Stanford head coach Frank Reich spoke earlier this week at ACC Media Days.
Opening Statement:
“It's great to be here. We are, on behalf of the Stanford football team, along with our players, we're excited to be here to kick off the 2025 season here at this ACC Kickoff in Charlotte. We're extremely proud to represent Stanford University, the excellent tradition both academically and athletically. Proud to have been playing football at Stanford for about 130 years. A lot of great history of winning tradition, coaches, players, some 282 players being drafted into the NFL.
“Now we're here for the 2025 season and really looking forward to that. We really believe coming into this 2025 season that under new GM Andrew Luck, that the Stanford football program is about to enter a new era of football and you're going to see a new brand of football under his vision and leadership. I'm really excited to be a part of that for the unique opportunity that I have to be the interim head coach for the 2025 season.
“I think, after having been there for three months, the reason I'm most excited, besides working with Andrew, is getting to know guys like these four guys sitting right up here, along with many of their other teammates, especially the more veteran, older guys, who are really going to be the foundation to turn this program around as we enter this new era. We could not be more excited for the year ahead.
“It's a unique year. We've got a lot of change, a change with me coming in as the interim head coach, 17 transfers, more than ever in Stanford history, but it really all starts with player leadership, with Sam Roush, Collin Wright, Tevarua Tafiti and Simi Pale, as well. These guys are true leaders, along with the other guys, and we're excited to compete here in the ACC. We look forward to competing against many worthy opponents in this 2025 season in our quest to be ACC champions this year.”
On why he wanted to be an interim head coach at Stanford and what the pillars of his program will be:
”Life is full of many journeys and experiences. That's what we're looking for, to grow all the time. When Andrew called and said, would you help us out this year, first I was a little bit hesitant, but then when I came out and I just realized, listen, I've experienced a lot of things in life in the football world, but I get an opportunity to coach Stanford? I mean, this is a unique place. I've been there for three months, and I've drank the Kool-Aid, and it is different. It is different in the best of ways.
“The culture there is different. The people. It's really a unique place. Really where, for me, it was about the experience of coaching the student-athlete, the Stanford student-athlete, guys like who are sitting right over here to my left, that I knew would make my better, make me a better coach, a better person. The other reason I said yes to Andrew is I know I've got something to offer. I've got something to offer to help Andrew, I've got something to offer to help these guys.
“As we come in to kind of kick this new era of football off, we kind of started with, we put up here's the standards that we're going to live by and we're going to play by. We've got to all commit to these, and we've got to put our brand of football out there and let people see what that's going to be. We'll let our talk on the field show what it's going to be. I'm extremely optimistic about the progress we're going to make in the 2025 season.”
On balancing short-term goals like winning while also planting seeds for Stanford's long-term success:
”I think those two can go together, right? I think they always do go together. We do have goals for this season, and they're clear to each one of us what those goals are, but we also understand the way you plant seeds for long term success is get the process right and get the people right.
“Like I said, we have the right people, starting with these guys and some transfers we got in and the rest of the team that was there, and now it becomes a question of us together, players and coaches, committing to a process that can be the foundation for long-term success.
“You've got to create a championship culture before you can really win the championships. So sometimes the results, you see the results right away, and sometimes times they lag. There's no given. There's no absolutes in this world as far as you can't be promised that you're going to see those right away, but what makes me feel like we're going to see the results this year is because of the right kind of people who have laid the foundation, how hard these players have worked this off-season. I've seen that. I've watched it. I've seen the progress we've made in the weight room in every way possible off the football field.
“Then as far as putting in new schemes and preparing for the season in that way, in the short time we've had, I've just seen an incredible amount of progress and I'm excited to start competing against some other people.”
On the new era of college football and working with Andrew Luck:
”We have a very similar philosophy and belief. When Andrew and I were together in 2018, I think we had an incredible season together. We both resonate with it starts with the process. These guys will joke, and hear about me saying and Andrew saying, hey, it's all about getting 1 percent better every day, going 1-0 every day. That's the way you build success. It's a commitment to that.
“It's a combination of confidence and humility. That's what I saw in Andrew Luck that was so special. This extreme confidence, but also this great humility. To know that you can get better every day, to know that you can get better every day.
“That's going to be our approach. We're going to make a lot of progress because we're going to put in the right systems and we've got the right people, and we're just going to work hard at getting better all the time.”
On what it will take to turnaround Stanford:
”Player leadership. I think as coaches you can come in and provide some structure. You can provide new schemes that will bring a little bit of life and hope to the program, and I think that's really what Andrew and I have been trying to do is just provide a framework and a culture that can give our team hope.
“But I think our team knows the responsibility -- this is a player's game, and it's up to them to make the plays on the field. I think that's how it's done, and I think that's what we'll see this year.”
On Boston College and Stanford being similar in maintaining academic standards with former NFL coaches:
”There's no question. I mean, how you do anything is how you do everything. Everything matters. A better man makes a better player. You can only compartmentalize your life so far. For those who try to say, hey, football is a separate deal and I have a different approach, it just is short-lived.
“You find the people and the players and the coaches who understand that there's a certain way of doing things. Whether that's in the academic world or in the athletic realm or at home as a father or husband or brother, whatever the case may be, there's certain principles and standards that you live by in life that help us to win and create a winning culture and really create an opportunity to elevate your own game and elevate other people around you.
“That's really what we're trying to do, just build that kind of mentality. So excited to get to work doing that.”
On the challenges and differences in the college game:
”Football is football. So on a schematic level, there were no challenges. Obviously at Stanford, we've got high quality student-athletes who are very physically talented but also mentally can grasp the things in the pro style schemes that we're going to run.
“I think the biggest challenge is the amount of time that you get with the athlete, where in the NFL you're with these guys all day every day and you can stay as long as you want. In college there's just a different deal.
“You have to really pick and choose what you want to do and how much you want to put in and how far you can go with certain things. Then it's incumbent upon the players to really take ownership of that. Good news for us, we've got the right kind of players to do that, but that is the biggest challenge is the time spent because, to be able to sit and talk football 24/7, you put yourself in that environment, you're just going to get better.
“In college you have to count on the players doing that for themselves and doing that amongst each other, and I believe we've got that kind of leadership.”
On the identity he’s trying to establish as Stanford’s best teams had a clear identity:
“I'm glad you asked that question, and it is the question, the most important question not only offensively but really as a defense. I've talked a lot about this with the coaches and want to make sure that we, as a coaching staff, know what the answer to that question is, which we do.
“However, being a, quote, unquote, new coaching staff, since I'm new and there's some question of, well, what Stanford's going to do on offense? Are they going to go back and do what Andrew and Frank did back with the Colts, or is it going to be when Frank was with the Eagles, where? But I was so late that I got the same coaches from last year. So there's still a little mystery to what we're going to do on offense, and honestly I just want to keep it that way, you know what I mean?
“At least for the first few games of the season, that's a mystery. The truth is we're going to be a hybrid of a bunch of different things, or at least that's what we want everybody to think and let people figure it out as we go. So don't really want to provide too much information there.
“But you did hit on one keynote that I'm willing to talk about, and that is physicality. I don't care if you're throwing it or running it, you can't win if you're not physical, and if you don't play with great effort and great intensity. That has to be part of the identity, and then how the rest of it plays out, you'll see as it unfolds. If it's not physical, then we haven't really achieved what we were shooting for.”
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