Pundits laud Nick Saban for his ability to reload Alabama year after year with five-star recruits and put out a championship-caliber team.

Get the biggest, fastest and strongest in the country to commit, and things tend to go your way on the field.

Across the country in Palo Alto, Calif., David Shaw isn't trying to emulate Saban's model. He couldn't if he wanted to. He coaches at Stanford. Being a five-star defensive end with a 4.5 40 doesn't mean much if the recruit can't get past the admissions board. All the extra fun (read: extra classwork, high SAT scores, AP courses, essays … just to get into school) can be so daunting that it turns some players off and renders admission impossible for most.

But the resulting effect is that the small pool of recruits that remain – Shaw says his staff focuses on "less than 200" each year, very low for a D-I school – are equal parts intelligent and athletically gifted. What's more: They really, really want to be there. Even the stars with NFL-ready talent rarely leave early.

"For us, the challenge is finding those rare kids that are tough, that are fast, that are smart. The kids that fit our culture," Shaw told Yahoo! Sports. "That's why we go coast to coast, and that's the difficult part is we have to go find these kids wherever they may be."

And since Stanford recruits are in for the long haul, they've got no problem putting in extra work – a trait that has paid dividends in a big way over the past six years.

Former head coach Jim Harbaugh inherited a program in shambles in late 2006. The Cardinal had finished that season 1-11 and in last place in the Pac-10.

Hoping to revitalize a listless offense that averaged a little more than 10 points per game – and perhaps to appease alumni by adding a former Stanford player to the staff – he immediately brought on Shaw as offensive coordinator.

The culture change in the first year was noticeable. Harbaugh and Shaw didn't sugarcoat anything for holdovers or incoming recruits. They told them they'd be pushed harder than any of their opponents, because that was what it would take to turn the worm.

View photos Stanford coach David Shaw plans to keep the Cardinal playing for hardware. (AP Photo) More

Of course, that's language that roughly 95 percent of college coaches use to lure recruits. Still, Harbaugh and Shaw don't exactly seem like the type who would sell something and not follow through on it. And the proof is in the pudding in this case.

In the first year of the Harbaugh regime, the Cardinal won four games and averaged close to 20 points per game. In the second season, Stanford won five games and averaged 26.2 points per game. In the third, the team won eight games and scored 35.5 points per game.

"Most successful people aren't surprised by success because they've worked extremely hard to get where they're at," Shaw said. "This hasn't been an overnight [transition]. This hasn't been all of a sudden we're really, really good.

"For us, it's been a constant pushing the envelope, a continual effort in getting better and taking the next step for the program."

The course correction, as it were, led to several high-profile commitments. Among those swayed to sign with Stanford was a four-star, pro-style quarterback out of Houston, Texas, named Andrew Luck and a four-star linebacker from New Jersey, Shayne Skov.

"I just had a lot of faith in what the coaches were trying to get done here," Skov said when asked why he picked Stanford over several high-profile East Coast schools. "We just had to believe that we could turn the football program around and believe that if we keep winning, the opportunity of great academic and athletic success would sell itself [to more high-profile recruits]."

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