[msqueri]

The range of his comparisons goes from complete non-entity at the power five level to all-American and NFL stud.



I think this is why the question of volume is important at the OL.  Sure, you’d love to have whales like Little, Sarrell, Murphy, Peat, where the floor is basically being a multi-year starter,  it for the guys who are not going to be almost sure things, more shots on goal helps.  You might get one Cole Underwood there mixed in with a Jonathan Martin… which, on balance, is not bad.



BC

I think I basically agree with your point but chafe at your selection of Martin. He was one of the greatest linemen to ever play for Stanford and by no means is a Rivals 5.7 as likely to turn into Martin as to turn into Underwood. We were quite fortunate to have the run we did with DeCastro, Martin, Yankey, and Fleming and I think all should be viewed as outliers for 5.7 recruits. I take our last decade of results as more reflective of what Shaw would be likely to get with a 5.7 OL going forward. The typical (median) OL for us in this overall group have been Danser, Wilkes, Hall, and Hornibrook, but it's probably telling that among the 12 (excluding Swanson and Pogorelc, who are far too young to judge/compare against the others) literally the top six were recruited in the Harbaugh era. If you look at only Shaw recruits the median from this group would be Dreyer and Underwood. I'm going to hold out hope Yamauchi will be better than that but even an optimistic read here would be that Yamauchi replicates Hornibrook.

That's not to disagree with your broader point about volume to get more shots on goal. It's a good point. Across Anderson, Heyer, Swanson, Maikkula, Pale, Baklenko, and Yamauchi, you might figure two of them will be useless, one of them will be a superstar, and most of them will be either solid starters (if even as solid depth for much of their career before a late career turn as a starter). Odds improve if we add more to the group.

[msqueri]

The range of his comparisons goes from complete non-entity at the power five level to all-American and NFL stud.



I think this is why the question of volume is important at the OL.  Sure, you’d love to have whales like Little, Sarrell, Murphy, Peat, where the floor is basically being a multi-year starter,  it for the guys who are not going to be almost sure things, more shots on goal helps.  You might get one Cole Underwood there mixed in with a Jonathan Martin… which, on balance, is not bad.



BC

I think I basically agree with your point but chafe at your selection of Martin. He was one of the greatest linemen to ever play for Stanford and by no means is a Rivals 5.7 as likely to turn into Martin as to turn into Underwood. We were quite fortunate to have the run we did with DeCastro, Martin, Yankey, and Fleming and I think all should be viewed as outliers for 5.7 recruits. I take our last decade of results as more reflective of what Shaw would be likely to get with a 5.7 OL going forward. The typical (median) OL for us in this overall group have been Danser, Wilkes, Hall, and Hornibrook, but it's probably telling that among the 12 (excluding Swanson and Pogorelc, who are far too young to judge/compare against the others) literally the top six were recruited in the Harbaugh era. If you look at only Shaw recruits the median from this group would be Dreyer and Underwood. I'm going to hold out hope Yamauchi will be better than that but even an optimistic read here would be that Yamauchi replicates Hornibrook.

That's not to disagree with your broader point about volume to get more shots on goal. It's a good point. Across Anderson, Heyer, Swanson, Maikkula, Pale, Baklenko, and Yamauchi, you might figure two of them will be useless, one of them will be a superstar, and most of them will be either solid starters (if even as solid depth for much of their career before a late career turn as a starter). Odds improve if we add more to the group.