A look at Harbaugh's 2007 & 2008 recruiting classes
We've been talking about Coach Harbaugh's recruiting at Stanford of players who were not highly ranked (see Brian's recent post on the front page), and some of us have been worrying about his recent addition of non-four/five stars to the 2016 class. We know where Stanford ended up under Coach Harbaugh, but I thought it would be helpful to see where his players started and then ended their college careers as individuals.
Below is each player recruited by Coach Harbaugh in 2007 and 2008 (he inherited some kids in 2007 from the prior staff). I focused on those years because they were the years in which Stanford was still mostly mining two and three-star talent. In fact, Andrew Luck was the only consensus four-star player Stanford landed in those two years.
The star rankings you see below are from 247. The numerical rankings are from 247 as well.
You'll notice that I described each player's NFL career (where applicable), and I did that because I think it's a valuable bit of data, not because I think it tells the whole story of a player's college career. I also noted the player's highest honor as far as being all-conference or all-American. I did not note whether or not a player was all-conference for, say, two seasons or one. I also did not note personal awards such as the Maxwell Award.
For those who don't want to read about each player, the summary of what I found is this: Despite only having one consensus four-star, Stanford's 2007 and 2008 classes produced five first-team all-Americans, eight first-team all Pac Ten players, two second-team all Pac Ten players, and four honorable mention all Pac Ten players (note that I counted Owen Marecic as both a first-team all Pac Ten player, an award he won as a FB, and an honorable mention all Pac Ten player, an award he won as an LB). That strikes me as somewhere between "remarkable" and "probably the result of wizardry."
The individual players recruiting rankings and careers results are below (apologies for the spacing issues):
2007
RB Chike Amajoyi *** (0.8294 ) Part-time starter at LB and first-team all-conference special teams player (non-returner/non-kicker).
FB Owen Marecic **(0.7745) First-team all-conference at FB/honorable mention all-conference at ILB. 4th round draft pick.
TE Coby Fleener *** (0.8333) First-Team All-American at TE. Caught 96 passes for 1,543 yards in four seasons. 2nd round draft pick.
SDE Matthew Masifilo *** (0.8889 Honorable mention all-conference. Undrafted free agent who spent time on Tampa Bay’s roster.
QB Kellen Kiilsgaard *** (0.8833)(inherited from prior staff) Gave up football for baseball.
ILB Jonathan Frink *** (0.8778) Lost his career to persistent injuries. Still interested in the glavin and the…hey lady!
K David Green *** (0.8715)(inherited from prior staff) Won, lost, and won again the starting punting role, averaging 41.7 yards per punt his senior year.
WR Corey Gatewood ***(0.8558) Played WR and DB. Was on the Vikings roster very briefly as an undrafted free agent.
WR Doug Baldwin ** (0.7778) Second-team all-conference. Caught 96 passes in four years for 1,360 yards. Undrafted free agent currently plays for the Seahawks.
OT Brad Hallick *** (0.8463) Switched from OL to DL after an injury. Played very little. Has his own website. http://bradleyhallick.net/
WR Sean Wiser *** (0.8451)(inherited from prior staff) Switched to safety and had 60 tackles in 2008. He seems to have not played football anymore after that, but I can’t confirm that.
OT Tyler Mabry *** (0.8368)(inherited from prior staff) Seems to have been a career back-up.
QB L.D. Crow *** (0.8333)(inherited from prior staff) Transferred to UCF after not seeing game action in two seasons at Stanford.
OT George Halamandaris ***(0.8211)(inherited from prior staff) Appears to have been a career back-up.
RB Jeremy Stewart *** (0.8000) Rushed for a total of 920 yards in four seasons. Has been an NFL journeyman.
OG Matt Bentler ** (0.7889)(inherited from prior staff) Appears to have been a career back-up.
S Taylor Skaufel ** (0.7852) Recorded a total of 119 tackles in four years. Was a part-time starter.
SDE Thomas Keiser ** (0.7444) Honorable mention all-conference. Recorded a total of 31.5 TFL and 19.5 sacks in three seasons before declaring for the draft after his junior season. Has been an NFL journeyman and is now on an Arena League roster.
