[cardcrimson]

I think it adds power to cardcrimson's point when we haven't utilized our entire allowance for scholarships. It seems we've had some success wit 2- and 3-stars.  If he was a rated recruit (26th?) I think it is fair to wonder why we did so little to explore his potential.  

OTOH, it is certainly 20/20 hindsight, especially since we don't know what contact was made other than issuing an invitation to the camp.  Also, it doesn't seem like he had a strong interest in Stanford if he wasn't lobbying in some manner.

Just wondering aloud. The commentators during the broadcast clearly said he was very interested in Stanford, and I think they mentioned he had a brother at the school. They said that Stanford didn't seem interested and he got a lot of love from Washington. Then late in the game, Stanford started to show interest, but were a day late and an offer short.

I don't follow recruiting, save for one day a year, but scratched my head on this one, especially after listening to the broadcast and doing a few minutes of research.

https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...ght=kirven

Read the last post in that thread.  That year we took Mustafa Branch (ironically, from UW's back yard).  Branch and Kirven were rated comparably; if you want to be nitpicky, Kirven was rated numerically better by most services.  Of course, the staff had the advantage of seeing Branch in person during junior day; they wouldn't have been able to see Kirven until the fall.

One of the problems with saying "Palo Alto to Atherton would have been a tough drive for the coaches to see him play" is that most scholarships go out in the spring and summer, when they could have gone out and seen him play... something other than football.  They would have had to either have seen him play as a junior, offered him sight unseen, or seen him and offered him late in the cycle, which it sounds like they did.

I am as frustrated as anyone that there was a player out there that wanted to come to Stanford, and turned out to be an all-American type player at a position of need, and we wound up missing on.  This is especially true because, as others note, we have had spare scholarships.  I think our offer strategy writ large is worth discussing, and while I wasn't a fan of Harbaugh's "offer everyone and clean up the mess later" strategy, I think a good case can be made that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and that we are winding up with too many unfilled scholarships way too frequently.  However, there seems to be excessive pearl clutching over a particular guy we passed on, for which there was a reasonably good explanation for why.

BC

Good grief BC. If we could find, recruit and offer guys from places like Geismer LA, Maryville TN, Bountiful UT, Lake Forest IL, Roebuck SC, and Jackson OH, one would have thought we could have found a kid from Atherton. Did we not offer those guys during the spring and summer and/or see them play as a Junior? Why didn't we do the same for the kid next door?

Pearl clutching. Cute. However you still haven't come close to explaining why we didn't even recruit him, except the lame comment that the coaches never saw him play. If that's truly the case as your inside information suggested, then shame on them.

As for Harbaugh's offer them all and clean up the mess later strategy, it seemed to work for us back in the day and certainly filled the pipeline for Shaw. Probably a better approach than our current strategy of leaving scholarships unfulfilled. As a side note, you do know that Saben offers about 25 or so scholarships every year. While I don't condone that strategy, how's it worked out for the Tide?

[cardcrimson]

I think it adds power to cardcrimson's point when we haven't utilized our entire allowance for scholarships. It seems we've had some success wit 2- and 3-stars.  If he was a rated recruit (26th?) I think it is fair to wonder why we did so little to explore his potential.  

OTOH, it is certainly 20/20 hindsight, especially since we don't know what contact was made other than issuing an invitation to the camp.  Also, it doesn't seem like he had a strong interest in Stanford if he wasn't lobbying in some manner.

Just wondering aloud. The commentators during the broadcast clearly said he was very interested in Stanford, and I think they mentioned he had a brother at the school. They said that Stanford didn't seem interested and he got a lot of love from Washington. Then late in the game, Stanford started to show interest, but were a day late and an offer short.

I don't follow recruiting, save for one day a year, but scratched my head on this one, especially after listening to the broadcast and doing a few minutes of research.

https://thecardboard.org/board/showthrea...ght=kirven

Read the last post in that thread.  That year we took Mustafa Branch (ironically, from UW's back yard).  Branch and Kirven were rated comparably; if you want to be nitpicky, Kirven was rated numerically better by most services.  Of course, the staff had the advantage of seeing Branch in person during junior day; they wouldn't have been able to see Kirven until the fall.

One of the problems with saying "Palo Alto to Atherton would have been a tough drive for the coaches to see him play" is that most scholarships go out in the spring and summer, when they could have gone out and seen him play... something other than football.  They would have had to either have seen him play as a junior, offered him sight unseen, or seen him and offered him late in the cycle, which it sounds like they did.

I am as frustrated as anyone that there was a player out there that wanted to come to Stanford, and turned out to be an all-American type player at a position of need, and we wound up missing on.  This is especially true because, as others note, we have had spare scholarships.  I think our offer strategy writ large is worth discussing, and while I wasn't a fan of Harbaugh's "offer everyone and clean up the mess later" strategy, I think a good case can be made that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and that we are winding up with too many unfilled scholarships way too frequently.  However, there seems to be excessive pearl clutching over a particular guy we passed on, for which there was a reasonably good explanation for why.

BC

Good grief BC. If we could find, recruit and offer guys from places like Geismer LA, Maryville TN, Bountiful UT, Lake Forest IL, Roebuck SC, and Jackson OH, one would have thought we could have found a kid from Atherton. Did we not offer those guys during the spring and summer and/or see them play as a Junior? Why didn't we do the same for the kid next door?

Pearl clutching. Cute. However you still haven't come close to explaining why we didn't even recruit him, except the lame comment that the coaches never saw him play. If that's truly the case as your inside information suggested, then shame on them.

As for Harbaugh's offer them all and clean up the mess later strategy, it seemed to work for us back in the day and certainly filled the pipeline for Shaw. Probably a better approach than our current strategy of leaving scholarships unfulfilled. As a side note, you do know that Saben offers about 25 or so scholarships every year. While I don't condone that strategy, how's it worked out for the Tide?