Highs, lows of camp as trip nears

Stanford finishes one of its shortest training camps in recent memory with a walk-through Friday before boarding a plane for Sydney on Saturday night. The Cardinal will spend next week practicing in Australia before playing Rice on Aug. 26 to close out the first day of the college football season.

Here’s what we learned about Stanford in three weeks of training camp: Keller Chryst is healthy: Eight months after injuring the ACL in his right knee, Chryst has reclaimed his starting quarterback job. The senior showed a strong recovery process throughout camp, improving from individual drills to participating fully in the past two weeks of practice.

“He’s not limited at all,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said. “He’s been able to run full speed. He’s been banged around a little bit and has had no setbacks. He feels great.” The offensive line remains in flux: Though unwilling to name a complete starting unit, Shaw has admitted to knowing what most of the line is going to look like. Redshirt senior David Bright will try to anchor the unit as a left tackle, and sophomore left guard Nate Herbig, senior center Jesse Burkett and senior right tackle A.T. Hall probably will be in the lineup.

That leaves right guard, where the competition rages. The two likeliest starters are junior Nick Wilson, who played 13 games last season, and senior Casey Tucker, who started eight games at both tackle positions. Shaw also said that Stanford could use more than one player in that spot against the Owls.

This is a unit that returns four starters but also gave up 35 sacks last year, second most in the Pac-12. If it struggles again, don’t be shocked to see two five-star freshmen tackles, Foster Sarell and Walker Little, on the field. Joey Alfieri officially has switched positions: The senior linebacker missed a few practices with an “upperbody injury,” but played enough to make a successful switch from outside to inside linebacker in training camp.

Shaw hasn’t named starters at inside linebacker, but said that Alfieri, Stanford’s fourthleading tackler last season, is a natural inside. Solomon Thomas has many stand-ins: Rather than try to replace one of the best defensive linemen in the country with one player, Stanford is looking at several defensive linemen to take over Thomas’ role. Shaw mentioned redshirt sophomore Dylan Jackson and redshirt freshmen Jovann Swan, but the coach seemed most impressed with Harrison Phillips. The senior has “taken the reins of the room,” Shaw said, and has evolved into the line’s clear vocal leader during camp. Tight end will not be a problem: Stanford had so many injuries at tight end last year that Dalton Schultz was stuck in the “Y” position for most of the season. That will not be the case in 2017. Two redshirt freshmen considered nationally to be top-10 recruits in their class, Kaden Smith and Scooter Harrington, are going to receive a significant number of snaps, and the two highly recruited freshmen behind them, Colby Parkinson and Tucker Fisk, are both good enough to get on the field if they don’t redshirt.

Stanford probably will be able to compensate for an inexperienced widereceiver corps by playing three tight ends at the same time, freeing Schultz to play all over the field.