As promised, here's a review of the Best Guess recruiting class list from December with some additional notes. Includes some of my rationale for including the then-uncommitted players on the best guess list along with a brief summary of what ended up happening. Obviously a number of the uncommitted guys were easy calls (see: Buncom, Frank), a few not so much (Dylan Jackson and several guys who needed standardized test retakes/fall term grades to get admitted).
The goal is to do a "Best Guess" class every few months or so in the 2016 cycle, and then follow up with posts similar to this one reviewing what went right and what went wrong.
Will hope to put together a first 2016 "Best Guess" list sometime in March.
Quarterback
None - Pretty self explanatory. Stanford offered two quarterbacks in the 2015 cycle (Brandon Wimbush and Ricky Town) and evaluated a number of others including, yes, Josh Rosen, even months after he committed to UCLA. Ultimately, Stanford did not sign anyone at the position in 2015 and will look to add one or two in 2016.
Running Back
Cameron Scarlett - Uncommitted at time of post. Stanford's top running back target for essentially the duration of the 2015 recruiting cycle, and one of the few players who I can recall being personally recruited by David Shaw. Stanford was a logical choice for Scarlett for a number of reasons: available playing time, system fit, intensity with which they recruited him, academic focus, etc... He enjoyed his visit to Notre Dame and UCLA made an impression, but in the end I think Stanford just made too much sense.
Bryce Love - On paper, Love was a very good fit for Stanford. He's a terrific student and had already visited campus twice (including, quite notably, for an in-season unofficial, rather than official, visit) with plans for an official at the time of the post. Love planned to graduate early in the early stages of his recruitment, but he backed off those plans around last summer. The fact he submitted his application in mid-November was another reason for optimism. Distance was the primary concern, but, presumably, he felt comfortable enough with the school and environment on his visits to make the choice.
Fullback
Reagan Williams - Committed at time of post.
Houston Heimuli - Committed at time of post.
Offensive Line
Austin Maihen - Maihen picked up a Stanford offer in November, and while he was still committed to Washington State at the time of this post, it was not exactly a huge leap to project Maihen in Stanford's class. The Southern California native had taken numerous trips to Stanford over the course of his recruitment and made no secret of his interest in the Cardinal. And, sure enough, Maihen flipped his commitment from WSU to Stanford immediately after getting accepted.
Jack Dreyer - Committed at the time of post.
Nick Wilson - Committed at time of post.
Brian Chaffin - Committed at time of post.
Wide Receiver
Trent Irwin - This one was pretty well chronicled. Stanford vs. Arizona State, probably head vs. heart, at least to some degree. Although Trent's father commented that Stanford really checked most of the boxes and the decision seemed pretty clear at the end, it was tight for quite a while. And the fact that Trent did not get started on his Stanford application until very late in the process (early December, if memory serves) was a concern. But there was optimism about Stanford's chances coming out of their in-home visit in December (I think the best guess list was a few days after that), and as Irwin kept postponing his decision (committing before receiving an admissions decision would not have boded well for the Cardinal), the optimism grew. And, of course, he ultimately committed to Stanford in early January a few days after being admitted to the school.
J.J. Arcega-Whiteside - Committed at the time of the post.
Defensive Line
Wesley Annan - Committed at time of post.
Ross Donelly - Uncommitted at time of post. While Donelly backed off his summer comment that Stanford would be No. 1 if they offered, well, they were pretty clearly his top choice throughout the fall. Good dialogue with Stanford, doing the academic work... and really no clear No. 2 choice - to the best of my knowledge Donelly didn't take any official visits prior to his Stanford trip, and he was left scrambling a bit after Stanford was off the table. So, suffice it to say, all indications were that he would have been in this class if things had turned out differently on the admissions front. Instead, he'll attend Ole Miss, where he could turn into a very solid SEC contributor. Considering the position he plays, his ability and his interest in Stanford, a very painful miss.
