Troy Taylor's firing opens 30-day transfer portal for Stanford football

Stanford football fired head coach Troy Taylor on Tuesday, days after an ESPN report said the coach was twice the subject of third-party investigations into complaints from athletic department employees over hostile behavior. Former Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, who now serves as the program’s general manager, fired Taylor on Tuesday.

Taylor was hired in December 2022 to replace the winningest head coach in school history, David Shaw. He went 3-9 in each of his two seasons, failing to make a bowl game. He was previously the head coach at Sacramento State.

Taylor’s firing comes in the middle of March and seven days away from spring practice. The Cardinal will now have to face the transfer portal. Luck’s decision to fire Taylor opens the 30-day transfer portal for Stanford players. In an unprecedented situation, Luck will be charged with keeping the program together as no interim head coach has been pegged yet.

“Since beginning my role as General Manager, I have been thoroughly assessing the entire Stanford football program. It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change,” Luck said in a statement on Tuesday.

NCAA rules allow athletes on a team with a coaching change to enter the portal the day after the change. In this case, Stanford athletes can enter starting Wednesday. Roster retention will be the top priority next to finding a successor to Taylor.

It also gives college football programs a head start on targeting Stanford players. The spring college football transfer portal opens April 16 and shuts down April 25. The 10-day portal window is the last chance FBS programs have to reload rosters before the 2025 season.

With the one-time transfer rule, athletes can play immediately at new schools. Plus, multi-time transfers who enter will be eligible to play immediately at a new school in the 2025-26 academic year.

More than 2,800 FBS scholarship players entered their names into the NCAA’s transfer database during the 2023-24 school year. Removing those who withdrew or went pro, the final total sat at 2,707 transfers. That means roughly 25% of all FBS scholarship players hit free agency in one year.

To this point, 2,196 FBS scholarship players have entered in 2024-25.