A year ago at this time, David Shaw succinctly summarized the state of Stanford’s rebuilding secondary.

"Our youth is significant -- it's there," he said. "But so is the talent."

A season of maturation has transformed this outlook entering 2016: The Cardinal still pack plentiful talent on the back end, but that youth has been replaced with experience.

"The length of time between the end of regular season and the start of spring football, including all those bowl practices, playing in the Rose Bowl, and four weeks of winter conditioning -- for a 19 year old, that's a huge amount of time," Shaw said. "That's a big time to mature physically and make gains."

Stanford's secondary is confident that it's following that improvement blueprint.

At cornerback, senior leader Ronnie Harris is gone, but Alijah Holder and Quenton Meeks both return for their second years of action with big plays on their resumes. Holder delivered the pick-six that set the tone for Stanford's win over UCLA, while Meeks saved the day at Washington State with two interceptions before taking one to the house at the Rose Bowl.

At safety, Stanford must replace Kodi Whitfield, but the return of senior Zach Hoffpauir -- he took a year off to play minor league baseball -- immediately reinforces the secondary with veteran savvy. While Dallas Lloyd is a fifth-year returner at the other safety spot, the tandem of Justin Reid and Ben Edwards isn't green anymore: Both saw a significant amount of playing time during their freshmen seasons.

Terrence Alexander and Alameen Murphy also enjoyed considerable action last year, so Duane Akina's defensive backfield is now teeming with players who have college snaps under their belts. The Cardinal also boast two younger classes of defensive backs who were touted recruits coming out of high school.

Stanford simply didn't have that maturity last year, and it showed in struggles against some high-powered opponents. Oregon’s Vernon Adams, Jr. averaged a dumbfounding 17.1 yards per pass attempt against the Cardinal, California’s Jared Goff threw for nearly 400 yards, and Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer also had his way in a 36-point Irish outburst.

"People were saying we were going to be the weak spot of the defense because we were so young, and at times they were right," Meeks said. "But we just kept learning concepts over the course of the season. We began understanding the game more, becoming more comfortable within ourselves. Our coaches gained more confidence in us, and we started making plays."

One such play came when Holder stepped in front of Josh Rosen’s early throw against UCLA. He cut down the sideline and then bolted across the field for the score. Holder later said that he visualized the pick six in a pregame exercise with Akina, underscoring the mental development that the secondary coach instilled in the young unit over the course of 2015.

"We began to understand the college game," Meeks said. "And that allowed us to anticipate where the ball was going to go."

As a result, the Stanford secondary's performances in the season's last two games -- the Pac-12 title win over USC and the Rose Bowl blowout over Iowa-- were stellar. The unit stymied the Trojans for large swaths of the conference championship game before completely suffocating Iowa in Pasadena. Meeks stepped in front of an early C.J. Beathard pass -- he credits the instincts developed over the course of his trial-by-fire freshman season for his break on the throw -- and raced to paydirt.

"After my interception, their quarterback would be looking all over the field, and you could tell he didn't want to throw the ball anymore," Meeks said. "We had it locked down."

Stanford ended with seven sacks in the Rose Bowl, many of the "coverage" variety.

Now, as spring practice offers another opportunity for improvement, the Cardinal secondary aims to take its next step upward.

"We have unbelievable confidence right now," Meeks said. "We have to start off where we ended last year -- with confidence across the board. It was fun to watch that. Now, we have to build on that, because the sky is the limit for us."