Dylan Jackson - Committed to Tennessee at time of post. Sources close to the recruitment felt that Stanford was in a good spot here even though Jackson was technically committed to the Vols (I want to say he re-opened his recruitment maybe a week or so after the post), and that turned out to be the case. Dylan enjoyed his September visit to Stanford for the USC game, is a very good fit in Stanford's defense, and of course valued the academic opportunities. Distance was really the final thing standing between him and a Stanford commitment, but he was able to overcome that concern and ended up signing with the Cardinal.
Anree Saint-Amour - Same situation as Donelly. Anree told me that Stanford was his dream school shortly after they offered and I'm confident he would have ended up a Cardinal if things played out differently.
Linebacker
Gabe Reid - Uncommitted at time of post. The in-state schools were the biggest competition - Reid had family ties to BYU (plus the proximity and religious components) and was of course also a car ride away from Utah, but Stanford was always in a pretty good spot here. His comments, the multiple visits (Junior Day last spring and a game this fall) and his actions with the admissions process were evidence of that. The Cardinal really cemented its status as his top school on the mid-January official visit, and he committed to Stanford a few days before Signing Day.
Mustafa Branch - Committed at time of post.
Jordan Fox - Uncommitted at time of post. Fox earned an offer after camping with Stanford over summer, and the Cardinal immediately vaulted to the top of his list. Fox worked extremely hard to gain admission to the school and really improved his academic standing over the course of the year. Once he was admitted, Stanford cemented itself as the team to beat. After Fox gave Virginia one last look (on an official visit to the school), he pulled the trigger for the Cardinal.
Kenneth Brinson - Uncommitted at time of post. A complete miss on my end, and I'm still somewhat surprised Brinson didn't end up at Stanford. If I had to do it again, I'm not sure I would have been able to exclude him from a best-guess list. He was a) a terrific student who b)flew 2,500+ miles on his family's own dime to come to camp to try to earn a Stanford offer and c)was choosing between Stanford and Army and d)was someone Stanford would have taken. So it's not like they backed off due to performance concerns like they did with Garrett Dickerson last year, and there were no admissions concerns.
Now, Army is obviously a terrific institution with plenty to offer, but I don't recall the last time Army beat out Stanford for a recruit. It just doesn't happen very frequently. Ultimately, however, Brinson decided that he wanted to take a different path, and you certainly have to respect him for going that route.
Casey Toohill - Committed at time of post.
Defensive Back
Arrington Farrar - Committed at time of post. An unfortunate situation. Arrington loved Stanford and is, best I can tell from my interactions with him, just a tremendous, mature kid. But he struggled in a class fall semester and things did not work out with the Cardinal. He ended up signing with Wisconsin over Notre Dame.
Frank Buncom - Uncommitted but admitted at time of post. Projecting Buncom to Stanford might have been the easiest call of the entire 2015 recruiting cycle. I mean, he (tentatively) set up a volunteer position on a Stanford professor's neurology research team during a campus visit last spring! So clearly Stanford was an ideal academic fit, and while Buncom took four official visits and gave other programs a chance to measure up to Stanford, none did, and he ended up committing to the Cardinal in late January.
Justin Reid (IF reports of an LSU offer are inaccurate) - Uncommitted and not admitted at time of post. Sources close to the recruitment felt that Stanford was the team to beat over schools like Notre Dame and Oklahoma at the time of the post (the lofty ACT score was another plus), but given Eric Reid's extremely positive experience at LSU and the considerable family ties to the LSU program, also indicated that LSU would be a threat. It's still somewhat unclear how hard LSU pushed for Reid until the final few days of his recruitment when several of the Tigers' recruiting targets committed elsewhere. Either way, Reid said on Signing Day that while his heart might have been with the Tigers, Stanford was the better fit.
Quenton Meeks OR Niko Small OR Ben Edwards OR DB committed elsewhere
All three of those guys were uncommitted and not admitted at the time of the post.
-Quenton Meeks was a Stanford vs. Vanderbilt (good relationship with Derek Mason, close to his mom) vs. Admissions battle. Stanford was always way up there for Meeks, but the combination of admissions uncertainty and the pull of playing closer to some of his family in SEC country made this a bit more uncertain. Once he was admitted - and after a very successful official visit to The Farm - Stanford took a commanding lead in his recruitment. Speaking to several folks close to him in the day or two after his Stanford official, they thought he was basically a lock for the Cardinal. I'm not sure if getting admitted pushed him over the edge, or if the visit did the trick, or perhaps some combination. Either way, he was pretty much all Stanford from mid-January on.
