes in recruiting. I think some fans think it's a likely conclusion to draw from his calm demeanor. I don't.

I wish we'd talk far more about the football we witness on the field and far less about the rest, which always flirts with sheer conjecture and sometimes ends up dating her for months.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - jonnyss - 12-05-2018

some folks seem to be saying that evaluating talent is just a roll of the dice. you take 10 players ranked 200 to 800 and half turn out to be good. no way to predict.

as others have mentioned, max borghi is an interesting comparison. folks on the board really wanted us to offer - not nearly as strongly as we wanted burr-kirven, but similar.

is it just luck that washington chooses burr-kirven and wsu chooses borghi? and is it just coincidence that washington and wsu are doing well?

i don't think so.

evaluation of talent is one competency of a staff. that can be a particular strength of a staff or a shortcoming or somewhere in between.

stanford's fixed requirement of attending camp (which, fortunately, seems to be loosening up) will imo bias towards recruits who perform best in practice and against recruits who perform best under game pressure.

imo, since burr-kirven performs best in game conditions (think joe montana), it's predictable rather than random that stanford would whiff on him.

and so what if those of us who predicted burr-kirven would be great are now saying, "i told you so." seems fair to me.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - BostonCard - 12-05-2018

(12-05-2018, 08:06 AM)McKenwood Wrote: Not convincingly. I don't know why it is so hard for posters here to acknowledge a mistake. Stanford coaches had inside information (from SHP coaching staff) on this player and failed to act. Even to my untrained eye, having watched Peninsula football for 40 years, this guy was special.
Same with Ben Humphreys an all ACC LB (2016) who was in this same class and did not get an offer.

Instead Stanford ends up with 79 players on scholarship and no returning lettermen ILBs for 2019, assuming Barton is gone.

I'm not sure how BBK would have helped our ILB gap in 2019, as he graduates this year. The problem is not what we did in the 2015 recruiting class; it's what we did in the 2016/2017 entering classes; or more specifically what we didn't do -- recruit inside linebackers.

So, obviously with the benefit of hindsight BBK would have helped us. The guy we did get that recruiting cycle (ironically enough, from UW's back yard), Mustafa Branch, has been a career back-up, and BBK is one of them (Barton was also returning from a mission). But there are always going to be recruiting mis-evaluations; guys we pass on who later turn out to be stars, guys we offer who don't pan out, guys we hold off on in the hope of landing a higher rated player who never comes, making us miss out on both plan A and plan A-.

But here's the thing, we never talk about the guys we passed on correctly, and there are dozens of those. So this sort of analysis will always have hindsight bias, and that's what gets tendentious.

I think it's better to focus on process than on individual cases, as slide has. Perhaps relying on camps is a bad idea, but that is the obvious response to the fact that Stanford has to recruit nationally, and unlike a school where most of their recruits are going to be concentrated in a couple geographic areas, "going out hustling for recruits" frequently involves flights several time zones away. There's an opportunity cost to everything.

That being said, this doesn't have to be an either/or situation, and I agree with slide that the staff could do more to improve recruiting effectiveness; a couple extra in-home visits a year may be enough to flip one key recruit; a few more offers might find a Plan B who nonetheless becomes an important contributor and helps prevent big recruiting gaps (and may occasionally unearth a Ben Gardner or other diamond in the rough kind of player) without running the risk of running out of scholarships. Identifying areas of incremental improvements in process is how you go from good to great. Discussing individual cases in excruciating detail is a good way to learn the wrong lessons and fighting the last war.

