D1 sports admissions is really complicated. I remember I spent two weeks at UM taking a course in business and one of my professors used to work in admissions at the school. His job was to be a liaison between admissions and the football program. He would read applications and then pass them on to the higher ups in admissions, and they would come back with a decision. He then took that decision and told the coaches who they could offer scholarships to and who would not be able to get into UM. He said he was instructed to pass anyone onto the higher ups with the NCAA minimum GPA to qualify. He said that different schools have different standards for admissions and keep their players eligible differently. I was wearing a Notre Dame shirt once and he used Notre Dame as an example when he compared different schools and "keeping players eligible." He said he had friends in admissions at Notre Dame and they would not push a player towards one major or another, and left it up to the players what they wanted to major in. At UM they believed it was in an athletes best interest to study in their highly ranked Kinesiology school. (Though pretty much any degree > a kinesiology degree). When he worked in admissions they basically took anyone with the minimum 2.5 GPA and felt they could truly say they take care of their athletes because most of them study in a highly ranked program.
Stanford it is pretty clear has strict admissions standards even for its athletes, as it has been rumored that Savaiinaea started looking around because he could not get in and also that Doug Randolph may not have made it past admissions, even despite his 3.5 GPA (according to Rivals). Or, it could just be that Shaw is not a great recruiter, or this year's kids aren't very interested in Stanford.
What I do know is this, is good for Notre Dame.
