Stanford opening gives Luck chance to quickly remake Cardinal

Once again, Stanford’s fate rests on Andrew Luck’s shoulders.

On Tuesday, the university announced it had fired head football coach Troy Taylor one week following an ESPN report that detailed a troubling pattern of unprofessional conduct from the two-year Cardinal coach.

Taylor was the subject of two investigations in 2023 and 2024 following complaints from staff members. The second found “an ongoing pattern of concerning behavior by coach Taylor.”

Per ESPN’s Xuan Thai, Taylor “bullied and belittled female athletic staffers, sought to have an NCAA compliance officer removed … and repeatedly made ‘inappropriate’ comments to another woman about her appearance.”

In announcing Taylor’s firing, Luck, who played quarterback at Stanford from 2009-11, said, “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 … In consultation with university leadership, I no longer believe that coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program,” Luck continued.

Taylor was hired in December 2022 after previously coaching at FCS Sacramento State. The dysfunction behind the scenes at Palo Alto mirrored the on-field results. Taylor finished his two-year stint as Stanford’s head coach with a 6-18 record, finishing both seasons 3-9.

Luck is the most notable of college football’s growing list of general managers.

While it’s late in the game for Stanford to be in the market for a 2025 head coach, Taylor’s firing provides Luck an opportunity to make his first significant hire in his new job.

As a quarterback, Luck appeared in 38 games for the Cardinal and threw for 9,430 yards on 713-of-1,064 (67%) passing with 82 touchdowns and 22 interceptions. He was the Heisman runner-up in 2010 and 2011 while earning the Maxwell and Camp Trophies in 2011.

Stanford is entering its second year as an ACC member and hasn’t won more than four games in a season since 2018. According to Stathead research, the Cardinal have the second-worst record (20-46) among power conference teams from 2019-24, ahead of only Vanderbilt (19-51). 

It’s difficult to imagine Stanford’s opening being attractive to many prospective candidates. The Athletic college football writer Chris Vannini mentioned former Cowboys head coach and current NBC NFL analyst Jason Garrett, who Vannini noted was a finalist for the Cardinal job during their previous search.