Stanford to hire Tavita Pritchard as new head coach

Stanford will hire Tavita Pritchard as the team’s next head football coach, according to On3’s Pete Nakos. He was previously an assistant coach at the school from 2010-22. Now, he’ll succeed interim head coach Frank Reich, who is 4-7 this season.

Pritchard is currently the quarterback’s coach for the Washington Commanders, a position he’s held since 2023. He worked at Stanford for over a decade, the only place he coached prior to the NFL. He had roles such as grad assistant, defensive assistant, running backs coach, quarterbacks and wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator.

Pritchard is a former Stanford quarterback and was eventually replaced, ironically, by Andrew Luck as the starter in 2009. Luck is the current GM of the program.

Pritchard achieve collegiate stardom when he made his first start in 2007 against No. 1 USC. He led them to a 24-23 victory after starting as 41-point underdogs.

After his collegiate career, Pritchard went undrafted in the 2010 NFL Draft. He eventually tried out for the San Francisco 49ers but was not offered a contract and pivoted to coaching, starting out as a volunteer assistant in 2010.

Luck certainly has a large say in the Stanford football program. He returned to college football in a much different time than he played, but he made his first landmark hire with Pritchard tasked to rebuild the team.

In his role as Stanford’s GM, Luck is now at the forefront of it all, making sure his alma mater is able to compete at the highest level. As he assesses the ever-changing space, he added there’s also a balance to be found between NIL and the tradition of the sport – something he thinks is possible.

“Man, there’s been so much change. So much change,” Luck told Eli Manning on Eli’s Places. “I didn’t play college football too long ago, you didn’t play college football too long ago. But that was a different era. A totally different era. Deeply on principle, I do hold that, gosh, too much money has been made around college football for the players that are on field, the product, to not get a piece of the pie. We have to. Look, we anticipate that there continue to be some rule changes and tweaks as we march toward sort of a homeostasis, whatever that is.

“For us, we’re embracing it. We’re out there. We know we need to be competitive. We need to win, we need to build a championship program, and NIL’s absolutely part of it. I think we can hold on to all of what makes college football special and make sure that the finances – the money, the NIL – occupies the right space.”