Finally, It’s Taylor’s Time in Stanford Spotlight at LinesMaker

Finally, It’s Taylor’s Time in Stanford Spotlight

STANFORD, Calif. – Step­fan Taylor’s team­mates call him the country’s qui­etest 1,000-yard rusher. Over­shad­owed and under­ap­pre­ci­ated might fit just as well, too.

Of course, that tends to hap­pen when some­one has been play­ing in the same back­field as the last three Heis­man Tro­phy runners-up.

With Andrew Luck and Toby Ger­hart gone, Taylor’s time in the Stan­ford spot­light starts this spring. The senior, aim­ing for his third straight year with at least 1,000 yards rush­ing, could be one of the keys to hold­ing together a recon­structed Car­di­nal offense that – in case every­body for­got while No. 12 was toss­ing passes– prides itself on being a phys­i­cal, run-first team.

“If any­body could get 1,000 yards qui­etly, it’s Step­fan,” said quar­ter­back Brett Not­ting­ham, who knows a thing or two about being over­looked after play­ing behind Luck last sea­son. “I joke about that with guys. He’s so unas­sum­ing, just like Andrew was. But peo­ple for­get how good Step­fan is.

“He’s a guy who never makes a mis­take. You can’t find any flaws in his game. He’s not always the flashiest, but he does every­thing above aver­age. He’s the most con­sis­tent guy.”

Talk to any­body else at Stan­ford, and they’ll say Tay­lor has been just that – con­sis­tent– for almost four years now.

Not that any­body has really noticed.

While Luck became the face of col­lege foot­ball last sea­son, all Tay­lor did was run for 1,363 yards and 10 touch­downs. He has aver­aged more than 5 yards per carry over his career– the kind of mark the usu­ally makes NFL scouts sali­vate– and also had 25 catches for 182 yards and two TDs a sea­son ago; he only fum­bled once.

If not for split­ting time with three other run­ning backs in Stanford’s com­plex sys­tem, his coaches believe he could’ve topped that elu­sive 2,000-yard mile­stone. Or at the very least come close.

The Car­di­nal racked up 2,738 yards rush­ing last sea­son– 99 yards shy of the school record set behind Ger­hart in 2009– and shat­tered the program’s single-game mark with 446 yards rush­ing in a win against Wash­ing­ton. With another grand on the ground next sea­son, Tay­lor could join Dar­rin Nel­son as the only Stan­ford run­ning back with three years of at least 1,000 yards rushing.

Maybe then, that might turn a head or two.

“He knows right now in his heart he’s as good as any run­ning back in the nation, and he wants to prove that,” Stan­ford coach David Shaw said. “He’s the guy who does every­thing right. He’s the guy who picks up every pass pro­tec­tion. He doesn’t do it with a lot of fan­fare. He doesn’t want any pats on the back. He does his job and, really, he sets the tone for the offense.”

Next fall maybe more than ever.

Luck, the pre­sumed No. 1 over­all pick for the Indi­anapo­lis Colts in this month’s NFL draft, set up so much of Stanford’s offense– pred­i­cated on zone block­ing and a pow­er­ful run­ning game– the last three years. Not­ting­ham and Josh Nunes are com­pet­ing to replace him, and no mat­ter who’s at quar­ter­back, they’ll be bank­ing on a famil­iar face in the back­field to bail them out.

Tay­lor takes that respon­si­bil­ity seriously.

He has assumed more of a lead­er­ship role this spring with so many of those famil­iar faces on The Farm departed. While that’s not usu­ally being vocal– “I know I haven’t been a rah-rah type guy,” Tay­lor admits– dom­i­nat­ing on the prac­tice field and in the weight room keeps team­mates push­ing for more.

Even in uncon­ven­tional places, too.

In his spare time, Tay­lor has trained in Bikram Yoga– usu­ally set in a room at about 105 degrees– since his senior year in high school in Mans­field, Texas. He has increased those work­outs this spring, part of his off­sea­son goal to become more flex­i­ble and agile while stay­ing at his usual 210–215 pound play­ing weight.

“It’s just hot in there. You’re just dying in there sweat­ing,” Tay­lor said. “First time I did it, there were lit­tle girls in there just doing every­thing so eas­ily. And I’m like, ‘Really?’ So I just stuck with it after that.”

Taylor’s coaches aren’t expect­ing much more from the run­ning back this season.

Other than con­sis­tency, of course.

Only five other Stan­ford play­ers have reached 1,000 yards rush­ing in a sea­son, most recently Ger­hart (1,871) in 2009, when he eclipsed the mile­stone for the sec­ond time and started the string of three straight Heis­man runners-up for Stan­ford. Nobody is expect­ing that kind of noto­ri­ety for Tay­lor this season.

If for no other rea­son than the program’s bevy of backs, which will include highly touted fresh­man Barry Sanders– the Hall of Famer’s son whom Tay­lor helped recruit dur­ing a cam­pus visit last fall– Taylor’s car­ries will likely stay the same, a fig­ure as reli­able as just about every other part of Taylor’s game.

“I think for Step­fan, in par­tic­u­lar, it’s got a chance to be a real break­out year for him, just nation­ally,” Shaw said. “But he’s not going to do any­thing differently.”

- – —

Fol­low Anto­nio Gon­za­lez at: www.twitter.com/agonzalez

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more col­lege foot­ball news see: Finally, it’s Taylor’s time in Stan­ford spot­light .

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