Go Mighty Card

Flash Forward to Fall: Running Backs

You'll have to forgive the casual football fan for not understanding the Stanford offense over the past three seasons. In 2009 Toby Gerhart was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, but he wasn't the most valuable player on his own team. (That was Andrew Luck.) Over the past two seasons Luck has been the best football player in America, but he sometimes served as a footnote to the powerful Stanford running game.

The truth of it all, of course, is that in Stanford's pro-style offense the passing game is intertwined with the rushing attack. While it isn't yet clear who will be playing quarterback for the Cardinal this fall, I can say without hesitation that he'll have the luxury of handing the ball to one of the best groups of running backs in the nation.

Stanford Football and the Sword of Damocles

It used to be that Stanford Football was something that existed for only three hours on eleven Saturday afternoons each fall, then disappeared a few days before Thanksgiving. Just as our team was fading into irrelevance, we'd look towards the traditional football schools across the nation in places like Ann Arbor and Tuscaloosa and South Bend and wonder what it would be like to follow a team whose grip extended year round.

Flash Forward to Fall: Offensive Line

A year ago more than a few reasonable minds were concerned about the state of the Stanford offensive line, and some panicky folks even felt the loss of three starters would derail Andrew Luck's Heisman campaign.

What all those people forgot was that David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin, the two best linemen in 2010, were returning for 2011, and everything turned out alright.

So what might 2012 bring? DeCastro and Martin are moving on to the NFL, and only three players return. Fifth-year senior Sam Schwartzstein should hold on to his center spot, and sophomores Cameron Fleming and David Yankey should do the same at right tackle and left guard, respectively. Fleming and Yankey both earned honorable mentions on the All-Pac-12  team, so they seem ready to carry the Tunnel Workers Union into the future.

Recruiting Focus, Class of 2012: Aziz Shittu

It's been a long, strange trip for Aziz Shittu, but the five-star defensive end finally arrived back where he started. Shittu originally committed to the Cardinal last May, but then backed out of that commitment only a month later. Initially there was speculation that he was concerned about whether or not he'd be able to gain admission (he would), but most felt Shittu simply wanted to enjoy the recruiting process (he did). 

There were times during the fall when Shittu looked ticketed to any of a number of schools, most notably Oregon, Cal, UCLA, and USC. None of that matters now, though. Aziz is a Stanford Man.

When might we see him on the field? I'm betting it's pretty soon. Initially thought of as a defensive tackle, Shittu showed more athleticism during his senior season and through the all-star circuit in the late fall and currently projects as a defensive end. At 6'3" and 275 pounds, Shittu looks like he could either apprentice under tackle Terrence Stephens or compete for the open defensive spot left by the departing Matthew Masifilo. Even if Shittu doesn't earn a starting spot, he's too good to redshirt. Expect to see him on the field at some point this fall. But if you can't wait until then, check out his highlight package...

Recruiting Focus, Class of 2012: Kyle Murphy

It's official -- David Shaw and company have assembled the best offensive line recruiting class in school history. Kyle Murphy, long believed to be a lock for Stanford, finally made it official this afternoon when he signed on the dotted line and became a Cardinal. At 6'7" and 275 pounds, the San Clemente High School offensive tackle is one of the highest rated players in the nation. Rivals.com gives him five stars and rates him the third best offensive tackle and the nineteenth best overall prospect. Beyond that, he's a straight A student.

Most offensive linemen take advantage of their redshirt year to bulk up and learn the more complicated blocking schemes necessary to play at the collegiate level, but Murphy has made it clear that he intends to compete for playing time as a freshman. With a gaping hole at left tackle following the departure of Jonathan Martin to the NFL, Coach Shaw will certainly be tempted to give the job to Murphy and rest easy for the next three years.

The ripple effect of this signing, combined with the earlier commitments of four-star linemen Josh Garnett, Nick Davidson, and Graham Shuler, will likely be felt for years to come. First, this haul might finally put to rest the annual concerns regarding the rebuilding of the Cardinal offensive line. Second, the nation's elite quarterbacks and running backs will certainly take notice of what's happening in Palo Alto. Many people smarter than I have noted that Stanford has fielded the best offensive line in the country in each of the past three years, and that unit only looks to be getting better. 

For a sneak peek, check out this video. Highlight packages of offensive linemen tend to be boring and repetitive, but this one should be called the International House of Pancakes. And who could ever get bored of pancakes?

Recruiting Focus, Class of 2012: Andrus Peat

What if your older brother really wanted to play football at Stanford but couldn't gain admission? What if he then went to Nebraska, a school thick with football tradition? What if everyone assumed that you'd dutifully follow in your brother's footsteps and become a Cornhusker as well? Would you go?

Ah, but what if you were accepted to Stanford? Would that change your mind? Apparently it changed Andrus Peat's mind, because he surprised almost everyone on Wednesday afternoon and chose the Cardinal over the Cornhuskers.

