Regarding Bloomgren and the rest forgetting how to recruit OL, well, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Undeniably. Between February 3, 2016, and November 21, 2018, we had four offensive line commits. Four OL in 2.8 calendar years. That's not an inability to recruit good OL, it's a refusal to recruit OL. Over 2.8 years we recruited 1.4 linemen per year, probably a third of what one would recommend. I know I'm just saying the same facts in different ways but people need this to sink in. Stanford wasn't recruiting OL. When you account for the fact that two of the four we did recruit were mega whales and thus practical impossibilities to complete their eligibility (and in fact only combined to play less than 2,000 snaps in their career....yikes) and a third was a medical retirement almost immediately upon stepping on campus, you simply cannot say Stanford recruited OL. And when you judge the performance of the OL coaches following Bloomgren you can't act like they had the cards Bloomgren had to play with.....he dealt himself a couple of aces and then burned the deck right before he left for another table to play at.
As for OL being the most intellectually gifted of all the position groups, that may or may not be true but what I know to be a fact based on extensive research is that the trope popular among Stanford fans that OL is the easiest position for us to recruit is demonstrably false. Quarterback, running back, and tight end are all far easier for Stanford to recruit, and that's been true going back decades. OL simply needs too much volume. It's a lot easier to find a good running back than it is to find five good offensive linemen. OL recruiting is unforgiving for numerous reasons: it requires a lot of volume, individual weak links can be devastating, and OL requires old man strength and savvy and therefore cannot overcome gap years in the way almost every other position can. When you neglect OL recruiting like Willingham did in the early 2000s or like Shaw did in the late 2010s, you cannot recover. You are guaranteeing that you will throw the babes to the wolves, like our 2002 and 2019 OL classes were forced to deal with. Program killer.
As for OL being the most intellectually gifted of all the position groups, that may or may not be true but what I know to be a fact based on extensive research is that the trope popular among Stanford fans that OL is the easiest position for us to recruit is demonstrably false. Quarterback, running back, and tight end are all far easier for Stanford to recruit, and that's been true going back decades. OL simply needs too much volume. It's a lot easier to find a good running back than it is to find five good offensive linemen. OL recruiting is unforgiving for numerous reasons: it requires a lot of volume, individual weak links can be devastating, and OL requires old man strength and savvy and therefore cannot overcome gap years in the way almost every other position can. When you neglect OL recruiting like Willingham did in the early 2000s or like Shaw did in the late 2010s, you cannot recover. You are guaranteeing that you will throw the babes to the wolves, like our 2002 and 2019 OL classes were forced to deal with. Program killer.