[msqueri]

On what basis is it assumed Bobby April is a great recruiter? I'm not denying he is, but I'd like to know what gives this impression.

Stanford has not been known for having "great recruiters" on the coaching staff of late, and I'm not even sure I know what this term means these days. It used to mean ability to land the top talents and beat our other top programs for coveted players. Now, it might mean more than that. Like in the age of NIL and transfer portal, perhaps it means more emphasis on finding guys who fit the school and systems and getting more of those guys than the average coach might.

Stanford has traditionally tasked coaches with areas of the country to focus on. Is Taylor going to change this approach and have the position coaches who will be coaching the recruits be the ones recruiting them, or keep it geographic-focused? Or maybe a hybrid approach?

The reputation is built in large part on being lead recruiter for Nick Herbig, Kaden Johnson, and TJ Bollers, a trio of OLBs that were a sea change in what Wisconsin typically is able to recruit. That's on paper. In reality, Herbig is the big feather in the cap. He's one of the best players in America.

Stanford recruiters rarely get named as great recruiters for at least three reasons. First, we tend to emphasize the school's attraction rather than anything football-specific, much less individual coach-specific. A lot of other schools try to recruit based on interpersonal bonds and that's not something we've done as much. Second, Shaw never emphasized recruiting externally and based on insider accounts didn't emphasize it as the all-important function for his staff either. There are other programs that have absolute dynamo recruiters who get coaching positions primarily so they can use their energy and charms to snag recruits. It's hard to think of many of these guys for Stanford over the years. Teevens had David Kelly, but that was a long time ago. Third, lists of top recruiters would rarely include Stanford guys anyway because our program doesn't have fans/interest so we're not really top of mind for those kind of lists. As a case in point, Bloomgren had a crazy number of whale recruits for one recruiter and would sometimes get excluded from such lists and I don't recall him ever being singled out as one of the top few recruiters in the nation.

In the past I've done detailed breakdowns of all of Stanford's assistant coaches and their recruiting prowess. We've definitely had individual recruiters who were relative standouts. In the Shaw era I'd put Mike Bloomgren, Lance Anderson, Lance Taylor, and Tavita Pritchard on top.

It's hard for me to imagine a recruiting model for Stanford that isn't some sort of hybrid in which the country gets divided up regionally among the coaches but coaches also play a key role in evaluating/recruiting their own position groups. Anything else seems pretty dysfunctional in the Stanford context. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to get data points over time of what Taylor's recruiting operation looks like.

[msqueri]

On what basis is it assumed Bobby April is a great recruiter? I'm not denying he is, but I'd like to know what gives this impression.

Stanford has not been known for having "great recruiters" on the coaching staff of late, and I'm not even sure I know what this term means these days. It used to mean ability to land the top talents and beat our other top programs for coveted players. Now, it might mean more than that. Like in the age of NIL and transfer portal, perhaps it means more emphasis on finding guys who fit the school and systems and getting more of those guys than the average coach might.

Stanford has traditionally tasked coaches with areas of the country to focus on. Is Taylor going to change this approach and have the position coaches who will be coaching the recruits be the ones recruiting them, or keep it geographic-focused? Or maybe a hybrid approach?

The reputation is built in large part on being lead recruiter for Nick Herbig, Kaden Johnson, and TJ Bollers, a trio of OLBs that were a sea change in what Wisconsin typically is able to recruit. That's on paper. In reality, Herbig is the big feather in the cap. He's one of the best players in America.

Stanford recruiters rarely get named as great recruiters for at least three reasons. First, we tend to emphasize the school's attraction rather than anything football-specific, much less individual coach-specific. A lot of other schools try to recruit based on interpersonal bonds and that's not something we've done as much. Second, Shaw never emphasized recruiting externally and based on insider accounts didn't emphasize it as the all-important function for his staff either. There are other programs that have absolute dynamo recruiters who get coaching positions primarily so they can use their energy and charms to snag recruits. It's hard to think of many of these guys for Stanford over the years. Teevens had David Kelly, but that was a long time ago. Third, lists of top recruiters would rarely include Stanford guys anyway because our program doesn't have fans/interest so we're not really top of mind for those kind of lists. As a case in point, Bloomgren had a crazy number of whale recruits for one recruiter and would sometimes get excluded from such lists and I don't recall him ever being singled out as one of the top few recruiters in the nation.

In the past I've done detailed breakdowns of all of Stanford's assistant coaches and their recruiting prowess. We've definitely had individual recruiters who were relative standouts. In the Shaw era I'd put Mike Bloomgren, Lance Anderson, Lance Taylor, and Tavita Pritchard on top.

It's hard for me to imagine a recruiting model for Stanford that isn't some sort of hybrid in which the country gets divided up regionally among the coaches but coaches also play a key role in evaluating/recruiting their own position groups. Anything else seems pretty dysfunctional in the Stanford context. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to get data points over time of what Taylor's recruiting operation looks like.