12. What most interests me about Troy Taylor by far is his last three years. Next up is his time as the legendary Folsom head coach (or co-head coach for several years, as it were). We're hiring a head coach and that's what I want from him and why he got the job. The offensive coordinator stints mean a lot less to me. But he did not formally have an offensive coordinator at Sacramento State and presumably will keep his hands firmly on the offense's wheel at Stanford, so it is relevant to dissect the coordinator gigs. Much has been made about his one coordinator foray in Power Five football, the short-lived and ill-fitted role working for Whittingham at Utah. I couldn't care less about the debates on whether he was "fired" from Utah. It's obvious he did not mesh with Whittingham and they parted. It's effectively a firing. The question is what we should make of it. As others have noted, Whittingham has a long history of not meshing with coordinators. That is an important contextual factor. On the other hand, the data show Utah's offense was better off without Taylor and Whittingham made the right call. Whittingham has been head coach so long there's a brobdingnagian amount of data points on how his coordinators fare (he's been there since before FEI even existed as an advanced metric, giving us all 16 years of FEI to analyze). The median Ute offense is #60 in FEI. That reveals Taylor (#85 and #59 in FEI his two years there) was mediocre. Notably, replacing Taylor with Andy Ludwig unlocked the Ute offense. Three of the last four years have been the best offensive years in Whittingham's tenure. Ultimately, the Utah tenure is a mark against Taylor's reputation as an offensive wizard. Nonetheless, the fact he did it increases my confidence in the hire, as he's game planned against Pac-12 defenses and been mediocre at it, which is more than we can say for the man he's replacing. Moreover, people can learn and it is a very reasonable hope that Taylor will take lessons from that experience and be more poised to succeed in the Pac-12 this time around. For what it's worth, at Eastern Washington Taylor's offense averaged 42.36 points per game the year he was there compared to 34.64 the year before him and 34.45 the year after him, so that experience bolsters the narrative he was an outstanding FCS coordinator. Overall, there is extremely strong (I'd say ironclad) evidence Stanford is improving its offensive coaching.
13. The thing to worry about is whether Taylor's FCS alchemy translates up two big levels in competition (leap frogging Group of Five entirely). We can be confident he knows how to build a culture (again, the most important attribute bar none), organize a football program, manage a staff, and so forth. What we don't know is whether he can recruit nationally and build a Power Five level staff. His success and anecdotal reputation support the idea he can recruit, but it was overwhelmingly reliant on regional, junior college, and transfer portal recruiting. Additionally, he wasn't at Sacramento State long enough to build up a recruiting track record worth judging and the immediacy of his success strongly suggests it had more to do with culture, organization, scheme, and other factors as opposed to recruiting (not a bad thing). By PFF's lights, this year he had one sublime mega star (RB Cameron Skattebo) and seven superstars (TE Marshel Martin, QB Asher O'Hara, RB Marcus Fulcher, LB Armon Bailey, CB Caleb Nelson, DL Jett Stanley, and S/nickel Marte Mapu) [By national reputation outside PFF Skattebo and Mapu were the studs]. Much of that was inherited rather than brought in by Taylor, though Skattebo was a Taylor recruit, O'Hara and Nelson came in as transfers, and Fulcher came in the same year as Taylor so there may or may not have been a role there. Taylor has enough of an imprint on the superstar echelon of the roster not to dismiss his role not only in managing the roster but in shaping it in a way instrumental to the team's success.
14. Stanford fans will want to know if we can plunder the Sacramento State roster and/or transfer portal. To my eyes the Sacramento State roster does not look hospitable. Most of the guys I mentioned as superstars don't have any evidence of being good students (REALLY wish that weren't the case with Skattebo and hope I'm wrong/he was too young to be properly honored last year, as that would be brobdingnagian for us to get him). Stanley strikes me as the best option. I'd guess we'd get zero, one, or two Hornets transfers. Not going to reshape our roster. The transfer portal more broadly will be more interesting for two reasons. First, the joy/fun, energy, and optimism reflected by the Taylor hire could interact with normal opportunism and the pull of the Stanford degree to make us attractive to good transfers generally. Second, Taylor is a Northern California legend. While the area isn't a particularly fertile one for high-level high school football, there are players, as he showed at Sacramento State. He aggressively went after former Folsom players and Sacramento area guys in the transfer portal (like Nelson) and I'd be surprised if he didn't going forward. But I'd predict the first factor may end up being more significant for us, as the Venn diagram of Sacramento guys with admissible academics and football talent isn't large (but maybe keep an eye on guys like Justin Eklund from San Jose State or Kaleb Higgins from Cal). The real question on the transfer portal as an avenue for Stanford comes down to support from the administration. We've heard rumblings but it's still really unclear what that looks like and how significant it is.
13. The thing to worry about is whether Taylor's FCS alchemy translates up two big levels in competition (leap frogging Group of Five entirely). We can be confident he knows how to build a culture (again, the most important attribute bar none), organize a football program, manage a staff, and so forth. What we don't know is whether he can recruit nationally and build a Power Five level staff. His success and anecdotal reputation support the idea he can recruit, but it was overwhelmingly reliant on regional, junior college, and transfer portal recruiting. Additionally, he wasn't at Sacramento State long enough to build up a recruiting track record worth judging and the immediacy of his success strongly suggests it had more to do with culture, organization, scheme, and other factors as opposed to recruiting (not a bad thing). By PFF's lights, this year he had one sublime mega star (RB Cameron Skattebo) and seven superstars (TE Marshel Martin, QB Asher O'Hara, RB Marcus Fulcher, LB Armon Bailey, CB Caleb Nelson, DL Jett Stanley, and S/nickel Marte Mapu) [By national reputation outside PFF Skattebo and Mapu were the studs]. Much of that was inherited rather than brought in by Taylor, though Skattebo was a Taylor recruit, O'Hara and Nelson came in as transfers, and Fulcher came in the same year as Taylor so there may or may not have been a role there. Taylor has enough of an imprint on the superstar echelon of the roster not to dismiss his role not only in managing the roster but in shaping it in a way instrumental to the team's success.
14. Stanford fans will want to know if we can plunder the Sacramento State roster and/or transfer portal. To my eyes the Sacramento State roster does not look hospitable. Most of the guys I mentioned as superstars don't have any evidence of being good students (REALLY wish that weren't the case with Skattebo and hope I'm wrong/he was too young to be properly honored last year, as that would be brobdingnagian for us to get him). Stanley strikes me as the best option. I'd guess we'd get zero, one, or two Hornets transfers. Not going to reshape our roster. The transfer portal more broadly will be more interesting for two reasons. First, the joy/fun, energy, and optimism reflected by the Taylor hire could interact with normal opportunism and the pull of the Stanford degree to make us attractive to good transfers generally. Second, Taylor is a Northern California legend. While the area isn't a particularly fertile one for high-level high school football, there are players, as he showed at Sacramento State. He aggressively went after former Folsom players and Sacramento area guys in the transfer portal (like Nelson) and I'd be surprised if he didn't going forward. But I'd predict the first factor may end up being more significant for us, as the Venn diagram of Sacramento guys with admissible academics and football talent isn't large (but maybe keep an eye on guys like Justin Eklund from San Jose State or Kaleb Higgins from Cal). The real question on the transfer portal as an avenue for Stanford comes down to support from the administration. We've heard rumblings but it's still really unclear what that looks like and how significant it is.