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Stanford landed its highest-ranked wide receiver recruit in the 14-year history of the Rivals.com recruiting rankings when Trent Irwin committed to the Cardinal last week.

Irwin, a four-star prospect ranked No. 42 in the nation, checks in three spots higher than Mark Bradford, who was ranked No. 45 overall in the 2004 class.

Just as Stanford was elated to receive Irwin's commitment, Trent's family was thrilled with his choice, as well.

"Obviously it's pretty awesome," said Irwin's father, Craig. "It's where we really wanted to go from the start. It had been our No. 1 choice from the start. It was a long path getting there. But we're really super excited."

Irwin and his family took several visits to Stanford over the course of his recruitment. They quickly noticed how different the Cardinal program was from Irwin's other options - and he had plenty. Though Irwin made it clear in the latter stages of his recruitment he would only consider Arizona State and Stanford, the four-star wideout received offers from 15-plus schools across the nation.

"It's funny," Craig said. "A lot of people who don't do a lot of visits don't quite understand that going to Stanford is like going to a different planet. It's vastly, vastly, vastly different than everybody else. You can tell you get treated just the same as every other student. At a lot of the other universities people want to give you stuff - I don't mean against NCAA rules, but it's like you're treated better than the normal student body. And we didn't really like that because we thought, 'Hey, we should just be treated the same...'

"We really just felt a lot more comfortable at Stanford."

Irwin's family was also drawn to the the coaching staff and the way they handled Irwin's recruitment.

"One of the things that I loved about Stanford is that I don't think I ever heard a negative thing out of any of their coaches," Craig said. "You didn't hear them go, well, 'Arizona State sucks.' There was no negative. And in the end I just think we really decided that the nicest coaching staff was Stanford.

"We've talked to a lot of people so we don't buy into that, 'Oh well, you're great, you're great you're great. We don't really buy into that because we understand that going to Stanford, almost everybody who is there is great. It's about the work ethic that you put in to help the team achieve goals. It's not about individual. We love that approach that Stanford has, really not saying anything to us about that. Just saying hey, we offered you. and that means we think you can play here."

Irwin and his family had significant praise for several members of the Stanford program. One, strength coach Shannon Turley, was thought to be headed to Michigan to reunite with Jim Harbaugh.

The Irwin family was thrilled when news broke that Turley decided to stay on The Farm.

"We were also incredibly happy that Shannon Turley didn't go," Craig Irwin said. "That guy is phenomenal. When we saw (the reports of) him going we were like, 'Oh, God, that's horrible.' He's phenomenal."

Several Stanford coaches played prominent roles in Irwin's recruitment. Irwin's area recruiter, Pete Alamar, was the family's point man for much of the recruitment. He helped identify Irwin as a top-tier prospect early in the process.

"I think Pete Alamar was the guy who's been in our corner from the start," Craig Irwin said. "Pete Alamar was coming down to Hart High School two years ago going, 'Hey, we should look at this guy.' So he was probably the first guy in our corner before everyone had seen enough tape on us to really be interested in us. He was the first guy."

Tavita Pritchard, Irwin's future position coach, was also heavily involved.

"Tavita Pritchard I can call any time," Craig said. "Like today I called him with three or four NCAA questions Meaning, 'Can we do this, can we do that?' My wife adores Tavita. She really, really likes him. He's a gentleman and a really nice guy. And he's going to be the wide receiver coach, so that's the position we're at. We felt super comfortable with that. We just feel like we can talk to him like he's a member of our family."

"Coach Shaw, if there's a nicer man around than Coach Shaw I haven't met him. Especially for a head college football coach with all the pressure and responsibility that goes with that, he's just a nice man. And a good family man.

Though they weren't directly involved in Irwin's recruitment as the position coach/area recruiter, Craig Irwin also had high praise for Mike Bloomgren, the team's offensive coordinator, and Lance Anderson, who helped walk the family through Stanford's admissions process.

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Irwin and his family will see Stanford's coaches again this weekend when they take their fourth trip to The Farm. Though Irwin has already used his official visit to Stanford (he visited for the Oregon State game during the season), he'll make the trip to Stanford this weekend as an unofficial visitor to get to know some of his future teammates.

"We're going to come up on the visit, Craig said. "We can't do it as an official visit because we've already done our official visit. but we can come up and do all of the things that the NCAA will allow. We're going to come up and get to know the other families of the guys who are coming to Stanford and get to know those guys."

That process is already underway. In the minutes and hours following Irwin's commitment announcement, numerous Stanford commits reached out to Irwin to welcome him to the Cardinal program.

"Immediately after Trenton tweeted that he was going to Stanford almost every guy going to Stanford this year tweeted us and because friends with us on Facebook," Craig said. "And they have like a group text, so Trenton was group texting with all the new recruits, the guys that are committing to Stanford. I'm like, 'Wow, that's really unusual.' I thought that was cool. Christian McCaffrey was one of the first ones to reach out to us. It was nuts. We really felt comfortable.

"It seems like such a team atmosphere, which is really what we're looking for. We're looking to train as hard as we can and be as good as we can and go in and contribute as much as we can but as a team member, not as an individual."

All in all, Irwin's family felt Stanford had too many positives to pass up.

"A lot of things went right," Craig said. "We got into the school, which is incredible. Trent was ecstatic. Trent's mother was jumping up and down. It was exciting. We were really fond of the coaches.

"We really tried to give an honest assessment of where we fit best personality-wise, where we fit best coaching-wise, where we fit best from a system - obviously (Stanford) is a pro-style system and (Arizona State) is not."

"By the end Stanford was getting nine out of 10 of the things every time. At the end it was sort of a slam dunk. We really didn't have a choice. We just decided we had to go to Stanford."

"Everything just sort of came together. At the end it was like there was really no other choice."