Where There Is Love, There Is Life For Stanford
It was very obvious a year ago that Stanford would go as far as running back Bryce Love could take them. The 5-foot-10, 196-pounder battled an ankle injury but still managed to rush for 2,118 yards and 19 touchdowns in 2017.
Notre Dame and the Pac-12 thought they were done seeing Love, but then he decided to return for his senior season.
Stanford head coach David Shaw admitted he wasn’t surprised his star player returned to school as academics played a significant factor in Love’s decision.
“I wouldn't have been surprised either way because both had legitimate arguments for him to leave or come back,” explained Shaw at Pac-12 Media Day. “In my heart of hearts, if I had to guess what he would have done, I would have guessed that he would have come back, just knowing what goals he has both in football and out of football.
“I know he wanted to get stronger and be a little thicker, more prepared physically for the pounding of the NFL, and at the same time, I know what he wants to do off the field in his desire to go to medical school. He's ahead, way ahead academically to the point where he's got a chance to graduate the fall quarter of his senior year, which is amazing to be in human biology at Stanford University and graduate two quarters early while playing football. That's amazing. I know he takes both of those very seriously.”
Shaw didn’t necessarily recruit Love back to Palo Alto, but he presented information about each side of the decision.
“He's got great people,” stated Shaw. “Great counsel, people to talk to, both in our building with Coach (Ron) Gould, our running backs coach, has been around a lot of great running backs and could guide him there. For me, having conversations with multiple guys, guys that have left, guys that have come back, his family. But even having his friends, a guy like Christian McCaffrey to bounce ideas off of: ‘What do you think about this? What would you do? What did you think when you went through this process?’
“He had a lot of people to pull off of. He's a Stanford man, and he used all of his resources and waited up until the last possible moment to make the decision. I wasn't completely surprised, but he made a decision he thought was best for him in football and out of football.”
One of Love’s best qualities is his persistence. Notre Dame bottled Love up for most of the game last November, but a few timely big runs broke the game open. The Irish weren’t the only victim of Love as he seemed to do it each week.
“I wish I could explain it,” said Shaw. “I have no idea. You never know when those plays are going to happen. The funny thing with him is you get to the point you know it's going to happen at some point, so we don't worry about the three- and four-yard games with him. At some point, he's going to break one.
“What is unique about Bryce is a lot of those big runs, they're not untouched runs. They are runs where he has to break a tackle, make a guy miss, and then his acceleration. I don't know that I've seen live, on the field, an acceleration like that.
“Some of you remember Rocket Ismail from Notre Dame. I have not seen a guy in three or four steps get to full speed like Bryce since ‘The Rocket.’”
Love’s return was the No. 1 storyline of Stanford’s offseason, but a close No. 2 would be the quarterback situation, which wasn’t a positive for the Cardinal.
Starting quarterback, KJ Costello missed the entire spring due to an unspecified injury. Stanford’s other scholarship quarterback, Davis Mills, missed the spring due to a knee injury.
Keller Chryst, who started the 2017 season, used the graduate transfer rule and made his way to Knoxville.
“Over the summer I get the injury reports to see where guys are, and we're getting healthier,” said Shaw. “We’ll still start camp with a couple guys that are limited, which is fine. However, it looks like we'll be full-go by the time we started playing. KJ is going to be ready for day one to participate, which is great. I think Davis Mills may be a little bit after that.
“Those guys missed a lot of time. But at the same time, kind of forced them to watch again and use our virtual reality and put themselves in those seven on sevens and some of those scene periods. So this is a good time to step back, watch and learn, and hopefully, they get a lot of reps this summer.”
Whoever starts at quarterback for Stanford will have plenty of weapons available to them on the outside. JJ Arcega-Whiteside returns with his 48 receptions for 781 yards and nine touchdowns along with Trent Irwin, who recorded 43 catches for 461 yards and two scores.
However, it might come as a shock to some, but tight end Kaden Smith has Shaw’s eye heading into the training camp. The 6-foot-5, 250-pounder snatched 23 catches for 414 yards an five touchdowns as a freshman in 2017.
“Kaden Smith really had a couple games last year that were outstanding,” stated Shaw. “We think he's going to have another breakout year as well, as well as K.J. Costello.”
On the defensive side of the ball, redshirt sophomore Jovann Swann had a solid 2017 with 23 tackles, and 2.5 tackles for loss and Shaw believes he’s ready to take the next step.
“We have a group of guys that I'm very, very excited about that have been kind of under the radar,” Shaw explained. “The top of that list for me is Jovan Swann on the defensive line, who played on and off last year, and this off-season for him, he's grown so much. He's so explosive and so strong and excited about kind of being the guy in our front right now.”
When it comes to recruiting, the new rules have expedited the recruiting process as prospects can take spring official visits and sign in December. Stanford didn’t let prospects take official visits this spring as it’s clear Shaw is against the rule changes.
“I am not in favor of anything we do in recruiting that pushes it earlier and makes it faster,” explained Shaw. “I think we're putting undue pressure on teenagers. We're mounting pressure on these young people in an era where there is too much pressure on them as it is.
“I am not in favor of any of it now. It didn't affect us very much last year. We signed the majority of our team in December. There are going to be certain guys that we're going to have to see another test score on or see more grades or first semester grades, and some of those guys are going to have to make tough decisions. Do I wait for Stanford to see if I get admitted, because it's not a guarantee, or do I take the bird in the hand?”
It’s been well documented that Stanford’s admission process takes longer than most programs and it put the program behind the 8-ball prior to the new rules. Shaw knows it’s an uphill battle, but he also felt the kids that genuinely wanted to be at Stanford will wait it out.
“We've had some guys choose one way, and some guys choose the other,” Shaw said. “So it does put us in a difficult position. For the most part, though, those guys that are pursuing us, not just those we're pursuing, it's worth it to them to say hold on to those other schools and see if they can get admitted. If it happens after the September timeframe, then it happens after.
“We had a few guys that didn't cave to the pressure and said: I'm going to wait to see what my Stanford admissions is before I make my decision.”
Shaw also discussed the number of offers going out to prospects from programs. Stanford doesn’t offer a ton of kids, while other programs are offering 300-400 kids each cycle.
“They're not real offers,” Shaw stated. “If you've got 20 spots and you offer 300 kids, what have you done? I still don't know. I don't understand it. That tells me that 280 of those kids can't commit, so it's not a real offer. What have we actually done?
“So now comes the difficult conversation. I have all these other offers. And I say, ‘Are they real offers? Because those other schools have offered 299 other guys. Are you sure that's a real offer?’
“But I don't like to over offer, because every offer from me is a real Stanford offer that a young man can commit to. So if I have 18 spots, I'm not going to offer 40 guys, you know? We might offer a little over 18 because there are a lot of guys that have to do some academic work that are maybe not quite there yet. But to offer five, ten, twenty times the number of scholarships that we have, it's asinine.”