Stanford football recruiting: scouting take on safety Justin Reid

Eric Reid was recruited by Jim Harbaugh to play at Stanford, but chose to stay closer to home and play for LSU. Fortunately for David Shaw, his brother chose to take a different path.

Justin Reid isn't as highly touted as his brother was, but he has a ton of potential. What kind of player are the Cardinal getting in Reid?

Justin Reid - 3 star safety

Reid has the size to compete right away in the Pac-12. He has good, but not great, speed. There are other more impressive athletes, but he shows loose hips when transitioning.

He's a solid all-around football player that does so many things well. He's a very good tackler in the open field and takes good angles from depth when coming up to support the run. When he needs to wrap up, he'll do it, but he knows when it's okay to go for the big hit.

He tends to get a little high in his backpedal and will need to clean up his footwork a bit, but that's fairly common for someone at this point of his development. Because he's not an elite athlete, I think he'll need to work on refining his technique. He shows very good instincts in coverage and does a nice job of reading the quarterback's eyes in zone. His ball skills are very good.

I could see him playing a big nickel role in addition to playing safety because of his ability to blitz off the edge. He has the potential to contribute early and have a great career at Stanford.