It was hardly a surprise that Stanford fired head coach Troy Taylor on Tuesday, in the wake of investigations into complaints from athletic department employees over hostile behavior. Stanford general manager Andrew Luck said a search for the next head coach has begun, but an acting coach may be named for the 2025 season.
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The timing here is tricky for a program coming off four consecutive 3-9 seasons, with the last two coming under Taylor. Stanford hasn’t won more than four games in a season in the previous six years. The Cardinal are also set to begin spring football on Monday and they must quickly figure out what they will do offensively since Taylor was the play caller. This is no small detail. Taylor acted as Stanford’s offensive coordinator and no one on staff has anything close to even that title.
The two most obvious options to serve as acting head coach would be Bobby April III, who has the defensive coordinator title, or Andy Thompson, who Taylor hired this winter as co-DC.
April, a former assistant with the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, has sparked significant improvement with the Cardinal on that side of the ball. In 2022, the year before April was hired, Stanford ranked No. 127 in rushing defense. They improved to 94th in 2023 and to 41st in 2024.
Thompson, 44, spent the last six seasons at Sacramento State: four as the defensive coordinator under Taylor and last two as the head coach after Taylor took the Stanford job. Thompson went 11-14 as Sac State’s head coach, going 8-5 in 2023 and 3-9 in 2024.
The search pool doesn’t feel deep if Stanford reaches outside the program. Beyond the simple timing of this move, Stanford has a lot of unique challenges right now. It’s in the ACC because the Pac-12 fell apart and the school didn’t really have other viable conference options.
Former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett was a finalist, along with Taylor, the last time the Cardinal tried to hire a head coach. Garrett, who went 85-67 in almost a decade in Dallas, decided to stay with NBC Sports as analyst. The former Princeton quarterback knows some of the challenges of operating at a high academic football program. He was also in the mix for the Duke head coaching vacancy a few years back.
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Two potential NFL options with deep ties at Stanford both feel like long shots.
Cincinnati Bengals receivers coach Troy Walters was a great player at Stanford and won the Biletnikoff Award. He has a lot of support among old Stanford players, but we’ve heard he’s very happy where he is and he also knows many of the challenges that he would walk into as the Cardinal head coach. Plus, coaching Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins with Joe Burrow at QB is a pretty ideal setup.
Washington Commanders QB coach Tavita Pritchard, 38, was the Cardinal quarterback when Jim Harbaugh began to turn Stanford from the worst power conference program into a real force. Pritchard and Luck spent a lot of time in the Stanford quarterbacks’ room together as teammates. Pritchard later spent five seasons as the Stanford OC. The offense got stale as the program backslid, but in fairness to him, it was David Shaw who was calling the shots. Pritchard is also well thought of inside Stanford, but like Walters, he’s also in a very sweet situation: He gets to work with one of the NFL’s fastest rising stars in Jayden Daniels for a franchise that is really on the upswing.
Two sitting head coaches who are very well respected to keep an eye on both have service academy ties. One is working in Northern California right now in San Jose State coach Ken Niumatalolo. The 59-year-old is beloved in football circles. He just went 7-6 at San Jose State in his first season there. Niumatalolo, a Hawaii native, did an excellent job at Navy before that, going 116-89 and was a three-time AAC Coach of the Year while running the triple option. With the Spartans, Niumatalolo — who has strong ties all over the West Coast — showed how he could overhaul his offensive scheme and still give opponents fits. San Jose State led the Mountain West in passing offense by a wide margin in Niumatalolo’s first season there and ranked fifth in the nation.
Army’s Jeff Monken is another proven winner. He’s coming off a 12-2 season in which the Black Knights went 8-0 in the AAC after being predicted to finish fifth in their first season in the league. He’s done an amazing job there, going 82-57 at Army. The previous five coaches dating back to 2000 at Army went a combined 40-166. Monken’s career record is even more impressive: 120-73. If Stanford came calling, we have heard that Monken would be interested.
(Top photo of Ken Niumatalolo: Eakin Howard / Imagn Images)
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