BC

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - OutsiderFan - 12-05-2018

(12-05-2018, 12:12 PM)jonnyss Wrote: some folks seem to be saying that evaluating talent is just a roll of the dice. you take 10 players ranked 200 to 800 and half turn out to be good. no way to predict.

as others have mentioned, max borghi is an interesting comparison. folks on the board really wanted us to offer - not nearly as strongly as we wanted burr-kirven, but similar.

is it just luck that washington chooses burr-kirven and wsu chooses borghi? and is it just coincidence that washington and wsu are doing well?

i don't think so.

evaluation of talent is one competency of a staff. that can be a particular strength of a staff or a shortcoming or somewhere in between.

stanford's fixed requirement of attending camp (which, fortunately, seems to be loosening up) will imo bias towards recruits who perform best in practice and against recruits who perform best under game pressure.

imo, since burr-kirven performs best in game conditions (think joe montana), it's predictable rather than random that stanford would whiff on him.

and so what if those of us who predicted burr-kirven would be great are now saying, "i told you so." seems fair to me.

Oh man do I love this post.

Hulk, I have no real insight into how hard and how relentlessly Shaw works at recruiting. I'm simply pointing out that unless he is doing that, there is no way Stanford can be on top, because the competition does.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - ChicagoCard - 12-05-2018

Admins, please consider moving this thread to TOS.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - CTcard - 12-05-2018

(12-05-2018, 11:14 AM)cardcrimson Wrote:
(12-05-2018, 11:11 AM)Hulk01 Wrote: How did this devolve into "We didn't even bother to go see him play"?
Because that is exactly what one of the insiders here posted in the discussion last month.

Just for context, though I'd try to track this down.

Here are posts that seem on point.

This first one seems to have some actual insider knowledge, though does not say anything about coaches never seeing Burr-Kirven play.

(11-04-2018, 10:00 AM)SamuelMcF Wrote: Thread = A miss without a swing

I'm friends with his brother (from Stanford).

Stanford was looking for 2 ILBs in 2015 (the pipeline seemed strong at the time), and Barton was coming back from a mission so there was only 1 spot. Ben was hurt during multiple opportunities to camp his junior year and following summer. He could've shown up in a cast and talked shop, but he didn't.

Should Shaw have given him an offer regardless? In hindsight, and knowing how our ILB situation looks, of course. But at the time I don't think it was as boneheaded a decision as people make it out to be.

I think this next bit is the exchange you are actually referring to.
BC is in on this thread, so he should chime in, but I do not believe he is claiming inside knowledge that the coaches never saw Burr-Kirven play. That just seems to be how the conversation spiraled. The initial comment might be referring to the comment above, or something similar.

(11-05-2018, 11:24 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Thread = Does anyone care anymore?!?

Someone with intimate knowledge of the situation indicated that Burr-Kirven was injured during Stanford camp so the coaches never got to see him.

BC

To which cardcrimson answered ...

(11-05-2018, 11:33 AM)cardcrimson Wrote: Understandable. Palo Alto to Atherton would have been a tough drive for the coaches to see him play.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - stupac2 - 12-05-2018

(12-05-2018, 12:12 PM)jonnyss Wrote: and so what if those of us who predicted burr-kirven would be great are now saying, "i told you so." seems fair to me.

I admittedly don't follow recruiting super closely, but this year is the first I've heard any Stanford fans whining about missing this guy. I also think that if you actually looked at it in detail (and without bias) you'd find that the casual fans whiff on these guys far more often than they hit.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - Hulk01 - 12-05-2018

One more thing--and, as many of you must hope, perhaps my last thing--on BBK.

If you rewatch last year's Stanford-Washington game, and are careful in spotting BBK, you are likely to end up feeling startled that he is considered an elite player. And he may deserve that recognition for his overall play, but in that game he amounted to an asset for Stanford. He was out-of-position, over-pursuing, and/or getting steamrolled time and again.

Again, he can't be as bad as he looked in that game. But no one watching that game would try to recruit him to a college team--and the game was one year ago.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - slide - 12-05-2018

Hulk -- as are many in this thread including me, you are tied to your previous stance on BBK (and Rapp) plus may be a little extra anti-Dawg to boot. BBK was just named as Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. I think most schools, including Stanford, could find a way to use that type of talent on the field even if he had a bad game against Stanford last year. same is true with Rapp who you've called out in the past. PFF has named him to its 1st team All-America defense (to go along with All Pac-12 honors.

