There must be something that can catch football coach David Shaw off guard, but it's not success. In the aftermath of the New Year's Day 20-14 win over Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl—the Cardinal's fourth straight bowl appearance—he was quickly confronted with the nuisances bred by triumph. And he was prepared.
Opportunities abounded for Stanford's best performers after a 12-win season that included a road upset of No. 1-ranked Oregon. Shaw's offensive coordinator, Pep Hamilton, departed for a high-profile job in the NFL. Three significant players with remaining eligibility also left to pursue NFL careers: tight ends Zach Ertz and Levine Toilolo and cornerback Terrence Brown, all seniors. While they were making their decisions—along with notable players who decided to stay, including linebackers Shayne Skov and Trent Murphy, both seniors—the team was in flux. Just not flummoxed.
Shaw, '94, promoted Mike Bloomgren, the offensive line and run-game coordinator, to offensive coordinator, saying, "He was the only choice. We didn't interview anybody else, and we didn't want to interview anybody else." As much of a compliment as that was to Bloomgren, it also was a statement about the continuity and depth that Shaw and his predecessor, Jim Harbaugh, have built into the team's DNA.
Shaw notes that he constructs his staff with attention to every layer of it, every year. "It's the reason why we're very meticulous about hiring, down to the youngest interns and the graduate assistants. These guys aren't just treading water, they're learning."
Indeed, when Hamilton exited—to be offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts and once again coach quarterback Andrew Luck, '12—the sequence of changes in assistant coaching duties reached down to Tavita Pritchard, '09, Luck's backup in 2009 and a volunteer coaching assistant in 2010. Now, as running backs coach Mike Sanford shifts to mentoring the quarterbacks and receivers, Pritchard jumps from a fledgling defensive assistant to overseeing the runners. Shaw proclaimed him "one of the brightest young coaches I have ever been around."
More mundane, perhaps, is foresight in player depth, something basic to most football teams' recruiting and coaching strategies. Still, Shaw pointed to the game experience accumulated in backup roles by returning cornerbacks Wayne Lyons, '15, and Barry Browning, '14, as another example of readiness, now highlighted by the need to replace Brown, who started all 14 games.
All well and good. But over time, given the myriad and constant demands of both administering and coaching an increasingly elite program, can Shaw really devote any consistent planning to personnel changes that may or may not materialize? The answer is immediate: "Yes, always."