-Ben Edwards was a Stanford vs. Admissions battle. It's hard to know whether a borderline admissions prospect will do enough to get into school, but in this case, Edwards won his well publicized battle with admissions, getting the needed standardized test score after retaking it 7 or 8 times. Edwards most likely would have ended up at Notre Dame if he was denied.
-To be honest, I don't entirely know what happened with TCU DB commit Niko Small. We reported on Jan. 5 that he was no longer considering Stanford and would not visit, but I think that decision might have been made a few weeks prior. My best guess is that he didn't even bother going through the admissions process with Stanford, but, again, I don't know that with certainty.
-There were actually four candidates that came to mind for the "db committed elsewhere."
1)Christoph Frederick - This ended up being a guy Stanford pursued. He would have taken an official visit the last weekend of the year and perhaps/probably would have flipped from Syracuse if thinks had worked out with the Cardinal, but it didn't, and he stuck with the Orange.
2)Ben Humphreys - Humphreys impressed more at safety than at LB when he camped with Stanford last summer, and even though he committed to Duke in July, the two sides did stay in touch at least through early December. I'm not sure if Stanford ended up making any sort of a push, or if they just decided not to move on Humphreys, but as of the Best Guess post he was still at least somewhat in the mix.
3)Ben Burr Kirven - Basically the same deal as with Humphreys. As noted by a poster on our board, Stanford had a pair of assistants at one of BBK's November games and the sides stayed in touch into the December. Again, I don't know exactly when/why/how the relationship concluded, but, suffice it to say, the Cardinal will face him several times over the next few years. We'll see if they made the right call on him and Humphreys.
4)P.J. Locke - If memory serves, on at least one occasion early in the fall people asked if I knew of any "stealth" type recruits on Stanford's board. (Meaning a player with an offer committed elsewhere, not one without an offer like BBK and Humphreys.) I responded that, well, aside from Dylan Jackson, there was a three-star defensive player committed elsewhere that was still in the mix. That was Locke, a Texas defensive back who flipped from his longtime Oregon commitment to Texas on Signing Day. Locke committed to the Ducks last spring but kept in touch with Stanford through December. I don't know where/when things ended, exactly, but my guess is that it didn't progress much into 2015 or anything.
Specialist
Jake Bailey - Committed at time of post.
Other
Jabiari Tyler - Tyler received an extremely late offer from Stanford and essentially committed on the spot after learning that he had been admitted to the school. Tyler impressed the Cardinal at their camp over summer, and he's someone we mentioned throughout the fall/winter as a possible Plan B type WR candidate (Justice Shelton Mosley and Billy McCrary were others). Ultimately, Stanford had scholarships available and liked Tyler's athleticism playmaking ability. Tyler had long eyed Stanford as a potential college destination, and committing to the Cardinal was a no-brainer once he received the offer and was admitted.
Odds and Ends
There were several players still in the mix at the time of the post who I did not include in the mock class for one reason or another.
Rasheem Green: Stanford was per all accounts in the top 2/top 3 for Rasheem Green for a decent chunk of his recruitment, and he was enrolled in the necessary classes to gain admissions this fall. He was in consistent contact with the coaching staff, he had been on campus (visited for Junior Day in April), and there was generally some degree of optimism that Stanford was at least a contender for parts of the fall. However, Green declined Stanford's requests to retake the ACT, and that was that. (And, really, I'm not sure anyone stood much of a chance of catching USC.)
Iman Marshall: Similar situation to Green, but with even less interest in Stanford. Marshall and his family claimed to be very high on Stanford really ever since the Cardinal offered. And at about four separate points in his recruitment, Marshall told reporters and/or tweeted that he was going to take an unofficial visit to Stanford. That never happened, of course, and his contact with the Cardinal was minimal throughout the fall. Marshall was actually enrolled in the right classes, which meant that he was technically still somewhat of a possibility throughout the fall, but things really didn't progress too far.
