When Coach Jim Harbaugh arrived at Stanford last decade he set out to establish a culture of toughness and strength along Stanford's offensive line and defensive front 7. To say he succeeded would be a massive understatement. Stanford football has become the toughest, strongest team in the Pac 12 since around the beginning of this decade. The resurgence began in earnest in 2008 when offensive linemen Ben Muth appeared on the Pac 12 all conference team and Alex Fletcher appeared on the 2nd team. From 2008 - 2013 Stanford landed 10 offensive linemen and defensive front 7 players (big men) on the Pac 12 all conference team. An additional 6 players made the 2nd team. I am not doublecounting players who appeared more than once (and there are many), but only counting individuals that made it at least once. This is a record of dominance to be admired, even moreso considering the average Rivals recruiting ranking of these 16 players is exactly 3.0 stars (two 2-stars and two 4-stars). These players were considered average D1 players coming out of high school but at Stanford were transformed into all conference elite players.

You would expect a record of Pac 12 big men dominance like what Stanford achieved to leave a large and lasting impact on the NFL. The Pac 12 is a power 5 conference and every years sends its best players into the NFL via the draft. At the start of 2015 the NFL had 220 players that came from the Pac 12. But of those 16 1st and 2nd team all conference big men from Stanford only 1 has made a lasting impact in The League (David Decastro). In fact, 11 of the 16 all Pac 12 conference players did not stick in the NFL for any material amount of time at all. The 16 players can be grouped into 3 categories:

Impactful Starter - 1 - David DeCastro
Rosterable - 4 - I included Jonathan Martin in this category which is debatable. I don't plan on getting into his situation here. Also included are Trent Murphy, Sione Fua, and Cameron Fleming.
Non Rosterable - 11 players

And the NFL has been nearly perfect in their evaluations of these Stanford players likelihood of being able to continue to perform at a high level in the NFL. Only 1 player was drafted in the 1st round (David DeCastro). The 4 rosterable players were drafted in the 2nd - 4th rounds. 2 non-rosterable players were drafted in the 5th - 7th rounds while 9 all Pac 12 performers (56%) were not drafted and did not gain any traction in the NFL. An amazing display of analysis by NFL draft scouts.

For some reason Stanford big men have failed miserably at the next level. For comparison, Cal has had much, much less success than Stanford since 2008 and only landed 11 big men on all conference teams in the equivalent period. However, of those 11, there are 5 impactful starters in the NFL (Tyson Alualu, Alex Mack, Mychal Kendricks, Mitchell Schwartz, and Cameron Jordan). That is, 45% of Cal big men all conference performers have made their mark in the NFL while only 6% of Stanford players have. Stanford has managed to take average D1 recruits and make them perform at elite levels while in college, but then as soon as they leave Stanford they are unable to continue their level of performance in professional football. How does Stanford do it?

The 16 Stanford players:
David Decastro
Jonathan Martin
Trent Murphy
Sione Fua
Cameron Fleming
Chris Marinelli
Chase Beeler
Chase Thomas
David Yankey
Ben Gardner - noted for gaining 40 pounds of muscle in one offseason
Cheap shot artist, Shayne Skov
Alex Fletcher - kidney illness
Kevin Danser
Sam Schwartzstein
Khalil Wilkes

Easy explanation; they're pussies.

NYCGOBEARS;842645832 said:

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Easy explanation; they're pussies.

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Exactly

Winning at this level yep but development of NFL professionals not so much I been saying this for years

PEDs?

The reverse of JT/Cal days interesting

NYCGOBEARS;842645832 said:

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Easy explanation; they're pussies.

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Word. Call my mommy cause the other guys are mean to me.

ryananderin;842645835 said:

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PEDs?

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Hey it's a reason their s/C coach turns down NFl money year after year

Add Alualu?

ShareBear;842645848 said:

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Add Alualu?

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Thanks and edited to correct. I spent a lot more time reviewing the Stanford players than I did the Cal players.

NYCGOBEARS;842645832 said:

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Easy explanation; they're pussies.

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Get 'em outside the furd bubble, where everything is set up to coddle them, and they fall apart.

510Bear;842645857 said:

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Get 'em outside the furd bubble, where everything is set up to coddle them, and they fall apart.

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Kinda true it fits

On the flip side, NFL success also meant our teams under performed?

Part of the pussies stuff is once furd players leave the farm they miss the coddling and people opening doors for them.

Underperforming or lack of quality depth? I think it's the later. Football gods please give us a coach who can bring us to the promised land, either way.

They also had to leave "The Glove" behind.

Something not right but hey

ryananderin;842645835 said:

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PEDs?

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Entirely this. Amazing **** they are producing on campus. It would be interesting to see if any of these coddled robots have been making frequent trips back to the "farm" to continue getting the same stuff ...

UrsusTexicanus;842645880 said:

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They also had to leave "The Glove" behind.

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It's cause everyone in the league has the glove

Glove is a funny name for steroids

dajo9;842645827 said:

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... analysis by dajo9 ...

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Great work dajo9. This by itself does not automatically mean that Stanford is using PEDs, but it's yet another data point they are doing *something*, perhaps even entirely legal (glove, amazing S&C, very well-organized legal supplement program) that is so far above what Cal and most other college teams do, and yet equalizes or even goes the other way as soon as these same players scatter to different NFL teams with ostensibly no more competitive advantage than their competition.

