Stanford announced Tuesday that it has fired head football coach Troy Taylor.
The move comes a week after ESPN reported that the school conducted two internal investigations into accusations that Taylor “bullied and belittled” female staffers, tried to have an NCAA compliance officer removed from her job and made “inappropriate” remarks to another woman about her looks.
“Since beginning my role as General Manager, I have been thoroughly assessing the entire Stanford football program. It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change,” Stanford general manager Andrew Luck said in a statement. “Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor.
“After continued consideration it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership, I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program. Coach Taylor has been informed today, and the change is effective immediately.”
The investigations by outside firms concluded that Taylor’s behavior ranged from “concerning” to “inappropriate,” according to documents obtained by ESPN.
In a statement to ESPN last week, Taylor said, “I willingly complied with the investigations, accepted the recommendations that came out of them, and used them as a learning opportunity to grow in leadership and how I interact with others. I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively and collegially with my colleagues so that we can achieve success for our football program together.”
The 56-year-old Taylor didn’t have much success on or off the field on The Farm. His two Cardinal teams posted identical 3-9 records for a 6-18 overall mark.
Taylor landed the Stanford gig after posting a 30-8 overall record in three seasons as head coach at Sacramento St., an FCS school.
The search for a new coach will begin immediately and at an awkward time of year.
Similar circumstances resulted in pink slips for Mike Price and Bobby Petrino at Alabama and Arkansas, respectively, many years ago. The result for the Crimson Tide was hiring Mike Shula, an alum and former quarterback for the program.
Arkansas opted to go with John L. Smith as interim head coach for one season. Neither situation worked out well.
Luck, who was hired this past November, is clearly the one in control who will be in charge of the search.