How Troy Taylor and A Piano Are Helping Turn Stanford Around

Stanford is in year one of a rebuild following three losing seasons in the last four years

The Stanford football program will always be an enigma in the college football world. It's a world-class academic institution that can compete at the highest level.

Well, that was of course true when the program was at its peak, recruiting and developing talent at an elite rate. Over the past few years, Stanford has fallen behind in football due to complacency and an unwillingness to change with the times. College sports are no longer predicated on recruiting an athlete, they start as a reserve, work their way up the depth chart, and repeat that cycle.

It is now about recruiting an athlete to your program, recruiting that same athlete to not leave your program via the transfer portal, NIL compensation, and snatching players from other programs via the portal. Now obviously Stanford has a world-class degree that helps prevent players from leaving right away which is an undervalued advantage that many don't realize, but under the previous regime, they were far behind in the portal and NIL game.

Following David Shaw's decision to step down after last year's 3-9 season which was his third losing season in four years, Stanford turned to Sacramento State head coach Troy Taylor. He is renowned for his offensive prowess, and in his short time in Palo Alto has already tapped into the portal while also seeing NIL become a major selling point of the program with the emergence of "Lifetime Cardinal".

Taylor has found success at every stop he's been to, as he once led one of the more dominant high school football programs in California in Folsom High School, and parlayed that into an offensive coordinator role at Eastern Washington where they shattered FCS records for passing yards and total offense. He ended up as a head coach at Sacramento State after a stop at Utah, and while at Sacramento State he completely revamped what was a desolate program, and turned it into an FCS power that appeared in the FCS Playoffs every year he was there.

Now at Stanford, Taylor is starting from the ground up. He inherited a roster that returned the least amount of production in the Power 5, lost around 20 players to the portal including the entire starting offensive line, and also lost seven players to the NFL from last year's roster. 

While the team is currently 3-6 on the year, there has been clear progress made. In fact, Stanford is about five plays away from being 6-3 on the year as losses against Sacramento State, Arizona, and No. 5 Washington all saw Stanford having a chance to win late but coming up short. And, the culture around the program has generated a ton of belief in where Stanford is headed from current players, former players, and recruits as Stanford has the No. 26 class in the country headlined by four-star Mater Dei quarterback Elijah Brown. 

The program is one that while it is well known, is a bit more on the private side. It's not a roster full of TikTok stars, and so when fans are let in on a program secret every once in a while it is that much more special. That was the case on Tuesday, as when Taylor was speaking to the media, a question was asked about Stanford's success when Taylor plays the piano before games. The Cardinal are 2-0 on the year when Taylor plays the piano at the team hotel, as the head coach joked about the motivation behind it.

"I'm not superstitious, but as Michael Scott said I'm a little stitious," said Taylor. "So, we might have to find a way to get to piano. You don't wanna overthink streaks or whatever it is right? I can hack it up with the best of 'em on the piano." 

A response that Director of Recruiting & Player Personnel Preston Pehrson backed up with a post via social media.  

Live video of @TroyTaylorStanU willing us to 2 wins… 🎹 #ThePianoMan#LobbyStaffSingingAlong https://t.co/rAYrvxz3Rg pic.twitter.com/Nx4fgUQaW9

— Coach Preston Pehrson (@CoachPehrson) November 8, 2023

While surely Taylor's piano skills are invigorating to the team, it has also helped that quarterback Ashton Daniels has really hit his stride over the past few weeks, while the Cardinal have also found rising stars in redshirt receiver Elic Ayomanor who was the catalyst in their 29-point comeback win against Colorado, and true freshman receiver Tiger Bachmeier. In the case of the most recent win, it was the defense that came through, holding the high-powered Washington State Cougars to just seven points.

This Stanford program has a newly found energy around it, and while it is unclear what Taylor's songs of choice as a pianist are, it is clear that he and this program are trending upward ahead of a move to the ACC in 2024. The Cardinal are hitting the road this weekend to take on the No. 12 Oregon State Beavers.