After coaching in the NFL from 2006-23, including the last six seasons as a head coach, Frank Reich is adjusting to running a college football program for the first time.
The Stanford interim head coach said the biggest challenge so far since taking over on March 31 hasn’t been schematic. Instead, it’s been the limited access to players.
“In the NFL you’re with these guys all day every day and you can stay as long as you want,” Reich told reporters Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina at ACC Kickoff, the conference’s preseason media event. “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.”
Reich could use as much time as possible with the team as he attempts to break a cycle of four straight 3-9 seasons. Reich was hired just before spring camp, following the publication of misconduct allegations that led to the firing of second-year coach Troy Taylor.
Stanford general manager Andrew Luck called on Reich, his former coach with the Indianapolis Colts, to lead the program while Luck searched for a permanent replacement.
“First I was a little bit hesitant,” Reich said. “But then when I came out and I just realized, 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 coaching change came at an already turbulent time for the program, which had just finished its first season in the ACC. The Cardinal lost its four leading tacklers and its top pass rusher this offseason. There was even more turnover on offense – the starting quarterback and the players who accounted for all 11 rushing touchdowns and 16 of 18 receiving touchdowns are gone.
Reich, a longtime NFL quarterback, is taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding what his new offense might look like.
“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?” Reich said. “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.”
Answers will be coming sooner than usual. Stanford, which begins fall camp on Wednesday, will play a Week 0 game at Hawaii on Aug. 23. However, Reich did say the team will focus on being physical, regardless of what scheme it uses.
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“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,” Reich said. “That has to be part of the identity, and then how the rest of it plays out, you’ll see as it unfolds.”
Stanford did welcome a school-record 17 transfers into the program, and Reich said the team has the right mindset as it enters a new era on The Farm.
“I think as coaches you can come in and provide some structure,” Reich said. “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 this is a player’s game, and it’s up to them to make the plays on the field.”