on recruiting, today is perhaps the most transparent recruiting time that we've had due large part to social media. you see who has been where, done what, offered when etc. we're just not that visible. then you add in other recruiting information posters gather (and share) from coaches, staff, players and the like. not perfectly clear but you have a good idea of what is going on.

and as you put well in The Invisible Touch (and other books), you still have to market and sell your product. Stanford has a great great product and a big head start over many schools (Leach imo is correct in his assessment about recruiting to Stanford), but the product still has to be sold and marketed.  imo Stanford can sell and market its product better, and should.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - jonnyss - 12-05-2018

(12-05-2018, 01:26 PM)Hulk01 Wrote: One more thing--and, as many of you must hope, perhaps my last thing--on BBK.

If you rewatch last year's Stanford-Washington game, and are careful in spotting BBK, you are likely to end up feeling startled that he is considered an elite player. And he may deserve that recognition for his overall play, but in that game he amounted to an asset for Stanford. He was out-of-position, over-pursuing, and/or getting steamrolled time and again.

Again, he can't be as bad as he looked in that game. But no one watching that game would try to recruit him to a college team--and the game was one year ago.

do i see a certain selection bias in your choice of games?

in this year's stanford-washington game, burr-kirven has a team-high 6 solo tackles and 6 assists, one tackle for loss, a forced fumble, and a pass break-up. highest for stanford is bobby o with 5 solo tackles and 6 assists, zero tfl, zero forced fumbles and zero pbu.
https://gostanford.com/boxscore.aspx?id=27780&path=football

for the year (13 games) burr-kirven leads washington with 85 solo tackles and 80 assists (165 total)
https://gohuskies.com/cumestats.aspx?path=football
for the year (12 games) bobby okereke leads stanford with 50 solo tackles and 41 assists (91 total)
https://gostanford.com/cumestats.aspx?path=football&year=2018

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - BostonCard - 12-05-2018

I'm as sick of the pearl clutching about BBK as anyone, but come on, of course he could have helped us. I mean, as recently as last year Jordan Perez was starting at ILB for us, and we were trying to switch Joey Alifieri from OLB (where he has been good) to ILB (where he wasn't the answer). So even if Ben Kirven has made mistakes (and come on, name a player who hasn't gotten caught out of position), the question is not whether he is as good as advertised but whether he would have been better than the starter we actually played.

BC

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - Treebound - 12-05-2018

I watched BBK play at SHP for three years and was aware of his back injury. I also coached hoops against his teams in 7th-8th grade in MP and the kid just had a natural ability to get to the ball in both sports. I was watching Ben in his last Valpo Bowl against Menlo, where he was a man among boys. There were a few of us talking at that game about his recruitment and one of my friends from the other board pointed out that one of Stanford's coaches was down near the field scouting BBK ( I don't remember who and no, it was not Shaw).

We discussed this topic in detail and the prevailing feedback was that he was a "tweener" and would have a hard time making the jump to the P12. There were also questions about making it through Old Union given his record. I don't believe that he ever submitted an app. Candidly, I think Stanford's interest came on too late. Yes, we could have done better here and hopefully there has been a coaches post mortem on this over at Arrillaga. As for BBK - great for him and hearty congrats on making the most of his college opportunity!

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - Phogge - 12-05-2018

Plenty of excuses to not offer. Nobody's fault. However with all the injuries this year and lack of depth at some positions it makes no sense not to have a full compliment of scholies. At least take a chance on a kid who may not be quick and may be a bit undersized but obviously a FOOTBALL player.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - CTcard - 12-05-2018

(12-05-2018, 12:12 PM)jonnyss Wrote: is it just luck that washington chooses burr-kirven and wsu chooses borghi? and is it just coincidence that washington and wsu are doing well?

i don't think so.

evaluation of talent is one competency of a staff. that can be a particular strength of a staff or a shortcoming or somewhere in between.

stanford's fixed requirement of attending camp (which, fortunately, seems to be loosening up) will imo bias towards recruits who perform best in practice and against recruits who perform best under game pressure.

imo, since burr-kirven performs best in game conditions (think joe montana), it's predictable rather than random that stanford would whiff on him.

and so what if those of us who predicted burr-kirven would be great are now saying, "i told you so." seems fair to me.

