The Daily caught new Stanford football coach Jim Harbaugh on the phone yesterday afternoon. He spoke candidly about the academic challenges Stanford faces — and how those differ from California’s — and gave a detailed run-through of his roster and suggested that rebuilding the program might be a multi-year project.

The Stanford Daily: Last year, the offensive line was a major weakness. It allowed the most sacks in the nation, and the team didn’t run it very well. It’s largely the same guys returning this year, so other than better health, why should fans expect this unit to be better?

Jim Harbaugh: One thing we could do is get a lot more discipline on our offensive line. We need to control the things we can control, penalties being one. We can make the game plans consistent.

It’s tough to compare systems from last year to this year, which I really don’t want to do, but we need to get ourselves in a position where we’re not beating ourselves.

TSD: On defense, you graduated lots of players off a unit that, again, struggled last year. You hired a new defensive coordinator, Scott Shafer, who’s going to switch to the 4-3, but what do you think the biggest difference will be with this year’s defense?

JH: That’ll probably be the biggest noticeable difference, the difference between the 4-3 and the 3-4 in lead downs. And the reason why we want to be in a 4-3 is to stop the run. But when we get into the nickel-in passing downs, we will use a three-down line. Generally, it will be a more attacking, more aggressive style.

TSD: Give me a few names that most fans have not heard of, but you really expect good things from this fall.

JH: [Sophomore] Ekom Udofia has a chance to be an All-Pac-10 guy. I look for big things from his brother [senior] Udeme too. I think on offense, [junior Anthony] Kimble, [senior] TC Ostrander and the receiving corps, [sophomore] Bradford Sherman and [senior] Evan Moore, should stand out.

On the defensive depth chart:

JH: On the line, we have both Udofias, Ekom and Udeme, and [sophomore] Erik Lorig’s moving from tight end to defensive end and has a chance to be very productive, if not a starter. Along with [senior] Emmanuel Awofedaju and [junior] Pannel Egboh, we have four productive defensive ends. [Senior] Chris Horn right now is our other starting defensive tackle.

I think our best linebacker is [sophomore] Clinton Synder, and then [junior] Pat Maynor, [senior] Peter Griffin and [redshirt freshman] Nick Macoluso. Secondary-wise, [sophomore] Austin Yancy’s going from “O” to “D” and is fighting for a starting safety spot along with [junior] Carlos McFall and [sophomore] Bo McNally, who looked good in the spring. That gives us young talent up the middle, guys who are going to be around in two, three, four years.

Right now, at corners, our two best are [junior] Wopamo Osaisai and [senior] Nick Sanchez. [Senior] Tim Sims we didn’t get a chance to evaluate in the spring because he was hurt.

TSD: I see most schools across college football selling out in order to win: taking kids that wouldn’t get into that school if they didn’t run a 4.4, funneling them through easy courses, looking the other way when they get into trouble. You mentioned Michigan, but a lot of Stanford fans would say that’s the route Cal used to turn its program around. What do you think? Do Stanford and Cal differ in terms of how they prioritize academics and football?

JH: I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. It’s a pretty wide gap. Right now, Stanford is No. 1 in the country at 92 percent graduation, and Cal’s at 44 percent. So, I’d say they’re cutting some corners.

Stanford embodies the highest standards, really the character of the school, because they won’t cut the corners to get athletes, especially in basketball and football. It’s an interesting stat of all athletic departments in the country. Stanford’s SAT score is the highest in the nation, and the second-place school is 200 points below Stanford.

TSD: But on the other side of it, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article this week on how Stanford’s academic standards made it very tough for men’s sports here. Plenty of fans think the football team would have been a lot better with looser standards these past few years. So how do academic standards affect how you can recruit and compete?

JH: Communication is the key. It’s our responsibility as coaches to find the scholar-athletes around the country, get their transcripts, see the work that they have done, go to our admissions department and get an early read, find out if they’re in the ballgame or not. If they’re in the game, then it’s finding what it takes to get into Stanford, almost a prescription of what they need, if there’s an AP class they need to take or whatever it is that will make them admissible and able to graduate from Stanford.

It’s not a huge pool. Stanford’s different. The sheer volume of players that can play in the Pac-10 and win a championship at the Pac-10 level — we have a smaller pool than other schools do. But to me, that’s an advantage we have to use. We wouldn’t want to diminish the standards of Stanford. We want to play with smart guys.

We just have to do a really good job of evaluating and gathering a pool deep enough that we can get 20 to 25 players that meet the criteria of admissions and Pac-10-level football.

TSD: Coaches always say “Win them all,” but that’s not always possible. What’s a final record that you’d be happy with, but you also think is realistic with possibly the toughest schedule in the country?

JH: There’s no doubt we play a very tough schedule. The goal of our program is to win multiple conference championships and treat everyone in a first-class manner. As far as the delta of that time, it’s our goal to make that as small as possible.

I believe we can win this year. Right now we’re in the process of working to earn the confidence to win every game, to expect to win every game, and the third component of that is to perform under pressure.

As far as a record, I can’t really put my finger on that now. I think we are where we are right now.