Christian Wilkins: Wilkins took an unofficial visit to Stanford for the Notre Dame game during his junior year and returned this fall on an official. There was strong dialogue between the two sides for much of the recruiting process, and Wilkins advanced farther in the admissions process than Green or Marshall. Ultimately, however, Wilkins opted to take an official visit to Ohio State instead of retaking the ACT, and that was kind of that. I don't believe he ended up submitting his application.
Zach Abercrumbia: Stanford offered Abercrumbia late in the recruiting cycle, and he did go through the process until the very end with the Cardinal. The plan was actually to bring him and Christopher Frederick in on an official visit on that final weekend before Signing Day (and, not exactly going out on a limb here, but I'm confident he would have flipped from Rice if Stanford was an option), but things did not work out and Abercumbia ended up signing with Rice.
Equanimeous St. Brown: When ESB decided against taking the necessary classes for Stanford admissions this fall, I figured the chances of him ending up at Stanford were slim. However, in December, St. Brown's camp reached out to Stanford to re-open the dialogue. I'm not exactly sure why - perhaps it was the fact that neither USC nor UCLA would take him and he wasn't totally sold on Notre Dame. In any event, Stanford did an in-home visit and scrambled to work with St. Brown to try to come up with some sort of a gameplan that might work for admissions. Ultimately, however, shortly after restarting things with Stanford, ESB decided not to go through with things with the Cardinal and silently committed to Notre Dame, and that was that.
-He was absolutely not in the mix at the time of the Dec. post, but because I'm not sure we've discussed it previously, Bolu Olorunfunmi took an unofficial visit to Stanford last April for the Cardinal's second Junior Day even though he had committed to UCLA a few weeks prior. (Stanford offered Bolu after he committed to the Bruins.) He and his family seemed very excited about what Stanford had to offer on the trip... but not so much after it. So Stanford never really gained much steam in that recruitment.
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. As always, feel free to follow up with any questions and I'll do my best to respond.
This post was edited on 2/13 10:49 PM by Andy Drukarev
This post was edited on 2/13 10:52 PM by Andy Drukarev
The goal is to do a "Best Guess" class every few months or so in the 2016 cycle, and then follow up with posts similar to this one reviewing what went right and what went wrong.
Will hope to put together a first 2016 "Best Guess" list sometime in March.
Quarterback
None - Pretty self explanatory. Stanford offered two quarterbacks in the 2015 cycle (Brandon Wimbush and Ricky Town) and evaluated a number of others including, yes, Josh Rosen, even months after he committed to UCLA. Ultimately, Stanford did not sign anyone at the position in 2015 and will look to add one or two in 2016.
Running Back
Cameron Scarlett - Uncommitted at time of post. Stanford's top running back target for essentially the duration of the 2015 recruiting cycle, and one of the few players who I can recall being personally recruited by David Shaw. Stanford was a logical choice for Scarlett for a number of reasons: available playing time, system fit, intensity with which they recruited him, academic focus, etc... He enjoyed his visit to Notre Dame and UCLA made an impression, but in the end I think Stanford just made too much sense.
Bryce Love - On paper, Love was a very good fit for Stanford. He's a terrific student and had already visited campus twice (including, quite notably, for an in-season unofficial, rather than official, visit) with plans for an official at the time of the post. Love planned to graduate early in the early stages of his recruitment, but he backed off those plans around last summer. The fact he submitted his application in mid-November was another reason for optimism. Distance was the primary concern, but, presumably, he felt comfortable enough with the school and environment on his visits to make the choice.
Fullback
Reagan Williams - Committed at time of post.
Houston Heimuli - Committed at time of post.
Offensive Line
Austin Maihen - Maihen picked up a Stanford offer in November, and while he was still committed to Washington State at the time of this post, it was not exactly a huge leap to project Maihen in Stanford's class. The Southern California native had taken numerous trips to Stanford over the course of his recruitment and made no secret of his interest in the Cardinal. And, sure enough, Maihen flipped his commitment from WSU to Stanford immediately after getting accepted.
