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RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - Orange Mark - 10-11-2026

(10-11-2026, 11:15 AM)thunder_chik Wrote:  UCLA lucked out with their new coach:  Bob Chesney, 25+ years collegiate coaching experience, 5-0 so far this season.

What a contrast to the Stanford coaching situation.

Tavita knows little about today's college football landscape. He has no head coaching experience at any level. He was unsuccessful as college offensive coordinator. Again, why was he hired?

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - MV72018 - 10-11-2026

(10-11-2026, 11:31 AM)Orange Mark Wrote:  
(10-11-2026, 11:15 AM)thunder_chik Wrote:  UCLA lucked out with their new coach:  Bob Chesney, 25+ years collegiate coaching experience, 5-0 so far this season.

What a contrast to the Stanford coaching situation.

Tavita knows little about today's college football landscape. He has no head coaching experience at any level. He was unsuccessful as college offensive coordinator. Again, why was he hired?

For six reasons: 1. he is a former Stanford player and assistant who is familiar with Stanford; 2. he could be signed for a quite low price tag; 3. he knows Andrew Luck; 4. he was an assistant with the Washington Commanders; 5. he makes the impression of being a reputable and personable individual; and 6. he knows the rhetoric to use to stay in the good graces of Stanford higher ups. Are any of those qualities ones that make it likely that he will be a successful head football coach at Stanford?

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - JohnR34231 - 10-11-2026

(10-11-2026, 12:06 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  
(10-11-2026, 11:31 AM)Orange Mark Wrote:  
(10-11-2026, 11:15 AM)thunder_chik Wrote:  UCLA lucked out with their new coach:  Bob Chesney, 25+ years collegiate coaching experience, 5-0 so far this season.

What a contrast to the Stanford coaching situation.

Tavita knows little about today's college football landscape. He has no head coaching experience at any level. He was unsuccessful as college offensive coordinator. Again, why was he hired?

For six reasons: 1. he is a former Stanford player and assistant who is familiar with Stanford; 2. he could be signed for a quite low price tag; 3. he knows Andrew Luck; 4. he was an assistant with the Washington Commanders; 5. he makes the impression of being a reputable and personable individual; and 6. he knows the rhetoric to use to stay in the good graces of Stanford higher ups. Are any of those qualities ones that make it likely that he will be a successful head football coach at Stanford?

Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Another reason might be that Luck couldn't find anyone better qualified who was willing to take the job.

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - AlbanyCardinal - 10-11-2026

I'd add that TP not only knows Luck, but was more than willing to work under him as GM. The two guys Luck's hired so far have fit this bill. My understanding -- based on hearsay, I'll admit, but from connected sources I trust -- is that this was a nonstarter for most coveted head coaching candidates out there.

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - msqueri - 10-11-2026

UCLA did not luck out with Chesney. They did the smart thing hiring a coach who had excelled at Salve Regina, Assumption, Holy Cross, and James Madison. I started hyping him as a desirable coaching candidate in February 2022. If people pay attention to up-and-coming coaching candidates you can have a good sense of who will be more likely to succeed at higher levels. Stanford did a deeply foolish thing hiring Tavita Pritchard.

For instance, a name that makes my heart sink knowing he is still coaching Group of Six and we are where we are is Jason Eck. We are not serious people.

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - BostonCard - 10-11-2026

(10-11-2026, 02:52 PM)msqueri Wrote:  UCLA did not luck out with Chesney. They did the smart thing hiring a coach who had excelled at Salve Regina, Assumption, Holy Cross, and James Madison. I started hyping him as a desirable coaching candidate in February 2022. If people pay attention to up-and-coming coaching candidates you can have a good sense of who will be more likely to succeed at higher levels. Stanford did a deeply foolish thing hiring Tavita Pritchard.

For instance, a name that makes my heart sink knowing he is still coaching Group of Six and we are where we are is Jason Eck. We are not serious people.

I'm sure you've done a where are they now with your 2022 head coaching candidate list.  Probably depressing reading because if memory serves Curt Cignetti was pretty high on the list.  That being said, looking back historically in the 21st century, other than Harbaugh (and given his show cause finding at Michigan, we may have dodged a bullet when he left after a few seasons for the NFL) Stanford does not have a great track record hiring external head coaches:

Buddy Teevens: 3 seasons 10-23 record, fired
Walt Harris: 2 seasons 6-17 record, fired
Harbaugh: 4 seasons, 29-21 record, 2 bowl games, left for the NFL
Not including Shaw because he wasn't an external hire and I have no desire to debate his tenure
Troy Taylor: 2 seasons, 6-18 record + scandal, fired
Frank Reich: 1 season, 4-8 record [placeholder]
Tavita Pritchard: <1 season, 2-4 record

