It's September 1st, which means it is time for a new football recruiting notes thread. The August thread is here. Scroll through that if you missed anything.
stanford.forums.rivals.com
Starting today, coaches can start contacting 2024 recruits, so some of that has been highlighted already in the August thread. Basically, anyone who has an offer you can assume will be getting contacted by the staff during this period.
Something to look ahead to is fall visits as the home opener against Colgate is on Saturday. I will be reaching out to recruits before the game to see what their fall visit plans are/if they have any. I would imagine the Colgate game won't have too many visitors, but I would expect a large swath for USC. I'm getting a jump on that this weekend more for the USC game than the Colgate game, but it's possible there's guys who visit this weekend as well.
As far as how visitors will be tracked, one of the pinned threads has a link to the visitors list along with the offers and commits lists. So as visits come in, I'll add them in the thread as well as marking them in the database. So that will serve as a replacement for the visitors thread I set up last year. Makes it more clean and tidy.
August was a bit of a quiet month recruiting wise, but Stanford did add a 3-star defensive end in Gavin Geweniger while also having 3-star defensive end Armel Mukam flip to Notre Dame. Adam Gorney shared some of his thoughts on that here. Gorney hasn't yet published his sting factor article on Mukam, but what I told him is that Stanford is actually doing pretty well in the department of landing defensive linemen as they have Cameron Brandt, Hunter Clegg, and Geweniger also on board. All three are ranked higher than Mukam, so that softens the blow for sure. Though of course, Stanford would still liked to have had him.
4-star tight end commit Walker Lyons also suffered a broken leg. He has had surgery and the break doesn't appear to be nearly as bad as initially feared. So his rehab appears to be off to as good of a start as he could expect/hope. I'm hoping to get something set up with him soon to see how he's doing.
n.rivals.com
As it stands, Stanford has 13 commits in the 2023 class and have the 36th best class in Rivals Team Recruiting Rankings.
As far as who else may join the 2023 class, 3-star offensive tackle Ethan Thomason (admitted) is still on the board. He told me recently he was down to do an interview. Just gotta hammer out a time, but he's very much looking in play. BYU being the biggest thread because he's LDS. I got a Future Cast in for him and I still feel confident in that, but it does seem like he's wanting to wait things out a bit and perhaps see how teams play over the fall.
3-star defensive tackle Elijah Hughes is a tough read right now. I don't know his admissions status. I'll check with him again over the weekend. It's possible he doesn't know. I've always felt if he got admitted he'd come just because he really seemed to self-recruit himself to Stanford.
3-star outside linebacker Asa Newsom has been admitted, but appears to be stretching things out as well. No firm timeline in place. He is a bit hard to read at the moment.
4-star inside linebacker Siale Esera is visiting for the BYU game at the end of the year. He'll be deciding much later. Presumably after the BYU game. So a late November/early December decision likely coming for him. Stanford does appear to sit in a good spot with him, though. It's a Stanford/BYU race, I feel. And Stanford usually seems to win against BYU, but every now and then, the Cougars find a way to win a battle, so this one is far from over.
4-star inside linebacker Leviticus Su'a is a tough one to read. I haven't gotten an answer on where things stand with his application. I asked him a little over a month ago and I just asked him again. I feel like Stanford is still in the race, but they got some work to do to pull him in assuming he has been admitted or will be.
And then 3-star outside linebacker Tre Williams is expecting to get his admission news any day now. I'll check with him early next week to see if he's heard back yet. I do think if he gets admitted, odds are good he comes because of his dad and everything.
So, those are the names still on the board in the 2023 class. If I happened to miss someone, comment below. Outside of seeing what those guys all do, the big thing to see is whether or not Stanford can flip a quarterback. I've messaged 3-star quarterback Emory Williams, who is currently committed to Miami (FL), but he hasn't been willing to share anything with me at this time. He's one quarterback who the staff appears to have at least tried to flip or make inroads with. It's unclear if they'll be successful in their flipping attempts with someone, but that's the other big thing that they should be working on right now.
Touching quickly on the 2024 class, I'll be messaging those guys about fall visits. So how that shakes out will tell us more about who Stanford is doing best with. That said, a few guys do jump out at the moment:
4-star running back Anthony Carrie recently retweeted something from Stanford, which is encouraging. I believe he's visiting Clemson this weekend. He tweeted out something that indicated that.
4-star wide receiver Dre'lon Miller was one of the first guys they contacted. He's a major target.
3-star offensive tackle Gibson Pyle was excited to announce that Stanford contacted him, so that's always nice to see.
3-star quarterback Austin Mack is a guy who I feel they have really good odds with. Folsom High School kid, keep that pipeline going.
4-star quarterback Elijah Brown is the other quarterback who they have offered. I'm sure Stanford would like to land both him and Mack in the same class. Especially if they can't flip anyone in 2023.
History tells us Stanford should have good odds with 4-star tight ends Christian Bentancur and Hogan Hansen since they've been doing a great job of pulling in quality tight ends with each cycle, it seems.
And then given how hard 2023 4-star cornerback/commit Jshawn Frausto-Ramos is recruiting his teammates to Stanford, I think one has to like Stanford's chances to land at least one of the two guys if not both: 4-star cornerback Marcelles Williams and 4-star inside linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa. Both guys visited Stanford in June.
Finally, not that this is exactly whittling things down, but Stanford did make the Top 20 for 4-star wide receiver Jonathan Paylor. So he's another name to keep an eye on in these early stages.