Jack Dreyer - Committed at the time of post.
Nick Wilson - Committed at time of post.
Brian Chaffin - Committed at time of post.
Wide Receiver
Trent Irwin - This one was pretty well chronicled. Stanford vs. Arizona State, probably head vs. heart, at least to some degree. Although Trent's father commented that Stanford really checked most of the boxes and the decision seemed pretty clear at the end, it was tight for quite a while. And the fact that Trent did not get started on his Stanford application until very late in the process (early December, if memory serves) was a concern. But there was optimism about Stanford's chances coming out of their in-home visit in December (I think the best guess list was a few days after that), and as Irwin kept postponing his decision (committing before receiving an admissions decision would not have boded well for the Cardinal), the optimism grew. And, of course, he ultimately committed to Stanford in early January a few days after being admitted to the school.
J.J. Arcega-Whiteside - Committed at the time of the post.
Defensive Line
Wesley Annan - Committed at time of post.
Ross Donelly - Uncommitted at time of post. While Donelly backed off his summer comment that Stanford would be No. 1 if they offered, well, they were pretty clearly his top choice throughout the fall. Good dialogue with Stanford, doing the academic work... and really no clear No. 2 choice - to the best of my knowledge Donelly didn't take any official visits prior to his Stanford trip, and he was left scrambling a bit after Stanford was off the table. So, suffice it to say, all indications were that he would have been in this class if things had turned out differently on the admissions front. Instead, he'll attend Ole Miss, where he could turn into a very solid SEC contributor. Considering the position he plays, his ability and his interest in Stanford, a very painful miss.
Dylan Jackson - Committed to Tennessee at time of post. Sources close to the recruitment felt that Stanford was in a good spot here even though Jackson was technically committed to the Vols (I want to say he re-opened his recruitment maybe a week or so after the post), and that turned out to be the case. Dylan enjoyed his September visit to Stanford for the USC game, is a very good fit in Stanford's defense, and of course valued the academic opportunities. Distance was really the final thing standing between him and a Stanford commitment, but he was able to overcome that concern and ended up signing with the Cardinal.
Anree Saint-Amour - Same situation as Donelly. Anree told me that Stanford was his dream school shortly after they offered and I'm confident he would have ended up a Cardinal if things played out differently.
Linebacker
Gabe Reid - Uncommitted at time of post. The in-state schools were the biggest competition - Reid had family ties to BYU (plus the proximity and religious components) and was of course also a car ride away from Utah, but Stanford was always in a pretty good spot here. His comments, the multiple visits (Junior Day last spring and a game this fall) and his actions with the admissions process were evidence of that. The Cardinal really cemented its status as his top school on the mid-January official visit, and he committed to Stanford a few days before Signing Day.
Mustafa Branch - Committed at time of post.
Jordan Fox - Uncommitted at time of post. Fox earned an offer after camping with Stanford over summer, and the Cardinal immediately vaulted to the top of his list. Fox worked extremely hard to gain admission to the school and really improved his academic standing over the course of the year. Once he was admitted, Stanford cemented itself as the team to beat. After Fox gave Virginia one last look (on an official visit to the school), he pulled the trigger for the Cardinal.
Kenneth Brinson - Uncommitted at time of post. A complete miss on my end, and I'm still somewhat surprised Brinson didn't end up at Stanford. If I had to do it again, I'm not sure I would have been able to exclude him from a best-guess list. He was a) a terrific student who b)flew 2,500+ miles on his family's own dime to come to camp to try to earn a Stanford offer and c)was choosing between Stanford and Army and d)was someone Stanford would have taken. So it's not like they backed off due to performance concerns like they did with Garrett Dickerson last year, and there were no admissions concerns.
Now, Army is obviously a terrific institution with plenty to offer, but I don't recall the last time Army beat out Stanford for a recruit. It just doesn't happen very frequently. Ultimately, however, Brinson decided that he wanted to take a different path, and you certainly have to respect him for going that route.
Casey Toohill - Committed at time of post.
