How Troy Taylor sees Stanford’s future with more early transfers, GM Andrew Luck

Two years into his tenure at Stanford, coach Troy Taylor has the worst winning percentage (.250) of any coach in Stanford football history.

But after consecutive 3-9 seasons and another suspected exodus of players – two-year starting quarterback Ashton Daniels and two-year starting tackle Luke Baklenko have already entered the transfer portal this week – Taylor feels that the addition of general manager Andrew Luck and an unprecedented influx of midseason transfers could help the Cardinal make a bowl game for the first time since 2018.

Taylor will be reporting to Luck, whose hiring was announced after Stanford’s season-ending loss at San Jose State last Friday.

“It’s uncharted territory for college football. So this is all new,” Taylor said Wednesday. “Everybody’s kind of on the run and adjusting, and I can’t imagine a better person that we could have to help us negotiate and manage through the different complexities and challenges that college football presents.”

Luck will manage both the football and business sides of the program, which Taylor said will free him up to pay more attention to the on-field product. Taylor currently has three titles – head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach.

“In this day and age of college football, the head coach position wears a lot of different hats,” Taylor said. “So it’s going to allow me to really focus on team culture and specifically the offense and driving the offense, as opposed to wearing different hats, as basically I was doing the GM stuff.”

The quarterback room will look completely different next year with the departure of Daniels, who set the school record for rushing yards by a quarterback this season, and the transfer of wildcat QB Justin Lamson, who set the school record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback.

Freshman Elijah Brown, who appeared in three games last season, is expected to return, and the Cardinal announced the signing of four-star quarterback Bear Bachmeier, the brother of Stanford wide receiver Tiger Bachmeier.

There’s also a greater possibility now that an incoming transfer could be in the mix.

After getting just one mid-year transfer in his first two seasons (Florida International linebacker Gaethen Bernadel, who led Stanford in tackles this season), Taylor expects 11 to join the team this winter and be with the team for spring practices.

That will be a big change for the Cardinal, who lost 19 starters to the transfer portal in Taylor’s first two seasons.

Taylor used the example of SMU, who had more than 20 transfers enter its program before the season and is now in the ACC championship game in its first year in the league.

“You see a team like SMU has done an extraordinary job in the transfer program,” Taylor said. “Stanford now realizes that we have to be able to compete in that area. Now, we’re not going to jeopardize our prestige and the type of students that we bring in, but there are great student-athletes out there that want to come in mid-year and play football and get a Stanford degree. And I’m feeling like we’re doing that for the first time. That’s an opportunity for the first time since I came here to really be able to change the roster and make it competitive immediately, as opposed to developing high school student-athletes.”

Taylor said that Stanford will still always focus on recruiting and developing recruits from high school. But the Cardinal haven’t won more than three games in a season since players earned the right to transfer without penalty. In Taylor’s first year, 13 starters left – including the entire offensive line – and couldn’t be replaced due to Stanford’s stringent requirements for incoming transfers.

Taylor said that Stanford won’t relax its standards when it comes to accepting mid-year transfers, but it will accelerate the process to accommodate players who typically make their decisions in 24 or 48 hours.

“My first year, we lost 13 starters in the transfer portal, and we were not able to fill in one guy,” Taylor said. “So we played with young guys, especially positions that were crucial with the offensive line. So now we’re going to be able to sign some older guys and have an immediate impact on our roster for the next season, as opposed to two years down the road.”