Troy Taylor Views Stanford As College Football 'Outlier' Despite Transfer Portal Culture

College football has forever been changed by the transfer portal

While the transfer portal is used as a tool for 99% of programs in college football, for a program like Stanford the same usages and benefits don't apply.

The Cardinal aren't often able to be buyers, but as we saw heading into this season they were sellers, and not by choice. For instance, Deion Sanders inherited a 1-11 Colorado roster and essentially told almost every player from the 2022 squad to hit the portal and transfer. Now granted, not every school is bringing in 50 transfers a year like Sanders, but it isn't uncommon for programs to bring in around 10-15 if not more players to help bring in experience and bolster their roster.

Due to Stanford's academic prestige, transferring in isn't common. The program took in their most transfers in the portal era ahead of this season with six, which was five more than the previous regime had taken in. However, while they aren't always going to be major buyers in the portal, head coach Troy Taylor views them as portal outliers because of the power of their degree.

Stanford head coach Troy Taylor  / John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports

When speaking to the media on Tuesday, Taylor discussed the portal and how it decimated Stanford ahead of this season as all but one player that left the program had graduated and most had some sort of playing experience. So, when he took the job as a coach who didn't recruit them and was tardy to the party thanks to a deep run in the FCS Playoffs with Sacramento State, there wasn't much time to cultivate relationships and keep the players from leaving.

However, now that he and his staff are in town and have established their culture, he is confident that they can avoid more portal exoduses.

"This is a very unique year for Stanford football," said Taylor. "They were very affected by COVID in a lot of ways...The way that it affected us this year the most was the fact that those guys that transferred...all of them but one had graduated. We wanted them to come back, but obviously they had their degree and they had lost the coach that recruited them, David Shaw who is an incredible man and a great coach. So, we weren't able to retain a lot of those guys."

However, while the Cardinal did lose around 17 players to the portal that started with six of them being offensive linemen, moving forward, roster retention is something that Taylor thinks will be a strength.

"Six of them were offensive linemen that I believe are starting at other FBS programs, so you are just simply at a place like Stanford where we're not gonna bring in a lot of transfers you're not gonna be able to replenish that, there is just no quick fix here when you lose a number of players," said Taylor.

He continued, discussing how they have an advantage over the portal that no other programs have.

"Moving forward I really do think that we're gonna have our players for four to five years. We're gonna play them when themy come in their freshman year, most of them, and I mean if you are smart enough to choose Stanford as your school of choice you're smart enough to stick around until you get your degree. Even though this year was a challenge in terms of those numbers and the things that are happening, in the future I really think we're the outlier. We're gonna be the football program that has our players for four to five years that are gonna stick around and I think our culture has shown it's already very strong in how our guys compete..."

Taylor continued, explaining how they will have that buy-in that other programs around the country simply cannot have due to the quick trigger by players to transfer. 

"So in the long term, I'm incredibly optimistic on where this is headed, we're having great success recruiting wise and then we're gonna be able to develop these guys over a four-year period."

A point that most people haven't considered when discussing Stanford's place in the future of college football. No other program can offer a Stanford degree, and clearly, Taylor and company know that as long as they recruit at a high level that this program can return back to prominence due to the fact that they won't be losing players as underclassmen very often. 

The Cardinal currently have the No. 27 class in the country, and their roster, while it's the most inexperienced in the Power 5 this season, will be able to build off of this experience they had this season and use it to grow moving forward. 

Taylor knew this job had its challenges, but in what most people see as flaws, he sees as future strengths which is exactly the kind of coach Stanford needs.

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