There are some interesting points in this post.

- Absolutely agree that evaluating talent, and getting talent onto the team is a critical job of the coaching staff.

- The two staffs you mention are interesting. WSU cannot recruit against the big boys, and knows it. They thus take lots of flyers. Some work out and are noticed. Some don't. Overall, Leach is good at making the best of limited recruiting opportunities, mostly by scheme - it seems to be his niche.

UW is perhaps more interesting. UW can recruit with the big boys. Petersen, over his first few years, had notably underwhelming classes according to the services. Now they are getting better on that basis. The fact that UW has been good lately despite those underwhelming classes might indicate Petersen has a particularly good eye for underappreciated talent.
The fact that his eye is now lining up more with the services might indicate ... something?

Petersen's UW classes by 247sports.
Year Pac 12    National Avg Rating
2014    7th    38th 84.34
2015 6th    26th    85.77
2016    6th    29th    87.42
2017 5th    22nd 88.45
2018 3rd 16th 90.21
2019    2nd 17th 89.12    (so far)

- Stanford coaching staff is notably careful about not doing a lot of "offering" that aren't really offers. This has advantages in that it is morally reprehensible to string a kid along and then not offer a spot. This has disadvantages in that it can put you in a hole when a recruit you really want says no. I agree with what seems to be a fan consensus that right now Shaw is missing the proper balance here.

- Wanting to see the kids in camp is because actually watching kids tells you more than measurements and stats, third party reports and the like. I am not under the impression that they then avoid watching kids in games.
At any rate, despite some internet chatter it is not at all clear to me if Shaw's preference for having kids in camps is really a deciding factor in kids we have missed out on.

- Fans can crow about anything they wish to, and sometimes that's rather fun.
Stanford has clearly missed on a few kids, who might have chosen Stanford. It has not been my impression Stanford has done that more than others, but it's possible I haven't been paying enough attention. I am open to a comparative argument on the matter.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - jonnyss - 12-05-2018

from the article in the chronicle,

https://www.sfchronicle.com/collegesports/article/UW-s-Ben-Burr-Kirven-The-big-fish-that-got-13356167.php

chris petersen flew down to see burr-kirven in person. it would seem that shaw did not drive the 3 miles. (i infer this from the way shaw does not speak of how burr-kirven looked in action, only that he didn't come to camp.)

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - Mick - 12-06-2018

(12-05-2018, 02:16 PM)Treebound Wrote: There were also questions about making it through Old Union given his record.

FWLIW, both Princeton and Harvard offered him. He was probably not a dummy.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - JPR36 - 12-06-2018

(12-05-2018, 06:58 PM)jonnyss Wrote: from the article in the chronicle,

https://www.sfchronicle.com/collegesports/article/UW-s-Ben-Burr-Kirven-The-big-fish-that-got-13356167.php

chris petersen flew down to see burr-kirven in person. it would seem that shaw did not drive the 3 miles. (i infer this from the way shaw does not speak of how burr-kirven looked in action, only that he didn't come to camp.)

Actually Shaw does speak of BBK in action. He commented that he was a "tackling machine", I think his quote was.

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - CowboyIndian - 12-06-2018

Yeah...but what about Josh Rosen?

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - BostonCard - 12-06-2018

(12-06-2018, 04:34 PM)CowboyIndian Wrote: Yeah...but what about Josh Rosen?

LOL. It is interesting to speculate now that Rosen has moved onto the NFL whether we would have been better off with him than without him. Keep in mind that he would have redshirted his first year behind Hogan, and his sophomore year was affected by injury, and with him on the roster we probably don't land Costello. So maybe Shaw did know what he was doing?

BC

RE: Ben Burr-Kirven: Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year - CowboyIndian - 12-06-2018

(12-06-2018, 05:56 PM)BostonCard Wrote: So maybe Shaw did know what he was doing?

BC

That's crazy man talk!