Andrew Luck jokes about Dabo Swinney becoming Stanford head coach: 'Should we give it a try?'

Stanford general manager Andrew Luck doesn’t sound opposed to having Dabo Swinney become the new head coach in 2026. Currently, Frank Reich is the interim head coach for the 2025 season, helping his former quarterback after the firing of Troy Taylor midway through the offseason.

Finding a head coach at that juncture was next to impossible, so Reich will fill those shoes in the meantime. When attending ACC Media Days, Swinney was brought up as an example by analyst Eric Mac Lain when it comes to resources, NIL, the portal, etc. 

Not that Swinney is leaving Clemson anytime soon, but Mac Lain mentioned how the head coach wanted to be involved in recruiting despite GMs becoming more of a thing in college football, like the NFL. So he asked Luck what he’d look for in a head coach for Stanford. For full context, here’s Mac Lain’s question:

“So it’s interesting to me. I don’t want to fast forward through this season, but it’s the interim tag, and there will be a new guy next year,” Mac Lain said on ACC Network. “What are you looking for? Because I think what’s fascinating is a lot of these college guys, even head coaches, have gone to the NFL because they don’t want to deal with the recruiting. 

“Hearing this, what you’re doing, takes all that away. Are you wanting an NFL type of guy or, I mean, it’s because it’s very different. I mean, Dabo Swinney could not function there because he wants to be a part of the recruiting. He wants to be a part of that.” 

“Should we give it a try,” Luck interjected. 

“You got the money, go for it,” Mac Lain said. “What is that for you?”

Swinney going out west to become the Stanford head coach? Hardly likely right? But in these times of college football, maybe we should say “never say never.”

In all seriousness, Swinney jokes aside, Luck broke down what he’d look for in Stanford’s next head coach. He wants to return the program to prominence.

“I certainly spent time thinking about the archetype and I think there’s a few different ways to go there,” Luck said. “The head coach is always going to be involved in recruiting … But you take, you know, say, take 60 to 70% of sort of the politics, the fundraising, the administrative, the NIL, the negotiations out of the picture. And I think it sets up the right head coach. And the right head coach could be a number, certainly a number of people, a number of different things, but I think it sets up a coach to do what coaches do best of core competency, which is teaching coach football and provide a platform for young men to develop, right?”

Luck gave his answer in the context of being a college football general manager, to help alleviate the CEO role of a college head coach. If he can shoulder a bulk of that load, coaches can get back to coaching. Maybe it’s Swinney after all!