Frank Reich sets massive goal for Stanford football

The ACC now officially has two head football coaches without a trace of collegiate coaching experience.

Frank Reich was introduced Tuesday as Stanford's football coach for the coming 2025 season on the heels of the ouster of Troy Taylor amidst an investigation into allegations of a miserable workplace-environment fostered under Taylor's watch.

Reich is a former Maryland Terps star quarterback with a lengthy NFL playing career and almost an additional two decades' NFL coaching experience.

He hasn't been a part of a college football team since 1984.

Now, he's in charge of the Cardinal -- preparing for their second football season as an ACC member -- and not backing down from any challenges. 

"Sitting down and talking with my wife, Linda, and talking with our three daughters, Lia, Aviry and Hannah, as we sat there and I explained to them after Linda and I had talked and I had explained to them that I was going to come do this," Reich said Tuesday, "they were like, 'Dad, you know, what are you doing? You've had almost, counting your college career, you've had almost 40 years of football, of great success playing and coaching; six Super Bowls, comeback things, a million winning seasons. You've played with the best. You've coached with the best.' 

"I told my family, the mission is very clear: After almost 40 years, it's going to be my personal mission and my belief that the 2025 season can be the most rewarding one yet. I can't wait to get started, to get started with my friend (Andrew Luck) and to get started with these players and these coaches. It's going to be a very rewarding experience."

Hired by his former star quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts and also a former star at Stanford, Andrew Luck, Reich has agreed to take over the Cardinal program for one year while Luck, now general manager at his alma mater, prepared to embark on a more full-scale coaching search.

Reich inherits a program with back-to-back 3-9 seasons under Taylor and overall four-straight three-win campaigns.

"We've got a lot to prove here, we've got a lot to prove as a football program and I'm fine with that," Luck said. "That's awesome. I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel like there was alignment and support from our university, from our athletic department, from other coaches, from other folks as evident with who's in the room right now. 

I'm well aware of what I hopped into. We need to go out and win. We need to do out and prove we can win. I still believe we are an incredibly unique institution; we are different than every other. We're proud of that. And we're playing the game. Revenue-share, we're in it. We're here to win, we're here to compete. Part of what I love about this place is the ethos. The pursuit of excellence matters, competing at a high level matters.

"Yeah, we've gotta go prove it. Yeah, we've gotta go win. Yes, we're playing the game with everybody else. And I know that our locker room feels that. They don't want to have losing seasons. No one wants that. You didn't come here to do that. ... Are we in a perfect place? Absolutely not, but I know we're set up really well to adapt to changes. To hold onto our core values, to go win football games and make our university and our community very proud of what we're putting on the football field."

Much about what Reich inherits is less-than-ideal and on an even greater time crunch. Not only is it extremely late in the spring, and not only can players now enter the NCAA Transfer Portal immediately at Stanford (rather than having to wait till later this month when the Portal opens from April 16-25) but the Cardinal also have one of the earliest games to kick off the 2025 season.

Stanford plays at Hawaii Aug. 23. Additionally, Stanford has a non-conference game at BYU in September, ACC clashes against Florida State, Miami, Bill Belichick's North Carolina program, 2024 College Football Playoff participant SMU and a rivalry tilt against CFP runner-up Notre Dame.