Stanford Football: Top 3 prospects for 2021 NFL Draft

David Shaw returns plenty of talent to the Stanford football roster in 2020, but which Cardinal players could be next to be drafted in 2021?

After years of solid play under his guidance as head coach, David Shaw saw his Cardinal go just 4-8 in 2019 and miss a bowl game for the first time since he took over in 2011.

Shaw has been known as one of the best coaches in college football and that was evidenced by his 82-26 overall record heading into the 2019 season as well as his three conference titles, five division crowns, five 10-plus win seasons, four New Year’s Six or BCS bowl appearances and 5-3 record in the postseason. The 2019 season was just a disaster.

It also had the feeling of an extreme outlier as well. The Cardinal had consistently been one of the Pac-12’s top programs under his reign and that shouldn’t change moving forward.

Getting back to the basics of Stanford football might be difficult with the loss of KJ Costello, but Stanford has a former highly-touted quarterback recruit under center for his senior year and he could find as much success as his predecessor does at Mississippi State.

Another outlier happened to be the number of Stanford players selected in the NFL draft following the season. The Cardinal only sent two players to the NFL via the draft, the lowest number since 2017 and tied for the lowest in the Shaw era.

That should all change in the 2021 NFL Draft and here’s who could make that happen.