[Farm93]

ESPN shows 20
247 shows 19
Rivals shows 18

18 or 20, still not a large class compared to the competition.

The competition all enjoy (suffer) from massive attrition from LOI day until the scheduled graduation year.
They lose commits that don't actually graduate from HS.   They lose 1st year players that become academically ineligible, drop out of school, commit felonies, transfer after a year for playing time, etc.   They lose players after 3 years willing to roll the dice at becoming 6th or 7th round pick.

Many SEC schools routinely sign 25, or more, players each year.   25*4 = 100, so attrition is a given in their world.  And if they make a mistake and have too many commits, they can encourage some of the players to greyshirt or attend a nearby community college for a year.   Those are not options for Stanford.

Historically, Stanford was more of a 17*5 = 85 type of program with many players redshirting.   That allowed the players to be more mature when they were on the field.  It allowed the freshman time to adjust to academic life at Stanford.  It also reduced the number of players the staff need to convince to come to Stanford from a very shallow recruiting pool.

By Stanford standards, any class at or above 20 is a big class.  Competition commit numbers are not relevant, historically 20 is a big group for Stanford.

Those recruiting realities are part of the reason Stanford doesn't ever finish in the top 10.   To get into the top 10 you need to land 23-28 recruits.  Stanford's recruiting pool likely isn't big enough, and to land that many means something was very, very wrong with earlier recruiting and/or retention. 

This class, like most classes in Shaw's tenure, are far above average by Stanford Football standards.

Happy to have all of them and look forward to them loving their time at Stanford University.

Wring it dry!

[Farm93]

ESPN shows 20
247 shows 19
Rivals shows 18

18 or 20, still not a large class compared to the competition.

The competition all enjoy (suffer) from massive attrition from LOI day until the scheduled graduation year.
They lose commits that don't actually graduate from HS.   They lose 1st year players that become academically ineligible, drop out of school, commit felonies, transfer after a year for playing time, etc.   They lose players after 3 years willing to roll the dice at becoming 6th or 7th round pick.

Many SEC schools routinely sign 25, or more, players each year.   25*4 = 100, so attrition is a given in their world.  And if they make a mistake and have too many commits, they can encourage some of the players to greyshirt or attend a nearby community college for a year.   Those are not options for Stanford.

Historically, Stanford was more of a 17*5 = 85 type of program with many players redshirting.   That allowed the players to be more mature when they were on the field.  It allowed the freshman time to adjust to academic life at Stanford.  It also reduced the number of players the staff need to convince to come to Stanford from a very shallow recruiting pool.

By Stanford standards, any class at or above 20 is a big class.  Competition commit numbers are not relevant, historically 20 is a big group for Stanford.

Those recruiting realities are part of the reason Stanford doesn't ever finish in the top 10.   To get into the top 10 you need to land 23-28 recruits.  Stanford's recruiting pool likely isn't big enough, and to land that many means something was very, very wrong with earlier recruiting and/or retention. 

This class, like most classes in Shaw's tenure, are far above average by Stanford Football standards.

Happy to have all of them and look forward to them loving their time at Stanford University.

Wring it dry!