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Who is Stanford football's coach? Frank Reich serving as interim for 2025 season
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- Who is Stanford football's coach? Frank Reich serving as interim for 2025 season
For most of the 2010s, Stanford was an improbable national power in college football : a small, academically minded private school that regularly punched above its weight to compete for conference and even national championships.
The Cardinal 's glory days under coaches Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw, with players such as Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey , have become an increasingly distant memory, though.
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Stanford hasn't won more than four games in a season since 2018 and, over the past four seasons, has racked up a combined record of 12-36. It now competes in the ACC, a conference whose titular Atlantic Coast is more than 3,000 miles away from the Cardinal 's Palo Alto, California campus.
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Coming into the 2025 season, Stanford will be mired in one of the more unique situations in college football.
Following the firing of coach Troy Taylor in March , the Cardinal will compete this season with interim coach Frank Reich, the former Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers head coach who won a Super Bowl as the Philadelphia Eagles ' offensive coordinator in 2018.
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How did this arrangement come to be? As Stanford kicks off its 2025 season on August 23 at Hawaii, here's a closer look at the Cardinal's coaching setup:
Why was Troy Taylor fired at Stanford?
After being hired away from Sacramento State after the 2022 season, Troy Taylor largely struggled to get Stanford off the ground. Though he scored some notable upsets, such as beating Syracuse and a ranked Louisville team last season, the Cardinal went 3-9 in each of his first two seasons at the helm.
It wasn't on-field performance, though, that led to Taylor's abrupt ouster.
Taylor was the subject of two separate investigations looking into his workplace conduct. ESPN obtained copies of both previously undisclosed investigations , which detailed allegations of belittling and inappropriate behavior toward women. The investigations, each of which were conducted by an independent party hired by the school, were launched after multiple athletic department employees filed complaints against Taylor over what they described as hostile and aggressive behavior, as well as personal attacks.
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Six days after the ESPN report on the probes, Stanford fired Taylor.
"Since beginning my role as general manager, I have been thoroughly assessing the entire Stanford football program. It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change," said Stanford football GM and former NFL Pro Bowler Andrew Luck in a statement at the time. "Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor. After continued consideration it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership, I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program."
Taylor, who claimed he was not fired for cause and called media coverage of his firing "unfair," has since sued ESPN for defamation . The suit alleges that the outlet "repeated defamatory statements about Taylor, knowing full well that the statements were false, for the purpose of smearing Taylor's reputation and injuring him in his profession."
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Why is Frank Reich coaching Stanford?
Given when the allegations about Taylor became public, and when the university ultimately opted to dismiss him, Stanford found itself in a bind.
College football coaching hires are often made in November and December, when a new coach has adequate time to scour the transfer portal and sign high school recruits to fill out what will be their first roster. In late March, when Stanford fired Taylor, spring practices were already underway across the country and rosters for the upcoming season had largely been set.
Due to those factors, the Cardinal opted to hire an interim coach rather than someone to fill the position on a full-time basis. And the person they were able to lure for the role is quite notable.
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Reich has nearly 20 years of experience as an NFL coach, including stints as an offensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles and then-San Diego Chargers before being hired as the Indianapolis Colts ' head coach in 2018 following the Eagles' victory in Super Bowl 52. He guided the Colts to the playoffs twice in five seasons, highlighted by a run to the divisional round at the end of the 2018 season. He was fired about halfway through the 2022 season and resurfaced the following year as the Carolina Panthers head coach, only to be fired 11 games into his first season.
Reich was away from the sidelines last season, but eventually, an opportunity arose.
Less than a full week after Taylor was fired, the Cardinal hired Reich to be its interim coach, inking him to a one-season contract that, once it expires, will give way to a national search for Stanford's next coach.
During Reich's first season in Indianapolis, he coached Andrew Luck, the Colts' star quarterback who shocked much of the football world when he retired weeks before the start of the 2019 season. Luck was hired at his alma mater last November as its general manager, putting him in position not only to oust Taylor, but use his relationship with Reich to bring in someone who's arguably overqualified for the stopgap role they're stepping into.
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"I could not be more excited for our coaches, staff and players," Luck said in a statement at the time of Reich's hiring . "I have experienced first-hand the incredible impact Frank has demonstrated as a leader and have full confidence he is the perfect steward for this season of Stanford football.
"Frank is a teacher, a winner and a coach of the highest caliber. Frank's values align seamlessly with our vision for this program and I firmly believe in his ability to maximize the on-field potential of our student-athletes while serving as a role model in all aspects of their personal growth."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Frank Reich at Stanford? Why former NFL coach is coaching Cardinal