ILB Max Bergen ** (.7444) Appears to have been a career back-up.
2008
QB Andrew Luck **** (0.9768) You know the story.
OC David DeCastro *** (0.8847) Switched to guard. Unanimous All-American. First round draft pick.
WR Christopher Owusu *** (0.8708) First-team all-conference as kickoff returner. Caught 102 passes for 1,534 yards in four years. Returned three kickoffs for TDs. Briefly in the NFL.
OLB Chase Thomas *** (0.8641) All-American (first-team by default – The Sporting News didn’t name a second team). Recorded 50.5 TFLs and 27.5 sacks in four seasons. NFL journeyman.
OT Jonathan Martin *** (0.8620) First-Team All-American. Second round draft pick.
OLB Fred Craig *** (0.8620) Transferred to Penn after one season at Stanford.
ATH Michael Thomas *** (0.8484) Became an honorable mention all-conference DB. Currently a Dolphin after being signed as an undrafted free agent.
ATH Harold Bernard *** (0.8451) Apparently a career back-up at DB.
CB Quinn Evans *** (0.8315) Transferred to Northwestern after two seasons as a back-up at Stanford.
OG Sam Schwartzstein *** (0.8273) Second-team all-conference. Briefly in the NFL.
DT Padric Scott *** (0.8093) Transferred to Florida A&M. Briefly in the NFL. Now in the CFL.
CB Marcus Turner *** (0.8042) Transferred to the Univ. of San Diego.
OLB Alex Debniak ** (0.7556) Recorded 56 tackles in four seasons.
K Daniel Zychlinski ** (0.7333) Started at punter his senior season with a 43.1 yards per punt average.
CB Johnson Bademosi ** (0.7333) Started at CB his senior year. Recorded 122 tackles total and 16 total passes defensed in four seasons.
WR Griff Whalen - no stars and no numerical ranking (he was apparently preferred a walk-on ) – Caught 80 passes for 1,058 yards in four seasons.
RB Delano Howell *** (0.8877) Began his career at RB and played there a bit before becoming a first-team all-conference safety. Briefly in the NFL.
Three-star h.s. player and college All-American Jonathan Martin
Chance of becoming an All-American as a three-star recruit, nationally: 1.8%.*
Chance of becoming an All-American as a three-star Stanford player from 2007-2008: 16%.
Harbaugh.
*per CBS: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/216417…
Wow. 16% is the chance of a top 100 player becoming an All-American.
So every 3 star Harbaugh recruits is the functional equivalent of a top 100 player. Our class suddenly looks a lot different.
...and if you don't consider the recruits he inherited from the previous staff, that number goes up. 4/19=21% if I'm counting correctly. edit: I did not count correctly the first time, but it still goes up.
Nice work. Just fyi how did you deterrmine an All American? The AP is the traditional one but per Wikipedia there are currently 5 organizations who do it. Only reason I know this is when I researched some people (for a totally different reason) I noticed some people named to 3 All American teams so I never knew there was more than one.
Either way it's a good thing and I will point out his position coaches as key. Harbaugh is evaluating them just as he does players. If they stink they dont get grandfathered into a progrram or shuffled to another position area. They will be asked to leave. More importantly - like Urban - he can identify good position coaches (so he doesn't have to ask them to leave) more often than not. So he has a nice coaching tree already working at both the NCAA and NFL levels. Very different then the Carr legacy in that regard - when someday Jim leaves there are going to be a ton of guys to choose from that will be in Harbaugh's coaching tree.
One of the main reasons I was so happy with Drevno was Martin and DeCastro.
And Harbaugh definitely helped to develop them, but he didn't recruit them, so they're irrelevant with regards to his eye for talent.
Wow. If he can get some of the top 4-5 star guys this year, watch out. The three stars will be just as good if not better. In Harbaugh we trust.
This makes me feel much better about this year's class. I was starting to get frustrated that no big chips have fallen yet, but I guess I'll just have to be patient.
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