At the risk of being called a pessimist (realist or analyst would be more accurate).....
It's analytically unsound and unhelpful to treat the fact of people committing itself as meaningful. Proper analysis requires a qualitative dimension, or even just a comparative dimension. Is six new guys helpful if they're worse than what the teams we play are getting? Is it helpful if other teams are getting twice as many new guys?
It's not hard at all to find things to be pessimistic about with the guys you're touting. The Ivy League transfers never made the All Ivy League team and PFF ranked neither of them among the top 200 FCS or top 15 Ivy League OL (though I am happy to get Mayberry and think Bank is welcome for depth). The DL, DB, and RB are practically zero profile reaches far below the Stanford norm (though Ojarikre is relatively attractive compared to the other two). The WR isn't even a scholarship player (and as we saw with Hampton, Morris, Ojarikre, Thomason, Staples, Marceau-Olayinka, etc. the bar for being a scholarship player is as low as it's ever been at Stanford).
I can't get excited about filling "needs" if it's just bringing in people with a pulse. It's not what you think it is in terms of trend, energy, experience, or competition. This isn't 4th grade soccer and participation doesn't cut it. To make claims about trend, energy, experience, or competition you need to be comparing it to our actual competition. Today is a rough day from that vantage. May Taylor be all upswing from here.
It's analytically unsound and unhelpful to treat the fact of people committing itself as meaningful. Proper analysis requires a qualitative dimension, or even just a comparative dimension. Is six new guys helpful if they're worse than what the teams we play are getting? Is it helpful if other teams are getting twice as many new guys?
It's not hard at all to find things to be pessimistic about with the guys you're touting. The Ivy League transfers never made the All Ivy League team and PFF ranked neither of them among the top 200 FCS or top 15 Ivy League OL (though I am happy to get Mayberry and think Bank is welcome for depth). The DL, DB, and RB are practically zero profile reaches far below the Stanford norm (though Ojarikre is relatively attractive compared to the other two). The WR isn't even a scholarship player (and as we saw with Hampton, Morris, Ojarikre, Thomason, Staples, Marceau-Olayinka, etc. the bar for being a scholarship player is as low as it's ever been at Stanford).
I can't get excited about filling "needs" if it's just bringing in people with a pulse. It's not what you think it is in terms of trend, energy, experience, or competition. This isn't 4th grade soccer and participation doesn't cut it. To make claims about trend, energy, experience, or competition you need to be comparing it to our actual competition. Today is a rough day from that vantage. May Taylor be all upswing from here.