I need you to stay at receiver. Shaw might not have been so quick to shoot down the idea of Sherman switching positions if he knew the turmoil that lay ahead. The patellar tendon injury that Sherman suffered during the training camp further drove a wedge between the receiver and his head coach. The timing preserved the possibility Sherman could redshirt and have two full years of eligibility remaining, leaving the door open for him to finish his Stanford degree in four years and play his last season of college football elsewhere as a graduate transfer.
On Oct. It was around that time that Sherman approached Shaw for a second time about switching from receiver to defensive back. At a staff meeting before spring practice, Harbaugh floated the idea of Sherman transitioning to cornerback to his defensive coaches. To say they were receptive is a massive understatement. Ex-Stanford defensive backs coach Clayton White had been hoping for an opportunity to try to mold Sherman into a lock-down corner for two years.
Me and him would go back and forth sometimes. He would talk trash about the DBs to me. Bouwmeester is "doing very well" but still undergoing tests to determine exactly what happened, according to the Canadian Press via Sportsnet. Midway through the first period Tuesday night, Bouwmeester had a cardiac event while sitting on the St. Louis bench and collapsed behind the boards. Immediately trainers and physicians from both teams rushed to his aid, administering a defibrillator to restart his heart and bring him back to consciousness.
White let others do the talking in the staff meeting until Harbaugh addressed him directly with a pivotal question. Right after the meeting, White texted Sherman that the position switch was now official. Harbaugh dryly told reporters, "Don't know if he'll be able to beat anybody out over there or not.
That comment was all the motivation Sherman needed to attack his new position with urgency and enthusiasm. He analyzed film of how other rangy corners played, applied the knowledge he had accumulated at receiver and studied the press coverage techniques that his coaches taught him.
He played with a smile on his face. He became a completely different person. It was like he was coming home. Often, he would identify where the ball was going before the snap and beat the intended receiver to that spot.
But it worked to my benefit and I still use that to this day. For Sherman, the biggest challenge of his transition was where to direct his eyes. He got beat on a few too many double moves early in his junior season because he would look directly into opposing backfields instead of keeping his eyes on the hips of the receiver he was checking.
Gradually, Sherman learned to anticipate where the opposing quarterback would throw and to pounce without losing sight of his man. Sherman started at corner his final two years at Stanford, intercepting a pair of passes as a redshirt junior and tallying four picks as a fifth-year senior. At the time, Sherman was a star on and off the field. He would later move to his current position, cornerback. Harbaugh blamed Sherman for quitting on the team in , and the coach suggested the star should transfer.
Instead, Sherman elected to stay at Stanford, where he was getting an amazing education, something he valued after growing up in Compton, California. Harbaugh and Sherman agreed to stipulations to keep the student-athlete with the Cardinal. To distance himself from his coach, Sherman elected to move to defense, where he worked his way up the depth chart as a cornerback and earned a starting role.
Having played in the offense, Sherman had a significant advantage during practices for the Cardinal. He made sure the whole defense benefited from his knowledge, per The Mercury News :. So, he would yell out the formations and splits during practice to aggravate Harbaugh, Lynn said. Louisville and Arizona will open …. Harbaugh, who left San Francisco for Michigan in , hasn't said much about the beef.
Baldwin went undrafted while Sherman fell to the fifth round, with both ending up with the Seahawks. Sherman called him a "bully" in after Harbaugh accused Seattle's secondary of being too physical. Harbaugh allegedly blew off a post-game handshake with Sherman following a Seahawks victory in And Sherman also accused Harbaugh of honking his car horn at Seattle's bus after the Niners beat the Seahawks at home one year.
Sherman has been critical in recent months of media types who picked the 49ers to struggle after finishing last season. He said last week he has been disrespected despite being one of the most productive defensive backs of the past decade.
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