Stanford Football Recruiting: 3-Star DT Jován Swann Picks the Cardinal

I am blessed to say I was admitted and am verbally committing to Stanford University #TheFarm pic.twitter.com/dCsS8Z55mO

— Jován L. Swann (@_jswann) January 12, 2016

After the college football season officially ended, 3-star defensive tackle Jován Swann decided he will be wearing cardinal red next year. Swann is from Greenwood, Indiana (Center Grove High School) and his other two finalists were Northwestern and Indiana University. A day before Swann decided where he was headed, he sat down with Rivals own Andy Drukarev and said this about Stanford:

""California, it's far from home but they provide a great academic opportunity for me. And they finished top 10 in the nation, doing work in the Pac-12."

The article goes on to say that Swann's deciding factor is which team is "the best fit". Swann officially visited Stanford during the Arizona game and got to see a dismantling of the Wildcats. Stanford's defensive performance was impressive as they only allowed 3.5 ypc and 5.9 in the air. Even though the Hoosiers were the most recent college to host Swann, it seemed like Stanford was always the frontrunner.

After this year, the defensive line will be graduating five players (two starters) so adding Swann is a huge gain to a questionable depth situation. Swann will be joining these other defensive linemen in the 2016 recruiting class: Mike Williams, Thomas Schaffer (though he intends to redshirt), and Bo Peek. Coach David Shaw has done a great job going after talented defensive linemen this year to replace the graduating seniors. Swann didn't get offered a scholarship just because Stanford was low on defensive linemen, no, he was offered a scholarship because of his rush defense.

Jován Swann is fast. He has an incredibly quick first step. This allows him to easily bypass clueless offensive linemen and once he gets into the backfield, I don't care if you are a dual threat quarterback or not, you will be tackled. His speed is unfair for someone who is 270lbs. Shedding blockers is another one of Swann's strong suits. Even if he is doubled teamed, Swann will get out of his blocks and make the tackle. Swann is a surefire tackler, because of his form. He wraps up with both arms and in the most vicious ways. And don't ever count him out on a play, he will hunt down the ball carrier. He shows such toughness and relentlessness in the run game.

Something Swann needs to work on is his pass rush. It seems like he has the tools to be a good pass rusher, but he isn't using every move he knows. He is good at bull rushing the offensive lineman, but he needs to develop more than just one move. Also he needs to keep his pad level down because if he doesn't, he won't have any leverage over the bigger offensive lineman. Overall Swann is still raw in the passing game, but has the tools to become a good player against the running game.

Check out Swann's junior year highlight reel courtesy of hudl on youtube: