[Goose]

(In response to TrumpCard)


There may be more, but those are big ones. My view is that unless we're going to start recruiting 1.5 defensive whales a year we need a new defensive coordinator. The evidence is overwhelming that without superior talent Anderson can't get it done.

You and I were engaged in a discussion that I too enjoyed. Unfortunately I have been a bit busy and didn't follow up. You have made the argument that Stanford ranked sort of in the middle of the pack in defensive line recruiting but that results were worse than that. Your explanation was, as I understand it anyway, that our recruiting was OK based on our class rankings (except for a couple of outlier "bad" years) and that our poor results were due almost entirely to various coaching failures. At first, your most recent post made me think you were revising your position but I now understand you are actually saying our recruiting has to be way above average for us to get adequate results because coach Anderson et al can't create even an "average" defense with "average" players.
My problem with this analysis is that you assume that class ranking should be absolutely predictive of expected performance. I think that is a "fact" not in evidence, and I also think it just isn't so. The class ranking is a single number that tries to capture the "quality" of a recruiting class that consists of several recruits. As you point out Stanford did recruit some 4* defensive linemen (even fairly recently) that did well in college and moved on to the NFL. The problem is that class rankings tend to average these 4* (or even "whale" recruits) in with other recruits that are not nearly so good.
Unfortunately, the variance in Stanford recruits is large, probably larger than most in the bottom half of the conference. There has been discussion of the fact we have often ended up with "plan b" or even "plan c" recruits on the DL. In a few cases we have ended up with classes that were smaller than desired. We also often have one highly rated guy. On average we are OK, but unfortunately the opposing offense goes to great lengths to avoid our highly rated guy and just run over our plan b guys. The DL isn't as good as it's average player. It is as good as it's worst player, because that is where the attack will concentrate. This is one fatal flaw in using class ranking as unconditionally predictive.
The second major problem is that class ranking doesn't consider need. It looks at what you got, not what you desperately needed and did not get. This is true both on a macro level (we didn't have enough "good" DL and needed more) and a more individual level. Often times it at least seems we have recruited players that had good talent but that did not thrive in the position we asked them to play. It could be bad player development but it also could be recruiting the "wrong" guys. Lacking the right mix of talent we misuse guys because we have no other choice. Somebody has to play that position. It is also difficult to make all conference when you are always cleaning up some other players failure. The player tries to do too much or is always trying to anticipate what bad thing will happen next. You make reference to the number of DL needed for a 2-4-5. That's fine, but we were actually wanted to run a 3-4-4, certainly on run downs. We couldn't because we didn't have enough DL to put out there that could play well enough to do so. Instead, we ended up in nickel. Injuries contributed, but when you are trying to play Tucker Fisk on the DL, you have a problem.
So, my belief is that we have not recruited "well enough" to have an average defensive line. I think we both would agree we haven't had a DL that gave us confidence for a while. I am not arguing we don't have all the deficiencies you cite in player development etc. What I am arguing is that our recruiting was also deficient, and that class ranking by it's nature is not universally predictive of on-field performance for the reasons listed above.

[Goose]

(In response to TrumpCard)


There may be more, but those are big ones. My view is that unless we're going to start recruiting 1.5 defensive whales a year we need a new defensive coordinator. The evidence is overwhelming that without superior talent Anderson can't get it done.

You and I were engaged in a discussion that I too enjoyed. Unfortunately I have been a bit busy and didn't follow up. You have made the argument that Stanford ranked sort of in the middle of the pack in defensive line recruiting but that results were worse than that. Your explanation was, as I understand it anyway, that our recruiting was OK based on our class rankings (except for a couple of outlier "bad" years) and that our poor results were due almost entirely to various coaching failures. At first, your most recent post made me think you were revising your position but I now understand you are actually saying our recruiting has to be way above average for us to get adequate results because coach Anderson et al can't create even an "average" defense with "average" players.
My problem with this analysis is that you assume that class ranking should be absolutely predictive of expected performance. I think that is a "fact" not in evidence, and I also think it just isn't so. The class ranking is a single number that tries to capture the "quality" of a recruiting class that consists of several recruits. As you point out Stanford did recruit some 4* defensive linemen (even fairly recently) that did well in college and moved on to the NFL. The problem is that class rankings tend to average these 4* (or even "whale" recruits) in with other recruits that are not nearly so good.
Unfortunately, the variance in Stanford recruits is large, probably larger than most in the bottom half of the conference. There has been discussion of the fact we have often ended up with "plan b" or even "plan c" recruits on the DL. In a few cases we have ended up with classes that were smaller than desired. We also often have one highly rated guy. On average we are OK, but unfortunately the opposing offense goes to great lengths to avoid our highly rated guy and just run over our plan b guys. The DL isn't as good as it's average player. It is as good as it's worst player, because that is where the attack will concentrate. This is one fatal flaw in using class ranking as unconditionally predictive.
The second major problem is that class ranking doesn't consider need. It looks at what you got, not what you desperately needed and did not get. This is true both on a macro level (we didn't have enough "good" DL and needed more) and a more individual level. Often times it at least seems we have recruited players that had good talent but that did not thrive in the position we asked them to play. It could be bad player development but it also could be recruiting the "wrong" guys. Lacking the right mix of talent we misuse guys because we have no other choice. Somebody has to play that position. It is also difficult to make all conference when you are always cleaning up some other players failure. The player tries to do too much or is always trying to anticipate what bad thing will happen next. You make reference to the number of DL needed for a 2-4-5. That's fine, but we were actually wanted to run a 3-4-4, certainly on run downs. We couldn't because we didn't have enough DL to put out there that could play well enough to do so. Instead, we ended up in nickel. Injuries contributed, but when you are trying to play Tucker Fisk on the DL, you have a problem.
So, my belief is that we have not recruited "well enough" to have an average defensive line. I think we both would agree we haven't had a DL that gave us confidence for a while. I am not arguing we don't have all the deficiencies you cite in player development etc. What I am arguing is that our recruiting was also deficient, and that class ranking by it's nature is not universally predictive of on-field performance for the reasons listed above.