The Blue Board

It'll be a small class but yeah, they probably end up with Durham Smythe, maybe Thomas Oser, still could get Isaac Savaiinaea. Plenty of moves still to be made but they're probably looking at 14 commits tops.

Thought it was interesting the way they looked at camps. Not just as an evaluation. They look at it as practice too.

Interesting numbers in terms of players signed. David Shaw would be my #1 choice to replace Saban if/when he retires. However, I have a feeling Shaw will be in the NFL before then.

I don't find this to be too much of a secret. They get smart kids that are tough. Most of those types of kids are not true 5 stars. I've always said the Duke secret for years was getting kids that just weren't good enough to skip early and enter the draft. They had the one fallout, but after that, guys that can stay four years in the program like Singler and the Plumlee brothers bodes well for development and team structure. You get that bond that others don't have....

Ah..the Cal Berkeley spin. Come now, you and I both know our universities (Cal and USC) recruit and bring on kids that would never sniff our universities based on academic merit alone. Stanford draws from the smallest pool of recruits in the country - more selective than Notre Dame and Vanderbilt, yet they field a tough and disciplined team.

True, once they get there, the school makes sure their athletes graduate, and remain eligible.

Of all the football programs in the country, Stanford is by a great margin, the most impressive. Everyone else will bring in the barely literate to field a competitive team...but to do what Stanford has done, is simply amazing. They deserve the respect without us belittling those accomplishments.

Stanford fielding a top 10 football team, is equivalent to Harvard, Princeton or Yale, etc., fielding an impressive team. They're in that same rarefied academic air as those universities.

Kudos to them, I would rather they be the goal to aspire to than any other program in the country....

While I agree that Stanford academics are impressive, they're not to Princeton's caliber. We're talking one the best schools in the WORLD. BTW, Princeton when Carrill was there was a monster when it came to tourney time year in and year out. Ask UCLA and Georgetown.

amaker has Harvard in a spot this year. Not a good first round draw....

A lot. He had good players, but they believed in the system. Wilfork, Milloy, Samuels, etc.... He got guys to buy in for less to compliment the system. Smart. You want a ring? Come here... but he still had some studs.

Look at the top schools in the country. Princeton, Harvard and Yale are in the top 6. Stanford, no. Is it a great school? Yes. Its not Princeton. And it's not even close.

Stanford is ranked academically in the top 5-6, every year...where are you from? They are a true academic "blue blood".

Looking at the ranking and Duke is 7. They're the number 1 school in the country year in and year out for the past 28 years in hoops. Amaker and Dawkins got it going there and they never fell off, but one year when K left for medical reasons.

Princeton, Yale and Harvard are atop almost every single year. Stanford is a GREAT school, but it's not Princeton great. Just because they're behind only a couple spots doesn't mean they're that close. The gap is larger than you think. Look at SAT enrollees scores for proof and acceptance rate.

according to Forbes magazine, yale and harvard are fine schools, but not as great as stanford

I was shocked they were so small enrollment wise... I thought they were much larger.