(10-05-2021, 11:15 AM)TrumpCard Wrote: Armitage, Phillips, and Pakola would be a reasonable group of starters. Two of them are starting this year. They all have pretty good size and recruiting petigrees and all of them received early playing time. I should have noted Franklin and Buckey as well. They didn't have elite recruiting profiles or anything like that, but they'll have a year under their belt and could contribute. I don't have a strong reason to think that the true freshmen will step onto campus and be ready immediately, but at least Rowell and Moi have sufficient size to make me think that either one could contribute early and those two also both have a good collection of offers. Considering how often Stanford plays in the nickel, I'd be fine with seeing the three upper classmen listed above and one freshman or sophmore get the bulk of the playing time. I'm not confident that group would be great, but it should be sufficient, if the top 4 guys could stay healthy/eligible.
All our current starters have "pretty good size and recruiting pedigrees" (not to mention they are older), and everyone but Booker gets tossed around like ragdolls. I fail to see how younger versions would fare any better under the same position coach.
That said, I do think Phillips will turn out pretty good in watching some of his snaps. When the players are 2 years older this could be a different conversation. I never expect redshirt freshmen to significantly contribute in either trench unless they're Solly/Little-esque whales, very pleasant non-whale early surprises like Booker, or we don't have anyone else (which will be the case at DL).