At 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Henry Anderson sent in his letter of intent to play football at Stanford University. With that short note, national signing day had begun. By its end, 22 players had pledged their allegiance to the Cardinal, laying the foundation for a recruiting class that head coach Jim Harbaugh

called, “the best we’ve had in the three years I’ve been here.”

“It’s neat to gather up this group and bring them to Stanford,” Harbaugh said. “This has been a lifelong ambition for many of them. A lot of effort has been put in by these youngsters, their parents and their teachers.”

While the Cardinal did not land a five-star recruit in 2010 (unlike the previous two years, when the team signed linebacker Shayne Skov and quarterback Andrew Luck), they were still able to add gems like Blake Lueders, a linebacker from Indiana who made a late switch from Notre Dame to Stanford.

“He’s by far the most physical of the linebacker recruits,” Harbaugh said. “He’s a true middle linebacker, a Brian Urlacher-type. He’s a guy who can shed blocks and go sideline-to-sideline.”

Recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach Lance Anderson said that the battle for Lueders was the toughest of the cycle.

“He first came out here as a sophomore,” he said. “Even when he committed to Notre Dame, we didn’t give up.”

Lueders is one of the many true freshmen that will likely be asked to contribute immediately, be it on special teams, in a reserve role or possibly as a starter.

“Probably more [kids will play right away] than last year,” Harbaugh said.

In particular, he identified linebacker Cleophus Robinson as an immediate special teamer, athlete Darren Daniel as a do-it-all offensive player, and Anthony Wilkerson and Ricky Seale as members of the running back rotation.

“[Wilkerson] is one of the best backs in the country,” Harbaugh said. “I expect Anthony to be much like Stepfan [Taylor] and Tyler [Gaffney] were this year.”

In general, Harbaugh was pleased with the Cardinal’s ability to address positions of “cardiac need,” such as linebacker, the offensive line and the defensive backfield.

In addition to Lueders and Robinson, the staff added two other members to the linebacking corps — Joe Hemschoot, a 16-year-old late bloomer with, according to Harbaugh, “tremendous athleticism that jumps off the tape at you,” and A.J. Tarpley, the Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year.

The defensive backfield saw the addition of safeties Devon Carrington — “a big hitter” — and Ed Reynolds, as well as more amorphous players like Barry Browning and Keanu Nelson.

But while Harbaugh specifically targeted defense, his weakest unit last season, he and his staff were also able to add to the offense, where they landed two four-star quarterbacks in Dallas Lloyd, whom Harbaugh compared to Steve Young (Lloyd will take a mission and not enroll in the fall), and Brett Nottingham, a late switch from UCLA.

With the accurate Nottingham and mobile Lloyd, Harbaugh has continued his tradition of adding high-quality passers to the Stanford roster, a stark contrast from the mid-2000s, when his predecessors struggled to land any quarterbacks at all. When asked if he was building the newest incarnation of “Quarterback U,” Harbaugh responded, “We seem to be.”

At the other offensive positions, the Cardinal reversed its actions from 2009. Instead of keying in on a number of wide receivers and tight ends, and not as many linemen, the team brought in a number of tackles and guards while only adding a couple of receivers — and even then, the lone remaining player to sign a letter of intent, wideout Jarrod West, is still waiting on admissions notice.

“The [offensive] line was addressed very nicely for the Stanford Cardinal,” Harbaugh said. “We call this group the ‘War Daddies.’ They will fit right in with the Tunnel Workers Union” — the existing line’s moniker.

Anderson was particularly excited about Dillon Bonnell, who, despite injuries that limited his production during his senior year, was a force when on the field, and was recruited heavily as a result.

“When he did play, he was great,” Anderson said.

Of course, it was not all roses for the Cardinal. Stanford lost three highly-rated recruits in the past four days alone. Running back Brandon Bourbon defected to Kansas, in a move Anderson called “surprising.” Cornerback Louis Young, one of Stanford’s top commits throughout the cycle, was not admitted, and will instead attend Georgia Tech. And in perhaps the most crushing blow, four-star linebacker Jordan Zumwalt, a prized player who began looking at other schools a few weeks ago, is now headed to UCLA. His decision, made Wednesday, was so abrupt that he was included in early drafts of Stanford’s press releases.

“You get disappointments, and that certainly was one,” Harbaugh said of Zumwalt. “With that said, we won’t have another thought about him.”

The emphasis, as it always is for Harbaugh, was on recruiting team-oriented players who can qualify academically. This inherently limits the pool of players Stanford can target, yet the University’s prestige can also work to the staff’s benefit. Anderson, for example, said that nearly every recruit met with Condoleezza Rice. And indeed, Harbaugh was quick to note the academic success of his newest players. Hemschoot is a concert violinist; Lueders had “straight A’s across the board.”

“If they’ve been wired to be a youngster who wants to achieve as much as they possibly can in the classroom and on the playing field, [the University] helps us a great deal,” Harbaugh said. “To the youngster who is all about football only, and treats school as only ‘the easiest classes I can take’, and isn’t concerned with what degree they get, if any, then Stanford isn’t the right place for them.”

But for those who match Harbaugh’s zeal, there is a spot for them. The notoriously ever-eager coach, rarely nostalgic in public, harkened back to his own days as a quarterback recruit in the early 1980s.

“They had that enthusiasm and energy that I remembered having when I was making my college decision,” he said.

Which, if the feeling can translate to the collegiate football field, bodes well for the Cardinal’s future.