08-24-2023, 07:12 PM
Porter:
* Something I'm interested by is that Stanford has five DBs who've had 99+ (Manley's exact number in the COVID-shortened year, would have been misleading to exclude it) snaps in a season - Gilman in both 2022 and 2021, Manley in both 2021 and 2020, Porter in 2022, Wyrick and Slocum in 2021 - and three of them are playing different positions than where they broke through for playing time under the prior staff. Slocum and Porter switched - Slocum had been a safety and is now a corner/nickel whereas Porter had been a corner but is now a safety (or at least Porter played corner in games...he was listed as a safety on the roster). Wyrick started extensively as our nickel in his true freshman year but now is a safety. Akina didn't fall off a turnip truck so these kind of moves aren't things where you'd automatically assume they're improvements just because the new staff did it, but hopefully we're putting people in the right roles. Seems like an unusual, or at least an interesting, amount of flips among these guys, who appear to be five of our six top DBs going into the season.
* Since Porter is at a different position than last year and with a different coaching staff, I hesitate to put much stock into last year. He effectively rode pine for two and three quarters seasons before being forced into action for the last three games last year. In PFF's views, he was mediocre against Utah in 42 snaps, good against Cal in 18 snaps, and horrific against BYU in 34 snaps. Again, this was as a corner and we have him at safety this year. It must feel like a new page for him in several respects. I don't know how much he'll play against Hawaii (Gregory made it pretty clear Porter was behind Gilman and Wyrick and it's dicey whether we can even get to garbage time against anybody this year) but it would be nice for Porter to get some opportunities to wipe the taste of the BYU game out of his mouth. PFF blamed Porter for missing three tackles in that game, quite a feat of incompetence for a then CB. PFF didn't think Porter missed any tackles in the other games, so hopefully BYU was just a horrible nightmare and not a sign of tackling problems for one of our top backups.
* A somewhat unusual note to start this interview with Porter talking about the team getting off to a little bit of slow start in camp getting ready to practice and play football as a team together. I don't know what to make of it. Maybe it was just a quirk in the way he framed the progress story arc that was his main point and similar to what everybody says. Maybe as one of the relatively few veteran guys on the team he is a bit more wizened and wasn't going to be overly impressed by the initial energy and didn't think the first days of camp were anything to write home about. Maybe we hadn't heard the whole story until now and camp hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. Probably not an important data point, just interesting to hear a different kind of comment.
* Porter said it's funny now being the oldest. I get what he's saying and this is a common theme for players once they get to the fourth year like Porter. Frankly, it's especially a common theme for players like Porter who have had more of a grind and less significant of a playing career, as performance builds leadership credibility and it therefore doesn't feel as weird to most starters to find themselves the old guy. So it's a common and understandable sentiment. Still, him talking about being the oldest did make me think that Gilman has been around exactly as long (and played a lot more and is always mentioned by coaches so would presumably be far more likely to be a team leader) and while Edwards has been around only half as long he was the same high school class as Gilman and Porter if we're talking about age.
* Speaking of age, something to watch across the whole roster is retention/attrition following this season. Based on scholarship math I'd assume Porter and Gilman are pretty good candidates to be gone after this year. Way too early to say who will be back and what that means for the safety room, just a dynamic to watch I was thinking about as Porter talked about being the oldest.
* Porter talked about being a tight-knit bunch. This is something we hear from a lot of players but what was different here was saying they always have been and crediting the guys who came before, especially Jon McGill. This is at least the second time this camp a player has shouted McGill out unprompted. Given he was our team captain that's not all that surprising but did register with me as an interesting shout out. We've heard some apparent resentment from players about the guys who left (how nuts is it that college athletics this year have four 2022 Stanford captains playing elsewhere - McGill at SMU, Nugent at Michigan, Damuni at Utah, and Miezan at Virginia lacrosse), but it's never the DBs. They worship McGill.
* Fun to get a glimpse into the social life and bonding of the players. I was interested to hear him talk about hanging out at the dorms. I wonder if that is a summer reference or if things have changed a lot since my days. It used to be that by the time players got anywhere near Porter's point they were living off campus with other players. I'm sure renting hasn't gotten any easier over time, so maybe more players live on campus now? Of course the main fun exchange was on the FIFA video game competition (Filkins and Uke apparently the best). Really fun they set up a World Cup style bracket for that.
