Andrew Luck picked a familiar face to take over as Stanford’s interim football coach, hiring former NFL coach Frank Reich to replace the fired Troy Taylor. Ian Cull reports.
Andrew Luck picked a familiar face to take over as Stanford’s interim football coach, hiring former NFL coach Frank Reich to replace the fired Troy Taylor.
Luck moved quickly in his new role as general manager of the football program, hiring Reich less than a week after making the decision to fire Taylor following a report that became public saying Taylor had been investigated twice for allegedly mistreating staffers.
Reich was formally introduced at a news conference on Tuesday before Stanford starts its spring football session.
Reich coached Luck for one season with the Indianapolis Colts in 2018. Reich coached six years in the NFL for Indianapolis and Carolina, making the playoffs twice in that span.
Stanford is trying to rebuild its struggling football program after four straight seasons with a 3-9 record, including the last two with Taylor in charge.
Luck was hired last November to run the football program and report directly to school president Jon Levin. Stanford is also currently searching for an athletic director with Alden Mitchell hired last week as interim following Bernard Muir’s decision to step down.
Luck said earlier this month that Reich was one of the people he has consulted since taking this new job.
Reich played 13 years in the NFL as mostly a backup quarterback before having a long coaching career in the NFL starting in 2006 in Indianapolis. He was offensive coordinator in 2017 when Philadelphia won its first Super Bowl and was hired after that season as head coach for the Colts.
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He went to four Super Bowls as a player in Buffalo, coming off the bench to engineer the biggest playoff comeback in NFL history when he rallied the Bills back from a 35-3 deficit to win a wild-card game in the 1992 season. He also went to two Super Bowls with Colts as a coaching intern in 2006 and an assistant in 2009.
Reich and Luck teamed to go 10-6 and win a playoff game that season before Luck abruptly retired just before the start of the 2019 season.
Reich made the playoffs just one time in his final four seasons without Luck on the Colts and was fired during the 2022 season.
He was hired the following year by Carolina and was fired during the 2023 season after starting his tenure 1-10. He had a 41-43-1 regular season record as a head coach in the NFL.
