Andrew Luck displays interim coach Frank Reich as “The Perfect Steward” for Stanford Football

Frank Reich has responded to the phone on several occasions in the last year and a half, deploying openings of various NFL franchises that have seen it as suitable for coaching staff. Nobody was the ideal solution for the former Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers coach.

Reich said to his wife, Linda, that to consider also to return to coaching, the control list had to be heavy: it had to simply be the right person and the right place. So, after the Reich saw the Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl Lix in February, he provided them with a sense of closing. They opted for the next phase.

“We were going on with our life,” said Reich.

Just over a month later, Reich’s phone rang again. This time with an investigation by Hail Mary who would listen to in the rooms of a Cost in Greensboro, NC, on the other line, was his former star quarterback. Suddenly, he was listening to the former four times protagonist Andrew Luck, who launched the 63 -year -old Reich on a unique idea in a tenuous situation.

The fortune, which returned to her Alma Mater Stanford last November as general manager of the football program, needed a short -term solution that believed that she would not hinder the cardinal’s 2025 season but could also act as a pad between the eras. Fortuna announced last week that the former head of the coach of Stanford Troy Taylor had been fired two weeks after an ESPN report had detailed multiple third -party investigations on Taylor’s inappropriate behavior towards female staff.

“It was time to restore the coaching position,” Luck said. “And while perhaps the times are not traditional, it was the right time for this program and for us.”

So luck needed support, and asked Reich if he would take into consideration the idea of ​​taking control as head of Stanford’s interim coach for the 2025 season. For the following days, luck joke about the fact that he went around with all his toes and his fingers while Reich thought about it. Apparently, luck didn’t need luck. A week after the dismissal of Taylor, Luck and Reich sitting together with a Palo Alto Plato platform in California, wearing pins combined on the Stanford on their blazers and talked about their combined desire to ensure that 2025 could be a launch bearing towards a awakening for Stanford football.

“We both agreed on the fact that this temporary label does not mean a step back, it does not mean pressing the pause button, it means that we are going forward,” said Reich. “The seeds of what a long -term vision can be planted this year as regards culture, as regards performance and as regards the winning football … this is our plan and this is our goal.”

More than once during Reich’s introductory press conference, Luck clarified that the hiring of his former coach was strictly on the basis of a year. He said Reich is “The Perfect Steward” for this transition period for the football program. Luck reiterated that Stanford will take a full -time coach after the 2025 season.

Part of the sale of Luck to Reich was that he would limit Reich’s burden when it comes to what most college football coaches must do in 2025: recruit, search for players in the transfer portal and convince some players who entered the portal to stay.

Luck is arousing the load, while Reich’s only goal for the rest of 2025 is to train football. Luck said that his role as a general manager of Stanford continues to prioritize fundraising for Nil and the creation of new revenue flows to keep up in this hectic era of university athletics.

(Photo: Emily Steinberger, Ap)