On Signing Day, head coaches get to talk to the media, get to take most (if not all) of the credit for putting together their class and are judged by how their class turns out.
But hitting the road to find those future stars is a big job for the assistant coaches, and no one did a better job this year than
Stanford recruiting coordinator Lance Anderson.
The way Stanford recruited this year was national and truly a team effort.
They went throughout the country and recruited better than Stanford ever has.
The Cardinal lost a key recruiter down the stretch too, yet still pulled
in an elite class.
It was that effort that Anderson is named as Scout/FOXSportsNext's 2012 Recruiter of the Year.
The Cardinal had tremendous help from Mike Sanford in the Midlands, especially
with Barry Sanders Jr., from Ron Crook and Mike Bloomgren on the offensive line
(and the nation's best offensive line class), to Randy Hart, particularly with
five-star Joshua Garnett.
And Anderson led the efforts on Noor Davis, Andrus Peat, Aziz Shittu, Brandon
Fanaika, Blake Martinez, Zach Hoffpauir and Luke Kaumatule.
In a year the Cardinal say goodbye to Andrew Luck, head coach David Shaw and his
staff, spearheaded by Anderson, brought in the #6 class nationally by Scout.com
and the #1 class in the Pac-12.
Here are the 2012 Scout/FOXSportsNext Conference Recruiters of the Year:
ACC: Dameyune Craig, Florida State
Big East: Daron Roberts/Robert Gillespie, West Virginia
Big Ten: Greg Mattison, Michigan
Big Twelve: Robert Prunty, Texas Tech
Conference USA: Zac Spavital, Houston
MAC: Jason Candle, Toledo
Mountain West: Tony White, San Diego State
Pac-12: Demetrice Martin, UCLA
SEC: Jeremy Pruitt, Alabama
Sun Belt: Ray Woodie, Western Kentucky
WAC: Jason Gesser, Idaho
Independents: Mike Elston, Notre Dame