That's across four different AD's and three or four different Presidents, so it doesn't suggest it's an isolated problem.  It's not even solely a "new era" problem isolated to the NIL era, though I will freely admit we had better success in the Tyrone Willingham era (but even that was up and down), and before that Denny Green [but at least those coaches were clearly better than these].  Nor do the coaches clearly fit a pattern; Teevens was an assistant at Florida with Steve Spurrier.  Harris had success at Pitt.  Taylor had success at Sac State.  Pritchard had NFL experience as a coordinator.  Our one successful guy, Harbaugh, was successful in non-scholarship FCS (USD).  In some ways, the Harbaugh/early Shaw era is the interlude, a respite to a bunch of bad teams and bad coaches since the curse of the Seattle Bowl.

BC

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - 82lsju - 10-11-2026

(10-11-2026, 06:04 PM)BostonCard Wrote:  That's across four different AD's and three or four different Presidents, so it doesn't suggest it's an isolated problem.  It's not even solely a "new era" problem isolated to the NIL era, though I will freely admit we had better success in the Tyrone Willingham era (but even that was up and down), and before that Denny Green [but at least those coaches were clearly better than these].  Nor do the coaches clearly fit a pattern; Teevens was an assistant at Florida with Steve Spurrier.  Harris had success at Pitt.  Taylor had success at Sac State.  Pritchard had NFL experience as a coordinator.  Our one successful guy, Harbaugh, was successful in non-scholarship FCS (USD).  In some ways, the Harbaugh/early Shaw era is the interlude, a respite to a bunch of bad teams and bad coaches since the curse of the Seattle Bowl.

BC

Pritchard was the QB coach not OC at Washington.

Quote:Pritchard most recently spent three seasons as quarterbacks coach of the Washington Commanders, having mentored Jayden Daniels, Jacoby Brissett, Sam Howell and Marcus Mariota. 

https://gostanford.com/staff/tavita-pritchard

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - Row80Critic - 10-11-2026

(10-11-2026, 11:15 AM)thunder_chik Wrote:  UCLA lucked out with their new coach:  Bob Chesney, 25+ years collegiate coaching experience, 5-0 so far this season.

[bitter_sarcasm_font] 

I understand they were on the verge of hiring Josh Rosen as HQ but at the very last minute decided to hire someone qualified for the job instead --with 16 seasons as a head coach; eight conference championships, multiple coach of the year awards -- producing 11 All-Americans (2 FBS, 9 FCS), and 192 all-conference selections.  Go figure.  At a more academic school that values excellence, it would have been Rosen's job to lose.

 [/bitter_sarcasm_font]

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - fullmetal - 10-11-2026

Here's hoping Tavita gets "promoted" to an NFL job then?  But to be fair, I don't think any coach would be very successful with this roster in this shape.  The only places where TP could have really made a big difference would have been playcalling and staff hires, imo.  And surely AL would have weighed in if bad decisions were about to be made there?

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - ADPinWDC - 10-12-2026

(10-11-2026, 12:21 PM)JohnR34231 Wrote:  
(10-11-2026, 12:06 PM)MV72018 Wrote:  
(10-11-2026, 11:31 AM)Orange Mark Wrote:  
(10-11-2026, 11:15 AM)thunder_chik Wrote:  UCLA lucked out with their new coach:  Bob Chesney, 25+ years collegiate coaching experience, 5-0 so far this season.

What a contrast to the Stanford coaching situation.

Tavita knows little about today's college football landscape. He has no head coaching experience at any level. He was unsuccessful as college offensive coordinator. Again, why was he hired?

For six reasons: 1. he is a former Stanford player and assistant who is familiar with Stanford; 2. he could be signed for a quite low price tag; 3. he knows Andrew Luck; 4. he was an assistant with the Washington Commanders; 5. he makes the impression of being a reputable and personable individual; and 6. he knows the rhetoric to use to stay in the good graces of Stanford higher ups. Are any of those qualities ones that make it likely that he will be a successful head football coach at Stanford?

Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Another reason might be that Luck couldn't find anyone better qualified who was willing to take the job.

So then Pritchard sounds like... Paul Wiggin.
How did that go?

RE: Notre Dame Game Thread - Goose - 10-12-2026

(10-12-2026, 04:50 PM)ADPinWDC Wrote:  So then Pritchard sounds like... Paul Wiggin.
Not really. Paul Wiggin was an assistant coach in the NFL for a total of 8 years before he was hired at Stanford. He also was the head coach of the Chiefs for 2 years. Thus he did have head coaching experience, which Pritchard did not. He also had significantly more experience as an NFL assistant coach. On paper, he was undoubtedly a "better" candidate than Pritchard.  Of course, things didn't work out so well for him as Stanford's head coach.