As the confetti settled on the field of the 2016 Rose Bowl, likely my last game as a Stanford student and sports commenter, a bittersweet feeling began to wash over me as I reflected on the four football seasons I had seen on The Farm.
On one hand, I had witnessed a spectacular era of Stanford football that had seen three Rose Bowl appearances, two victories in Pasadena and god knows how many triumphs over ranked teams and championship hopefuls. I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me this would happen when I made my own decision to come to Stanford in May 2012, with Andrew Luck headed out the door and the team not having won a conference championship since I was five.
On the other hand, however, I felt like I had experienced little more than the warm-up. As lucky as I have been, it seems likely to me that the students in the years below me may witness even greater achievements at Stanford Stadium. It sounds crazy, but I think my era at Stanford might have come just too early to witness the peak.
Stanford will face a bit of a rebuilding job in the near future, to be sure. It’ll be hard to replace the experience of Kevin Hogan or the energy of Aziz Shittu. But it’s at least as hard to look at the guys slated to fill in the gaps and expect things to fall to pieces, or even take as big of a step back as the team did in the 2014 season.
For the first season in David Shaw’s five-year career, every player on the team will be someone that he personally recruited to come to The Farm. The graduation of Hogan, Devon Cajuste and the like officially ends Jim Harbaugh’s legacy at Stanford, and judging by the initial success of Shaw’s guys (the true sophomore who was the top second-best player in the country this year, for instance), those waiting in the wings are ready to put on a show.
Take quarterback Keller Chryst, for instance. Chryst was a top-level recruit out of high school, listed in virtually everyone’s top-100 list when he committed to Stanford in 2013. It doesn’t take an expert to look at his high school tape and see that he’s the real deal — he routinely hits receivers that half the current Power-5 starters would struggle to.
While the sample size of Chryst’s work at the collegiate level is considerably less expansive, it seems totally conceivable that he could not just fill the shoes of Hogan, but quickly become an upgrade in the pocket for the Cardinal. The sophomore probably could have started in his freshman year if he had to, and I think there’s a good chance he’ll be downright scary after taking his two years to become comfortable in Stanford’s system.
Shaw’s commits on the defensive end are still just beginning to reach the limelight as well. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Solomon Thomas next season, and can only imagine what players like Frank Buncom and Ben Edwards will add to the unit as they begin to see consistent playing time.
Of course, the talent of the individual players matters only insomuch as they can come together and form a team. This area, most of all, is where I expect Stanford’s advantage to shine through.
Christian McCaffrey will be the uncontested star, leader and playmaker of the Cardinal in 2015 – it’s a truly unique scenario to return a player of his caliber – and the rest of the team seems to have really taken his intensity to heart. Josh Garnett certainly wasn’t a model of stoicism in the locker room after the Rose Bowl, but you could tell he was serious when he talked about how he had been motivated above and beyond his normal level after he thought Iowa had been dismissive of his running back.
The chemistry should only improve next year as more players in McCaffrey’s class begin to make an impact on the team. Chryst and McCaffrey are literally roommates this year, for instance, so it’s hard to imagine there will be too many periods where they aren’t on the same page.
Therefore, as easy as it is to presume Stanford might step back next season after losing so many leaders, sleeping on the Cardinal in the upcoming season would be a huge mistake. Shaw has built his program to last, and, ultimately, that’s exactly what they’ll do.
Coincidentally, Andrew Mather submitted a very, very similar column to the one that Michael Peterson wrote a few days ago. Tell him to read what his peers write before he works on his own column at amather ‘at’ stanford.edu.