Stanford officially hired Frank Reich to serve as the university’s new college football coach. However, the 63-year-old will only be there for one single season.
The first year of the Andrew Luck era in Palo Alto continues to be extremely unusual.
Luck, the best quarterback in program history, played college football at Stanford from 2008-2011. He was drafted with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft and played eight years with the Indianapolis Colts before a sudden, unexpected early retirement ended his career at the young age of 29.
Since then, Luck has mostly stayed away from the public spotlight until very recently. The four-time Pro Bowler, NFL passing touchdowns leader in 2014 and Maxwell Award winner took over as the first-ever General Manager at his alma mater in early December. It has been a wild four months. Especially March.
Cardinal head coach Troy Taylor was first accused of bullying and belittling female athletic staffers, publicly, on the 19th. He was involved in multiple internal investigations dating back to Feb. 2024.
The allegations did not sit well with Luck, who became the first GM in college football history to fire a head coach on March 25. Taylor is out. A nationwide search for his replacement began immediately.
That search will now be postponed to next offseason.
Luck came to an agreement with Frank Reich over the weekend. The former NFL offensive coordinator and head coach of the Colts and Panthers is going to serve as the interim head coach at Stanford for only the 2025 season. It is a one-year deal. Singular.
Sources: Stanford is hiring veteran NFL coach Frank Reich as the school’s interim football coach for 2025 season. Both sides have agreed this will be only a one-season agreement. At that point, Stanford will launch a national search. pic.twitter.com/21NuVUCjjt
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 31, 2025
Luck is obviously familiar with Reich from his ties to Indianapolis. The latter has not had a job since his ouster in Carolina in 2023. The former gave him a call and asked if he wanted to be the head coach of the Cardinal while the future of the position remains in limbo. Reich apparently agreed.
It will be curious to see how this goes. Stanford is punting and I have a lot of questions.
How is the Cardinal going to recruit without a full-time head coach in place? Is Frank Reich even going to try? How are the current players going to respond to this decision? Will they want to play for a guy who is going to leave them as soon as the season is over? Who was responsible for the one-year idea? Did Andrew Luck approach Reich with the unique opportunity or did Reich only agree to take over at Stanford on a one-year deal? Is Reich going to be involved in the nationwide coaching search? Will he be in the mix?
There are so many unknowns here. It is a fascinating development.
And as weird as it seems, because it is weird, it does make sense. To fire Taylor this late into the offseason put the program way far behind the eight ball. There was no way to make a big splash hire from someone who is already in the coaching ranks. The carousel had already stopped spinning.
This gives Luck another nine months to figure out his next move. Reich is a great hire for a school that is in desperate need of resuscitation, even though he is just a stopgap. Why not give it a shot? The alternative would be to hire someone WAY outside of the box or to hire a lesser-desirable candidate that may not be of the utmost interest to the new general manager.