I wish they were pussies as NYCGB says, but they really have not been pussies in the slightest, at least in college. They have routinely kicked almost everyone's butts up and down the field in college for the last several seasons, with very few exceptions, a radical departure from prior years.

I would be very interested to follow the careers of Michigan's "big men" and see if a similar pattern holds true. Amazingly, even in the pros, Harbaugh's 49er teams, with almost the same personnel, almost instantly appeared stronger and tougher to a startling extent. It's something that's easy to want to subconsciously deny and explain away if you are one of the few hundred dedicated Stanford fans or few hundred thousand dedicated 49er fans because you naturally take pride in your team's successes. So there will naturally be all kinds of deflection and talk that other teams also use PEDs (likely true in many cases, especially in the NFL), and that the massive delta is all due to totally legal and awesome S&C and football coaching execution at the Farm (and maybe now at Michigan). Maybe.

Or it could be a giant, sustained outlying data point with no explanation (...). Or it could be The Glove. Or access to the very best quality PED products and organized execution of training in close concert with PED usage. Or again just that Stanford players are just God's Gift to football and S&C (since 2007 only). Or something.

The Furd has proprietary use of The Glove?
Or special connection to Stanford Hospital?
So many stories of impossible growth and
workout patterns~

I still think it's the coddling at Furd. Cal guys make it to the NFL in high numbers and many think it's the sink or swim mentality that preps them (or anyone) for the next steps in life. At Cal you're hungry...at Furd you're fed until you're fat.

You can take the kid out of the wealthy entitled suburbs, but....

I remember in the late 80s - early 90s there were some roided up freaks of nature who owned college football, but were spectacular failures in the NFL. I'm thinking of Tony Mandarich and Steve Emtman to name a few.

Juicing helps you build up ridiculous amounts of muscle, but the strain on your ligaments is just too much when subjected to NFL contact.

Kendricks, and OLB, goes into the big man's equation?

Apparently Peyton Manning's wife has a furd connection.

LOL

Seriously. It is well documented that furd developed a state of the art conditioning program that uses supplements/nutrition but also has refined the strength part so that the players are strengthening the specific muscles they use to play their position. Now they are also developing a state of the art virtual reality system to help players walk through their plays and experience success.

The S/C program was developed in partnership with the medical school.

Here's the thing folks. Furd isn't doing anything that Cal couldn't do. But culturally Cal professors do not generally want to help the football program. That's on Cal.
Instead of accusing furd, accuse Cal, because Cal is the problem with Cal, not furd.

It is true that Cal does not have a medical school, but the engineering school could help with state of the art equipment etc.

Anyway, it makes sense that players who have a great advantage at a school would lose it when going to the NFL.
This tends to be the case at USC as well, although they have many NFL success stories.

One reason why I think Cal players tend to excel in the NFL is precisely because it is so tough at Cal. The toughness necessary to balance school and sports at Cal generates a type of character advantage for Cal players in the NFL. They have a good work ethic and good character, two things that resonate with NFL teams.

Also Cal players may be a bit better than would be indicated by their on field performance at Cal purely because they can't focus on football as much as they might at a school less academically demanding.

Once they get to the NFL, they can focus full time on football.

beelzebear;842645951 said:

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I still think it's the coddling at Furd. Cal guys make it to the NFL in high numbers and many think it's the sink or swim mentality that preps them (or anyone) for the next steps in life. At Cal you're hungry...at Furd you're fed until you're fat.

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As far as I'm concerned, you and OneKeg are both right. Furd has accomplished something truly remarkable....out of all the teams that have kicked butt on the field, they're the only one who still wear "coddled" label and wear it deservedly. Their great results don't negate the ridiculous advantages they have, from the university's culture, to grade inflation, to sugar daddies like Arillaga, to PEDs and the glove. Their players' NFL performance compared to ours says a lot.

Someone should send this to peeler so he can share with recruits

510Bear;842646061 said:

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As far as I'm concerned, you and OneKeg are both right. Furd has accomplished something truly remarkable....out of all the teams that have kicked butt on the field, they're the only one who still wear "coddled" label and wear it deservedly. Their great results don't negate the ridiculous advantages they have, from the university's culture, to grade inflation, to sugar daddies like Arillaga, to PEDs and the glove. Their players' NFL performance compared to ours says a lot.

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I'm still hammering those damn Furds for the 24-hours before finals class drop! I know that's over but that to me was always the epitome of the famous "Furd way". Who the hell gets to drop a class 24 hours before the final? That's corrupt and weak. That is for pussies and so absurd they had to drop it after years of mockery.

beelzebear;842646084 said:

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I'm still hammering those damn Furds for the 24-hours before finals class drop! I know that's over but that to me was always the epitome of the famous "Furd way". Who the hell gets to drop a class 24 hours before the final? That's corrupt and weak. That is for pussies and so absurd they had to drop it after years of mockery.

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TBH I really don't get why so many people think the furd way is smart and that Cal's "sink-or-swim" culture is not. Maybe it's all in the execution, or maybe the idea that college should coddle you has become very mainstream and entrenched.

No Pac-12 refs to help them in the NFL.

calumnus;842646179 said:

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No Pac-12 refs to help them in the NFL.

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Great point

Thank goodness that their ex players aren't doing well in the NFL. That means we'll beat them sooner than later.

Yep

So you can't drop the class right before the final anymore?? When did that stop? I always thought it was the most ridiculous thing any student had to his or her advantage ....