Football Recruiting - Football recruiting notes: August
Alrighty then! Time for the football...
stanford.forums.rivals.com
Starting today, coaches can start contacting 2024 recruits, so some of that has been highlighted already in the August thread. Basically, anyone who has an offer you can assume will be getting contacted by the staff during this period.
Something to look ahead to is fall visits as the home opener against Colgate is on Saturday. I will be reaching out to recruits before the game to see what their fall visit plans are/if they have any. I would imagine the Colgate game won't have too many visitors, but I would expect a large swath for USC. I'm getting a jump on that this weekend more for the USC game than the Colgate game, but it's possible there's guys who visit this weekend as well.
As far as how visitors will be tracked, one of the pinned threads has a link to the visitors list along with the offers and commits lists. So as visits come in, I'll add them in the thread as well as marking them in the database. So that will serve as a replacement for the visitors thread I set up last year. Makes it more clean and tidy.
August was a bit of a quiet month recruiting wise, but Stanford did add a 3-star defensive end in Gavin Geweniger while also having 3-star defensive end Armel Mukam flip to Notre Dame. Adam Gorney shared some of his thoughts on that here. Gorney hasn't yet published his sting factor article on Mukam, but what I told him is that Stanford is actually doing pretty well in the department of landing defensive linemen as they have Cameron Brandt, Hunter Clegg, and Geweniger also on board. All three are ranked higher than Mukam, so that softens the blow for sure. Though of course, Stanford would still liked to have had him.
4-star tight end commit Walker Lyons also suffered a broken leg. He has had surgery and the break doesn't appear to be nearly as bad as initially feared. So his rehab appears to be off to as good of a start as he could expect/hope. I'm hoping to get something set up with him soon to see how he's doing.
Rivals.com - Pac-12 Spotlight: Biggest decommitments of 2023 cycle
Utah looked like it landed a gem in Mississippi prospect Caleb Bryant, but the defensive tackle is back on the market.
n.rivals.com
As it stands, Stanford has 13 commits in the 2023 class and have the 36th best class in Rivals Team Recruiting Rankings.
As far as who else may join the 2023 class, 3-star offensive tackle Ethan Thomason (admitted) is still on the board. He told me recently he was down to do an interview. Just gotta hammer out a time, but he's very much looking in play. BYU being the biggest thread because he's LDS. I got a Future Cast in for him and I still feel confident in that, but it does seem like he's wanting to wait things out a bit and perhaps see how teams play over the fall.
3-star defensive tackle Elijah Hughes is a tough read right now. I don't know his admissions status. I'll check with him again over the weekend. It's possible he doesn't know. I've always felt if he got admitted he'd come just because he really seemed to self-recruit himself to Stanford.
3-star outside linebacker Asa Newsom has been admitted, but appears to be stretching things out as well. No firm timeline in place. He is a bit hard to read at the moment.
4-star inside linebacker Siale Esera is visiting for the BYU game at the end of the year. He'll be deciding much later. Presumably after the BYU game. So a late November/early December decision likely coming for him. Stanford does appear to sit in a good spot with him, though. It's a Stanford/BYU race, I feel. And Stanford usually seems to win against BYU, but every now and then, the Cougars find a way to win a battle, so this one is far from over.
4-star inside linebacker Leviticus Su'a is a tough one to read. I haven't gotten an answer on where things stand with his application. I asked him a little over a month ago and I just asked him again. I feel like Stanford is still in the race, but they got some work to do to pull him in assuming he has been admitted or will be.
And then 3-star outside linebacker Tre Williams is expecting to get his admission news any day now. I'll check with him early next week to see if he's heard back yet. I do think if he gets admitted, odds are good he comes because of his dad and everything.
So, those are the names still on the board in the 2023 class. If I happened to miss someone, comment below. Outside of seeing what those guys all do, the big thing to see is whether or not Stanford can flip a quarterback. I've messaged 3-star quarterback Emory Williams, who is currently committed to Miami (FL), but he hasn't been willing to share anything with me at this time. He's one quarterback who the staff appears to have at least tried to flip or make inroads with. It's unclear if they'll be successful in their flipping attempts with someone, but that's the other big thing that they should be working on right now.
Touching quickly on the 2024 class, I'll be messaging those guys about fall visits. So how that shakes out will tell us more about who Stanford is doing best with. That said, a few guys do jump out at the moment:
4-star running back Anthony Carrie recently retweeted something from Stanford, which is encouraging. I believe he's visiting Clemson this weekend. He tweeted out something that indicated that.
4-star wide receiver Dre'lon Miller was one of the first guys they contacted. He's a major target.
3-star offensive tackle Gibson Pyle was excited to announce that Stanford contacted him, so that's always nice to see.
3-star quarterback Austin Mack is a guy who I feel they have really good odds with. Folsom High School kid, keep that pipeline going.
4-star quarterback Elijah Brown is the other quarterback who they have offered. I'm sure Stanford would like to land both him and Mack in the same class. Especially if they can't flip anyone in 2023.
History tells us Stanford should have good odds with 4-star tight ends Christian Bentancur and Hogan Hansen since they've been doing a great job of pulling in quality tight ends with each cycle, it seems.
And then given how hard 2023 4-star cornerback/commit Jshawn Frausto-Ramos is recruiting his teammates to Stanford, I think one has to like Stanford's chances to land at least one of the two guys if not both: 4-star cornerback Marcelles Williams and 4-star inside linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa. Both guys visited Stanford in June.
Finally, not that this is exactly whittling things down, but Stanford did make the Top 20 for 4-star wide receiver Jonathan Paylor. So he's another name to keep an eye on in these early stages.
