Andrew Luck did, in fact, grab the mop and bucket.
Just four months into his term as general manager of Stanford’s struggling football program — and the de facto leader of Cardinal athletics — Luck began the cleanup process by clearing out coach Troy Taylor.
The most surprising aspect of the entire episode isn’t that Stanford axed its head coach Tuesday, a week before spring practice. It’s that Taylor was still on the job following two investigations into inappropriate conduct directed at female staff members.
Following the first investigation, in 2023, Taylor was warned that he could be fired if the conduct continued, according to an ESPN report. It did continue, with a second investigation a year later. But Taylor remained employed and coached the Cardinal to a second consecutive 3-9 season.
Then again, doing nothing is something Stanford athletics has done very well in recent years — and one reason Luck, the former Cardinal quarterback, was hired last fall with oversight of football and a direct line to university president Jonathan Levin.
At that point, it was clear athletic director Bernard Muir had been marginalized. After all, an AD without command of football is merely first mate. Not surprisingly, Muir stepped down in February with the department in vastly worse shape than it was when he took the job in 2012.
(Stanford has yet to name an interim, much less made substantive progress on a search for a permanent replacement.)
The dynamics changed last week when ESPN reported on the investigations into Taylor’s conduct. Instantly, the full sweep of the mess created during Muir’s tenure was exposed to the world.
With Taylor sullied publicly and a leadership void atop the department, Luck became the face of Stanford athletics and the sole possessor of the authority necessary to salvage the football program. (Aside from Levin, of course.)
“In recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor,” Luck noted Tuesday in a statement released by the university.
“After continued consideration it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program.”
(Taylor’s attorney might have some thoughts on the decision, particularly given that Taylor remained employed for nearly a year after the second investigation concluded and was only dismissed after the situation entered the public sphere. We’re confident Stanford has the wherewithal to cover any damages.)
Luck has two options: Hire a permanent coach this spring under suboptimal circumstances; or appoint an interim coach for the 2025 season. The latter approach, although somewhat unusual, would create valuable time to evaluate the state of the football program and the industry, then find the best coach for the challenge.
Roster upgrades are desperately needed, of course. But talent acquisition is inexorably linked to broader changes in college football — changes that will require alignment across the university.
Next month, the presumptive settlement of an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA will legalize revenue sharing with athletes. Major football-playing schools are expected to spend as much as $15 million (approximately) on their rosters and another $5 million on all other sports.
Is Stanford willing to go all-in with football?
And to what extent will the Cardinal’s NIL operation provide endorsement opportunities for athletes that go above and beyond the revenue sharing?
Also, how many undergraduate transfers — from the SEC, not the Ivy League — will the football program be allowed to accept each season?
The answers will determine the quality of the candidate pool.
There are risks associated with hiring a permanent coach this spring and with using an interim coach for the season. But appointing an interim would grant Luck the time to assess the industry landscape following the lawsuit settlement, benchmark Stanford’s resources against peers in the ACC and map a path forward.
The Cardinal cannot botch the hire or make a half-hearted commitment to football.
The next five years are effectively an audition for Stanford before college football’s Great Restructuring begins. Whatever the outcome — whether the SEC and Big Ten expand again or a super league arises — Stanford cannot afford to get left behind.
And therein lies the root of Stanford’s many ills over the past eight or 10 years, from the Varsity Blues scandal to the (aborted) plan to cut sports to the missteps in men’s basketball and the deterioration of football under David Shaw and the Taylor mess and everything else.
The athletic department accounts for a sliver of a slice of Stanford’s $10 billion budget and is therefore easy for the administration and the board of trustees to ignore.
But the department’s intrinsic value as the most public-facing facet of the university — an entity that energizes donors, drives applications for admissions and helps frame campus culture — is immense.
If ignored … if left to wither under ineffective leadership … losing, chaos and irrelevance ensue.
Enough losing that ticket sales collapse and the budget craters.
Enough chaos that the university’s reputation is damaged.
Enough irrelevance that one of the best schools in the world, with the most successful athletic department in NCAA history, cannot gain admission into the Big Ten alongside UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington.
College sports increasingly resembles seven-dimensional chess. It appears Luck and Levin understand how the pieces move and interact.
Firing Taylor was the first step in an essential cleanup effort that will take years and require an unprecedented institutional commitment.
If Stanford whiffs on the hire, the salvage operation could be delayed indefinitely — with dire long-term consequences.
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