* Something I'm interested by is that Stanford has five DBs who've had 99+ (Manley's exact number in the COVID-shortened year, would have been misleading to exclude it) snaps in a season - Gilman in both 2022 and 2021, Manley in both 2021 and 2020, Porter in 2022, Wyrick and Slocum in 2021 - and three of them are playing different positions than where they broke through for playing time under the prior staff. Slocum and Porter switched - Slocum had been a safety and is now a corner/nickel whereas Porter had been a corner but is now a safety (or at least Porter played corner in games...he was listed as a safety on the roster). Wyrick started extensively as our nickel in his true freshman year but now is a safety. Akina didn't fall off a turnip truck so these kind of moves aren't things where you'd automatically assume they're improvements just because the new staff did it, but hopefully we're putting people in the right roles. Seems like an unusual, or at least an interesting, amount of flips among these guys, who appear to be five of our six top DBs going into the season.
* Since Porter is at a different position than last year and with a different coaching staff, I hesitate to put much stock into last year. He effectively rode pine for two and three quarters seasons before being forced into action for the last three games last year. In PFF's views, he was mediocre against Utah in 42 snaps, good against Cal in 18 snaps, and horrific against BYU in 34 snaps. Again, this was as a corner and we have him at safety this year. It must feel like a new page for him in several respects. I don't know how much he'll play against Hawaii (Gregory made it pretty clear Porter was behind Gilman and Wyrick and it's dicey whether we can even get to garbage time against anybody this year) but it would be nice for Porter to get some opportunities to wipe the taste of the BYU game out of his mouth. PFF blamed Porter for missing three tackles in that game, quite a feat of incompetence for a then CB. PFF didn't think Porter missed any tackles in the other games, so hopefully BYU was just a horrible nightmare and not a sign of tackling problems for one of our top backups.
* A somewhat unusual note to start this interview with Porter talking about the team getting off to a little bit of slow start in camp getting ready to practice and play football as a team together. I don't know what to make of it. Maybe it was just a quirk in the way he framed the progress story arc that was his main point and similar to what everybody says. Maybe as one of the relatively few veteran guys on the team he is a bit more wizened and wasn't going to be overly impressed by the initial energy and didn't think the first days of camp were anything to write home about. Maybe we hadn't heard the whole story until now and camp hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. Probably not an important data point, just interesting to hear a different kind of comment.
* Porter said it's funny now being the oldest. I get what he's saying and this is a common theme for players once they get to the fourth year like Porter. Frankly, it's especially a common theme for players like Porter who have had more of a grind and less significant of a playing career, as performance builds leadership credibility and it therefore doesn't feel as weird to most starters to find themselves the old guy. So it's a common and understandable sentiment. Still, him talking about being the oldest did make me think that Gilman has been around exactly as long (and played a lot more and is always mentioned by coaches so would presumably be far more likely to be a team leader) and while Edwards has been around only half as long he was the same high school class as Gilman and Porter if we're talking about age.
* Speaking of age, something to watch across the whole roster is retention/attrition following this season. Based on scholarship math I'd assume Porter and Gilman are pretty good candidates to be gone after this year. Way too early to say who will be back and what that means for the safety room, just a dynamic to watch I was thinking about as Porter talked about being the oldest.
* Porter talked about being a tight-knit bunch. This is something we hear from a lot of players but what was different here was saying they always have been and crediting the guys who came before, especially Jon McGill. This is at least the second time this camp a player has shouted McGill out unprompted. Given he was our team captain that's not all that surprising but did register with me as an interesting shout out. We've heard some apparent resentment from players about the guys who left (how nuts is it that college athletics this year have four 2022 Stanford captains playing elsewhere - McGill at SMU, Nugent at Michigan, Damuni at Utah, and Miezan at Virginia lacrosse), but it's never the DBs. They worship McGill.
* Fun to get a glimpse into the social life and bonding of the players. I was interested to hear him talk about hanging out at the dorms. I wonder if that is a summer reference or if things have changed a lot since my days. It used to be that by the time players got anywhere near Porter's point they were living off campus with other players. I'm sure renting hasn't gotten any easier over time, so maybe more players live on campus now? Of course the main fun exchange was on the FIFA video game competition (Filkins and Uke apparently the best). Really fun they set up a World Cup style bracket for that.