Defensive Back
Arrington Farrar - Committed at time of post. An unfortunate situation. Arrington loved Stanford and is, best I can tell from my interactions with him, just a tremendous, mature kid. But he struggled in a class fall semester and things did not work out with the Cardinal. He ended up signing with Wisconsin over Notre Dame.
Frank Buncom - Uncommitted but admitted at time of post. Projecting Buncom to Stanford might have been the easiest call of the entire 2015 recruiting cycle. I mean, he (tentatively) set up a volunteer position on a Stanford professor's neurology research team during a campus visit last spring! So clearly Stanford was an ideal academic fit, and while Buncom took four official visits and gave other programs a chance to measure up to Stanford, none did, and he ended up committing to the Cardinal in late January.
Justin Reid (IF reports of an LSU offer are inaccurate) - Uncommitted and not admitted at time of post. Sources close to the recruitment felt that Stanford was the team to beat over schools like Notre Dame and Oklahoma at the time of the post (the lofty ACT score was another plus), but given Eric Reid's extremely positive experience at LSU and the considerable family ties to the LSU program, also indicated that LSU would be a threat. It's still somewhat unclear how hard LSU pushed for Reid until the final few days of his recruitment when several of the Tigers' recruiting targets committed elsewhere. Either way, Reid said on Signing Day that while his heart might have been with the Tigers, Stanford was the better fit.
Quenton Meeks OR Niko Small OR Ben Edwards OR DB committed elsewhere
All three of those guys were uncommitted and not admitted at the time of the post.
-Quenton Meeks was a Stanford vs. Vanderbilt (good relationship with Derek Mason, close to his mom) vs. Admissions battle. Stanford was always way up there for Meeks, but the combination of admissions uncertainty and the pull of playing closer to some of his family in SEC country made this a bit more uncertain. Once he was admitted - and after a very successful official visit to The Farm - Stanford took a commanding lead in his recruitment. Speaking to several folks close to him in the day or two after his Stanford official, they thought he was basically a lock for the Cardinal. I'm not sure if getting admitted pushed him over the edge, or if the visit did the trick, or perhaps some combination. Either way, he was pretty much all Stanford from mid-January on.
-Ben Edwards was a Stanford vs. Admissions battle. It's hard to know whether a borderline admissions prospect will do enough to get into school, but in this case, Edwards won his well publicized battle with admissions, getting the needed standardized test score after retaking it 7 or 8 times. Edwards most likely would have ended up at Notre Dame if he was denied.
-To be honest, I don't entirely know what happened with TCU DB commit Niko Small. We reported on Jan. 5 that he was no longer considering Stanford and would not visit, but I think that decision might have been made a few weeks prior. My best guess is that he didn't even bother going through the admissions process with Stanford, but, again, I don't know that with certainty.
-There were actually four candidates that came to mind for the "db committed elsewhere."
1)Christoph Frederick - This ended up being a guy Stanford pursued. He would have taken an official visit the last weekend of the year and perhaps/probably would have flipped from Syracuse if thinks had worked out with the Cardinal, but it didn't, and he stuck with the Orange.
2)Ben Humphreys - Humphreys impressed more at safety than at LB when he camped with Stanford last summer, and even though he committed to Duke in July, the two sides did stay in touch at least through early December. I'm not sure if Stanford ended up making any sort of a push, or if they just decided not to move on Humphreys, but as of the Best Guess post he was still at least somewhat in the mix.
3)Ben Burr Kirven - Basically the same deal as with Humphreys. As noted by a poster on our board, Stanford had a pair of assistants at one of BBK's November games and the sides stayed in touch into the December. Again, I don't know exactly when/why/how the relationship concluded, but, suffice it to say, the Cardinal will face him several times over the next few years. We'll see if they made the right call on him and Humphreys.
