Stanford’s Shaw: Love and Irwin are going to delight...

While the attention of the Stanford football program this week was mainly on the players coming in next fall, head coach David Shaw paused to praise two on the way out.

He predicted that both tailback Bryce Love and wide receiver Trent Irwin are going to make NFL teams “extremely happy.”

Neither senior will play in the Sun Bowl against Pitt on Dec. 31, so their college careers are over. Love, who has been hampered by ankle injuries for a season and a half, is having a medical procedure, Shaw said. Irwin sustained an unspecified injury in the first quarter of the Cal game.

Shaw insisted that neither Love nor Irwin was skipping the Sun Bowl to prepare for the NFL draft, as Christian McCaffrey did two years ago.

Shaw said he was “heartbroken” for both Love and Irwin. “Both had every intention of playing the game.”

Despite Love’s injuries the past two years, “he’s still been one of the best players in college football, if not the best human being in all of college football,” Shaw said.

Love, who plans to be a pediatrician, decided to forgo the 2018 NFL draft after rushing for a school-record 2,118 yards and finishing second in the Heisman Trophy voting last season.

Sun Bowl Who: Stanford (8-4) vs. Pittsburgh (7-6) When: 11 a.m., Dec. 31 Where: El Paso, Texas TV/Radio:Channel: 5Channel: 13Channel: 46

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“Bryce Love at 80 percent is better than 80 percent of the people out there,” Shaw said. “When he gets to 100 percent, look out. He’ll have one of those Christian McCaffrey-like years in the NFL. … One day, those two guys will be hanging out at the Pro Bowl together.”

Irwin played mainly in the shadow of fellow wide receiver JJ Arcega-Whiteside, but he is tied with the redshirt junior for the team lead in receptions with 60.

With his excellent hands and route-running precision, Irwin does “what a quarterback needs every single time he needs him,” Shaw said. “You can’t find a more dependable guy.”

At Hart High School in Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), Irwin set California state records in career receptions (285) and receiving yards (5,268), both since broken. At Stanford, he had 152 catches for 1,738 yards and five touchdowns.

According to Shaw, he led the Cardinal receivers in broken tackles and yards-after-catch this year.

Stories behind the recruits: Besides their athletic and academic achievements, many recruits in the class of 2019 have interesting backgrounds.

The parents of linebacker Aeneas DiCosmo named their other children Phoenix-Orion, Amadeus and Cassiopeia. One of Aeneas’ hobbies is learning Mandarin. Meanwhile, offensive lineman Branson Bragg has siblings named Boston, Beau and Brooklyn.

Recruited walk-on tight end Wakely Lush wanted to be an astronaut, but at 6-5 he exceeded NASA’s height limit. Linebacker Tristan Sinclair’s hobbies include robotics and programming; he built his first computer in sixth grade.

Many of the players have relatives who distinguished themselves in sports — offensive tackle Walter Rouse’s grandfather, Vic Rouse, hit the game-winning shot in overtime to give Loyola of Chicago the 1963 NCAA basketball championship.

It was known as “the basketball shot heard round the world” because the title showed that a team built around black players could win the national title.

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tfitzgerald@

sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald