Stanford announced Monday that it has hired former NFL head coach Frank Reich to be the Cardinal’s interim football coach for the 2025 season. The school needed a new coach after it fired Troy Taylor last week after a report detailed his alleged misconduct and mistreatment of female staffers at the school.
Reich, 63, last coached the Carolina Panthers in 2023, though he was fired 11 games into his first season. Before that, Reich spent five seasons as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, where he overlapped with the final season of Andrew Luck’s NFL career in 2018. Luck now is Stanford’s general manager.
“I could not be more excited for our coaches, staff and players to have Frank as our head football coach for the 2025 season,” Luck said in a statement. “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.”
Said Reich: “I am thrilled to be working with Andrew again to help take an important step in establishing his vision for the Stanford Football program. Andrew is an elite leader and competitor, and those traits, along with his genuine passion for this university, resonated in every way and inspired me to accept this role. The unique responsibility to mentor the best student-athletes in the world, to be the absolute best in what they aspire to do, is an opportunity I will fully embrace.”
Reich has spent his entire coaching career in the NFL, all of it on the offensive side of the ball. His deal with Stanford is for one season only as the program looks for a permanent head coach. The timing of Taylor’s firing — after the closing of the winter transfer portal and with spring practice scheduled to start this week — made it difficult to attract top candidates.
Under Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw, the Cardinal went to 10 consecutive bowl games between 2009 and 2018, five of them New Year’s Six games (three Rose Bowls and one appearance each in the Orange and Fiesta bowls). But Stanford has not had a winning campaign since its last bowl season in 2018 and went a combined 6-18 in two years under Taylor.
Last year was Stanford’s first in the ACC, an odd geographical and cultural fit necessitated by the implosion of the Pacific-12. Reich and the Cardinal will play Nov. 8 at North Carolina, coached by Bill Belichick, another former NFL stalwart. Reich was the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive coordinator during the 2017-18 season, when they defeated Belichick’s New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, and his final game as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts was a 26-3 loss to New England in Week 9 of the 2022 NFL season.
According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Stanford also is promoting tight ends coach Nate Byham to offensive coordinator, and he will call the Cardinal’s plays in 2025.
