Stanford is turning to one of its arch rival’s former quarterbacks to help revive its football program.
Sacramento State head coach and Cal grad Troy Taylor was officially hired by Stanford to replace David Shaw on Saturday morning.
Shaw, the winningest coach in Stanford history and a two-time Rose Bowl winner, announced his retirement shortly after midnight on Nov. 27 following the Cardinal’s season-ending loss to BYU.
Taylor, 54, has won Big Sky Coach of the Year in all three full seasons in charge of the Hornets and has a 30-8 after Friday night’s barn-burning 66-63 loss to Incarnate Word in the FCS quarterfinals.
Born in Southern California and raised in the Sacramento area, Taylor first came to the Bay Area to play quarterback at Cal. He was a starter in all four years he was on campus (1986-1989) and went 1-2-1 against the Cardinal in the Big Game. Taylor joins Jerod Haase (basketball) and David Esquer (baseball) as Stanford coaches with a Cal pedigree.
After a short NFL career, Taylor returned to Berkeley as an offensive coach from 1996-2000. While Taylor left to coach high school football, he returned a third time to be the color analyst for the Golden Bears’ radio broadcast alongside Joe Starkey. He gave that up to become head coach at the powerhouse Folsom High School outside of Sacramento for four years before moving back up to the college ranks.
After one season as an offensive coordinator at Eastern Washington and two seasons in the same role at Utah, Sacramento State brought Taylor back to Northern California to be the head coach of the Hornets.
Since taking over in 2019, he has helped bring a level of success never before seen in Sacramento, as the Hornets have won at least a share of the Big Sky Conference championship in all three seasons (the Hornets didn’t play in the COVID-delayed spring 2021 FCS season) since being hired, with the Hornets finishing each regular season ranked in the Top 4 in FCS.
Taylor’s final season in charge at Sacramento State has been questionably the best in program history. The Hornets won double-digit wins for the second time in school history and first time since Sacramento State moved up to Division I in 1993 while also picking up their first FCS playoff win.
Hiring a coach with that level of rapid success at the FCS level is exactly what Stanford did the last time it hired a coach from outside of the program in 2006, when the Cardinal hired Jim Harbaugh from San Diego. Harbaugh was coming off of back-to-back 11-1 seasons at San Diego, while the Cardinal went 1-11.
In Harbaugh’s four years, the Cardinal went 4-8 in 2007 (and upset No. 1 USC), 5-7 in 2008, 8-5 in 2009 and 12-1 in 2010, winning the Orange Bowl and finishing ranked No. 4 in the country. Harbaugh then left to take over the 49ers and the school promoted Shaw from offensive coordinator to the head coaching role.
Shaw, 50, left some big shoes – and lots of empty seats – to fill at Stanford. He won three conference titles in his first five seasons and was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year four times.
Overall, Shaw’s record was 96-54 in 12 seasons in charge of his alma mater.
But Stanford hasn’t played in a bowl game since the 2018 Sun Bowl, the last time the team won at least four games. (The Cardinal was 4-2 during the COVID-19-shortened 2000 season)
The Cardinal had 3-9 records each of the past two seasons and has lost 15 of its past 18 Pac-12 games.
When Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir spoke about the job search last week, he said the school wasn’t as concerned about ties to the West Coast or Power Five head coaching experience, but integrity and how the candidate balanced academics and athletics.
Muir’s candidate pool indicated such, with former Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett one of the finalists for the job. Garrett ultimately elected not to take the job, posting on Twitter late Thursday night that he was staying with NBC as a broadcaster.
The Cardinal also reportedly discussed the job with former BYU and Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall and two former Stanford assistants: current Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman and Vic Fangio, former head coach of the Denver Broncos and 49ers assistant. San Jose State’s Brent Brennan’s name also was connected to the opening.
But in the end, Muir chose Taylor, even if he has no Power Five head coaching experience. Taylor will be tasked with helping the Cardinal figure out how to navigate the new college sports landscape.
One advantage Taylor will have in attempting to return Stanford to prominence is the use — in a small way — of the transfer portal. Taylor’s roster at Sacramento State is filled with transfers from schools at the FBS, FCS and junior college levels.
Since 2020, Stanford has accepted one transfer.
“We can’t build a roster full of transfers, but certainly we can at least hopefully dip our toe in the water there and see if there are the right individuals that can join this program,” Muir said last month.
When Shaw announced his decision, he said he felt the core of Stanford’s team “can be very, very good” and that the Cardinal is “not that far away.” But since that decision was announced, at least some of that core has dwindled.
At least 15 Stanford players have entered the transfer portal to leave the program in the week since Monday, including linebacker Levani Damuni, who this season was a team captain and led the team in tackles.
Additionally, two-year starter Tanner McKee announced he would declare for the NFL Draft on Thursday, meaning Taylor will be inserting a new quarterback when taking over. (Granted, Taylor may be used to unique situations at the position, as he alternated between two quarterbacks in games all season long).
Stanford has also lost two four-star commits since Shaw’s resignation: edge rusher Hunter Clegg (who switched his commitment to Utah) and tight end Walker Lyons, though Lyons only reopened his recruiting process and did not rule out the Cardinal.
Lyons went to Folsom High School, where Taylor used to work and just down the road from his current job. It would make sense if one of the first things Taylor did on the recruiting trail for the Cardinal is to head back to his old stomping grounds and try to get Lyons’ commitment back.
Laurence Miedema and Jon Wilner contributed to this report.
Join the Conversation
We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.