Peat is an enormous offensive tackle, standing 6'7" and weighing in at 305 pounds, but he's athletic enough to play varsity basketball, a combination which has vaulted him towards the top of almost every recruiting ranking you can find. Rivals.com has him as the sixth-best tackle and 32nd ranked overall recruit, but MaxPreps.com loves him a bit more, calling him the second-best tackle in the land and the #8 overall recruit, and he sits at #9 on the ESPNU 150. Any way you slice it, Peat has the potential to be a dominant collegiate offensive lineman, one of several headed to Palo Alto this fall.

Peat doesn't seem to be as advanced as Kyle Murphy, but he should be a fixture on the Cardinal offensive line as soon as 2013. To keep you warm until then, take a look at his highlight reel...

 

Recruiting Focus, Class of 2012: Josh Garnett

Any discussion of 2012 recruits comes with the understanding that even those players who have committed to the Cardinal could change their minds.  Nothing is official until national signing day on February 1, 2012, so recruiting news should be read through that filter.  It's an inexact science, but it's simply too much fun to ignore.

I spoke to a friend this evening about the state of the current Stanford football recruiting class, and a simple question was posed: "Why would someone choose anyplace but Stanford?" That's a long discussion for another time, but if we focus that question a bit and apply it to someone who blocks out the sun as he stands in a doorway and aspires to be a doctor after playing in the NFL, it just might be the key to what could become the greatest recruiting class in Stanford history.

Recruiting Focus, Class of 2012: Barry J. Sanders

Any discussion of 2012 recruits comes with the understanding that even those players who have committed to the Cardinal could change their minds.  Nothing is official until national signing day on February 1, 2012, so recruiting news should be read through that filter.  It's an inexact science, but it's simply too much fun to ignore.

Imagine that it's twenty-five years from now and Andrew Luck is sitting in his rocking chair looking back on a Hall of Fame NFL career and enjoying his position as one of the greatest living quarterbacks. Even though it's been a quarter century since he wore the Cardinal and White, Stanford fans haven't forgotten him, and they certainly haven't seen another quarterback like him since he left.

If you were Andrew Luck's son, would you want to go to Palo Alto to play quarterback? Would you want to live with those comparisons day after day?

Perhaps more important than that, if you were a high school running back watching the Fiesta Bowl last Monday night and you were trying to decide between playing for Stanford or Oklahoma State, which school would you choose?

It seems simple, doesn't it? So it shouldn't come as any surprise that Barry J. Sanders (son of the Barry Sanders, the 1988 Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma State), has chosen Stanford. Sanders (who prefers not to be called Barry, Jr.) spoke often during the recruiting process of the attraction of coming to Stanford and not standing out, not being his father's son, and he noted during a September visit that Andrew Luck, then the clear face of college football, was able to walk campus freely as if he were just a typical student. Next fall, Sanders will do the same thing. When he announced his choice at the tail end of the U.S. Army All-America game, he explained his choice like this: "I get a chance to play with the best student athletes in the world."

The Fan's Dilemma

The problem with being a true sports fan, the type who lives and dies with each win or loss, is that you have no control over anything connected to your team. I remember talking with a friend a few years ago, and our conversation wandered from concerns about a bad financial investment he had made to our shared frustrations with the Lakers and their latest playoff demise. "I'm so pissed about the Lakers," he said, "and I'm not even invested in them."

He was wrong, of course. He was heavily invested in the Lakers. There's almost always a financial investment made in tickets to see your team in person; cable packages to watch them on TV; jerseys, sweatshirts, and caps to proclaim your allegiance; donations to college athletic programs; and even travel expenses for trips to glamorous places like Glendale, Arizona.

More important that all that, though, is the emotional investment. The time you spend worrying, wondering, thinking, predicting, discussing, and rationalizing could be measured in minutes and hours, but there's no way to quantify the weight of all that on the human soul. As Stanford fans, we all fall victim to this. If you're reading this right now instead of analyzing a spreadsheet, writing a brief, working on a problem set, or playing Monopoly with your kids, you're invested. (How invested am I? Including this piece, I've written 123,895 words about this team over the past two years, not including work I've done for other sites.)

As invested as we are as fans, however, we have no control. We can't decide when to take out a pitcher, which quarterback should start, or whether or not to sign the hottest free agent. Sure, we trick ourselves into thinking we can influence on field results by wearing a particular lucky shirt, sitting in the same recliner, or even -- as a friend of mine in college frequently did while watching his Chicago Bulls -- refusing to use the bathroom. It's all nonsense, and we know it. Unless you're a superfan like Phil Knight or Boone Pickens, you have no influence. Sports is the one important thing in your life that you have no control over.

Oklahoma State 41, Stanford 38 (OT)

If you woke up on Tuesday morning hoping to find it had all been a dream, hoping to learn that the football had managed to stay inside of the left upright on the field goal attempt at the end of regulation, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The kicker who had been so accurate all season wasn't able to make that field goal. The defense that had been so stout all season -- and effective on Monday night -- wasn't able to get Oklahoma State off the field when they had to. The offense, easily one of the best in the nation, couldn't get the ball in the end zone for the touchdown that would've assured victory.

It wasn't a dream. What you saw really happened.

But if you can put those final fifteen minutes out of your head for just a moment, you have to realize that this was a great, great game played by a wonderful team led by the best quarterback you'll ever see.