4)P.J. Locke - If memory serves, on at least one occasion early in the fall people asked if I knew of any "stealth" type recruits on Stanford's board. (Meaning a player with an offer committed elsewhere, not one without an offer like BBK and Humphreys.) I responded that, well, aside from Dylan Jackson, there was a three-star defensive player committed elsewhere that was still in the mix. That was Locke, a Texas defensive back who flipped from his longtime Oregon commitment to Texas on Signing Day. Locke committed to the Ducks last spring but kept in touch with Stanford through December. I don't know where/when things ended, exactly, but my guess is that it didn't progress much into 2015 or anything.
Specialist
Jake Bailey - Committed at time of post.
Other
Jabiari Tyler - Tyler received an extremely late offer from Stanford and essentially committed on the spot after learning that he had been admitted to the school. Tyler impressed the Cardinal at their camp over summer, and he's someone we mentioned throughout the fall/winter as a possible Plan B type WR candidate (Justice Shelton Mosley and Billy McCrary were others). Ultimately, Stanford had scholarships available and liked Tyler's athleticism playmaking ability. Tyler had long eyed Stanford as a potential college destination, and committing to the Cardinal was a no-brainer once he received the offer and was admitted.
Odds and Ends
There were several players still in the mix at the time of the post who I did not include in the mock class for one reason or another.
Rasheem Green: Stanford was per all accounts in the top 2/top 3 for Rasheem Green for a decent chunk of his recruitment, and he was enrolled in the necessary classes to gain admissions this fall. He was in consistent contact with the coaching staff, he had been on campus (visited for Junior Day in April), and there was generally some degree of optimism that Stanford was at least a contender for parts of the fall. However, Green declined Stanford's requests to retake the ACT, and that was that. (And, really, I'm not sure anyone stood much of a chance of catching USC.)
Iman Marshall: Similar situation to Green, but with even less interest in Stanford. Marshall and his family claimed to be very high on Stanford really ever since the Cardinal offered. And at about four separate points in his recruitment, Marshall told reporters and/or tweeted that he was going to take an unofficial visit to Stanford. That never happened, of course, and his contact with the Cardinal was minimal throughout the fall. Marshall was actually enrolled in the right classes, which meant that he was technically still somewhat of a possibility throughout the fall, but things really didn't progress too far.
Christian Wilkins: Wilkins took an unofficial visit to Stanford for the Notre Dame game during his junior year and returned this fall on an official. There was strong dialogue between the two sides for much of the recruiting process, and Wilkins advanced farther in the admissions process than Green or Marshall. Ultimately, however, Wilkins opted to take an official visit to Ohio State instead of retaking the ACT, and that was kind of that. I don't believe he ended up submitting his application.
Zach Abercrumbia: Stanford offered Abercrumbia late in the recruiting cycle, and he did go through the process until the very end with the Cardinal. The plan was actually to bring him and Christopher Frederick in on an official visit on that final weekend before Signing Day (and, not exactly going out on a limb here, but I'm confident he would have flipped from Rice if Stanford was an option), but things did not work out and Abercumbia ended up signing with Rice.
Equanimeous St. Brown: When ESB decided against taking the necessary classes for Stanford admissions this fall, I figured the chances of him ending up at Stanford were slim. However, in December, St. Brown's camp reached out to Stanford to re-open the dialogue. I'm not exactly sure why - perhaps it was the fact that neither USC nor UCLA would take him and he wasn't totally sold on Notre Dame. In any event, Stanford did an in-home visit and scrambled to work with St. Brown to try to come up with some sort of a gameplan that might work for admissions. Ultimately, however, shortly after restarting things with Stanford, ESB decided not to go through with things with the Cardinal and silently committed to Notre Dame, and that was that.
-He was absolutely not in the mix at the time of the Dec. post, but because I'm not sure we've discussed it previously, Bolu Olorunfunmi took an unofficial visit to Stanford last April for the Cardinal's second Junior Day even though he had committed to UCLA a few weeks prior. (Stanford offered Bolu after he committed to the Bruins.) He and his family seemed very excited about what Stanford had to offer on the trip... but not so much after it. So Stanford never really gained much steam in that recruitment.
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. As always, feel free to follow up with any questions and I'll do my best to respond.
This post was edited on 2/13 10:49 PM by Andy Drukarev
This post was edited on 2/13 10:52 PM by Andy Drukarev
