Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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32 NOV. 29, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: STANFORD BY TYLER JAMES S tanford couldn't ask for a much better setup for its final three weeks of the regular season. The Cardinal spent the first of those three weeks enjoying its second bye week of the campaign. Then the Cardinal was set to close the season with home rivalry matchups against California and Notre Dame in back-to-back weekends. Interim head coach Frank Reich didn't want to approach Stanford's idle week with any complicated plans. "Get better at football," Reich said, in part, earlier this month when asked about what he emphasized during the recent bye week. "It was reduced physi- cal work, but still the same focus and intensity with the work that we did. "Shorter practices but intense prac- tices. Tightening things up schemati- cally about what we're doing, what adjustments we want to make for this coming-up game. And then also getting guys healthy and fresh and coming in fully ready for this week." Reich rightfully hasn't tried to over- complicate the process for a program that dealt with plenty of complications in the offseason. Stanford fired head coach Troy Taylor in late March fol- lowing reports of hostile behavior and personal attacks toward fellow employ- ees. General manager Andrew Luck, the high-profile former Stanford quarter- back who returned to his alma mater in a new role last November, declared Stanford's program needed a "reset" in his prepared statement that announced the news of Taylor's firing. Before March ended, Stanford tabbed Reich as the interim head coach. Be- cause the offseason coaching carousel had already settled for the year, Stan- ford decided to delay its national search for a more permanent replacement until after the 2025 season. Reich's most re- cent coaching job ended in November 2023 when he was fired after a 1-10 start as the head coach for the NFL's Carolina Panthers. His connection to Stanford ran through Luck, whom Reich coached for the Indianapolis Colts in Luck's final NFL season in 2018. Measuring success for Reich this sea- son was always going to look a little bit different than what other programs may be looking for from a new head coach. The Cardinal was looking for wins — and attained only three of them in the first 10 games — but overall improve- ment seemed more important. Reich said recently he believes the program is in better shape than how he found it in March. "I'm very confident that that's the case, and obviously for a lot of reasons," Reich said. "A lot of people, starting with Andrew Luck, first and foremost, starting with our players, secondly, starting with the great job that this cur- rent coaching staff did in a very tough and difficult situation for them. "And then most of the credit goes to the players. Players are in a tough po- sition, getting an interim head coach and a lot of uncertainty, but just them committing and seeing the progress that we've made on the field and just the culture that those guys have created and continued to build, the leadership that we've gotten from those guys like [senior tight end] Sam Roush and [red- shirt junior cornerback] Collin Wright, our captains, and there's a lot of other guys as well." Frank Reich, who was tabbed as the interim head coach for Stanford in March, was previously head coach of the Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers in the NFL. PHOTO COURTESY STANFORD ATHLETICS HARD RESET The Cardinal's reboot required realistic goals