Stanford Cardinal 2024-25 Football Preview - DT w/ Troy Taylor

[Music] welcome back here to wake up call with Dan tortor inside of the Heritage Hill Studios proud to be here with you Heritage Hill on 3149 sweet Road in pompy New York and on 628 South Main Street North Syracuse New York here in our coverage of the Atlantic Coast Conference of over a decade I'm very happy to be here with Coach Troy Taylor of the Stanford Cardinal the head football coach heading into the 20242 season coach the Atlantic coast is now Coast to Coast so welcome to the broadcast how are you oh great thanks for having us and we're we're thrilled to be a part of the ACC absolutely and Coach I I got to go to a personal connection that I've had with Stanford here in recent history and that's to Cory etel what can you tell me about Cory and and just what he means to the team uh Corey is a fantastic coach for us I mean just has been outstanding in his detail and his preparation uh I mean he's he's really amazing he's a he's a great coach for you coach like you said you're happy to be inside of the ACC you just had the opportunity to go off to charlet and it's now a 4-day event of course you didn't experience it before when it was 2 days but when when you were out there and you got to be there in Charlotte for a little bit just what you can say about the interaction with the ACC and namely with commissioner Jim Phillips yeah very thankful for Jim Phillips for you know uh inviting us and accepting us into the conference uh you know we were we were a ship without a port there for a little while so we're we're very thankful and grateful and and then just the excitement of of the media day and getting to interact with you know all the people part of the media and the and the people that run the ACC and support it it was very well organized it got great energy and uh they treat our players really well and it was it was a great event and like you said you were a ship without a port going through that process what was that like as a coach because you know you're you're in this kind of holding pattern there was a lot said about the Pack 12 at the time and you're out there recruiting you're trying to retain the players you have find new players how did you and your staff navigate being a ship without a port for a little while yeah we we we were honest with our recruits we had a most of our recruits were committed and felt great about them and then you know obviously there's a ton of media which is to be expected that we're not in the conference and you know I just kept leaning on the fact that Stanford is an unbelievable institution we have a great history in our program and that we are going to end up in a in a great conference and it'll work out for us and so it was I don't know 10 days or so but um it and it did it worked out luckily we ended to feel like we're very blessed to be in the ACC great academic institutions and Rich football history a lot of great players a lot of great coaches a lot of great venues uh so our players were thrilled I think it was the night before our opening game last year and our recruits really responded well you know a lot of our recruits come from that part of the country up that East Coast so they're excited that you know we're going to be making three games a year out there so their families and friends um you know might be able to to make a short or long drive to to see him play well and that's that's one of the things too when it comes to recruiting was how much of this is going to change for you but like you said up and down the east coast is where you already have built connection so do you feel any type of shift in recruiting at all or because of that connection that those connections you've already made up and down the East Coast does it feel like hey it's a different conference but we're still being who we are when it comes to recruiting yeah I think it does I I I I think we're you know we always have a very strong pull with a certain student athlete um so that hasn't changed and I think the fact that they they know they're going to have you know three games out on that Coast I think it does help it's there's some some excitement about that so um we've always you know we'll recruit the same areas we always have we'll always be a national recruiting team um but I I do think it helps in recruiting and looking at the schedule like you said you talked a little bit about how it's going to break down here I was looking over this schedule and my coverage of the ACC and I don't know how you feel about a coach overall but I feel like Stanford at least in my opinion got one of the better schedules when you look at starting off against TCU at home and then Cal ply you're going to come to my hometown of Syracuse New York for the first ACC game that you'll ever play as a member of the conference and the first ACC Road game and then you'll stay on the road with Clemson and then the first ACC game at home is Virginia Tech so I want to start there your first ACC Road game Syracuse first ACC home game Virginia Tech what can you say about those two opportunities knowing that these are going to forever be etched in history as your first ACC Road and First ACC home yeah I think you know in terms of of the schedule I think it's a difficult schedule we played one of the toughest schedules in the country last year in in the Pack 12 um and I think this one will be really challenging as well you know it's teams change they emerg all those things but we know one thing that necess is going to be fired up and ready to play in a great venue uh I've heard it very loud um and we play in Clemson then you mentioned the other teams Virginia Tech and we play Louis we play a lot of good teams um so the challenges are going to be great our guys are really excited they're excited to play at new places you know that that some most of them have never been before uh stadiums couple stadiums I've never been at so um very excited uh they're going to be challenging but that's why you do it you know week to week there's going to be great coaching great players and great venues and and when I was looking at the schedule and I said uh you know in the sense of uh being uh a positive kind of road for you later on in the season when you play SMU that'll be at home and then you will stay at home to face off against Wake Forest for reunion and homecoming weekend then you'll go on the road to North Carolina State then you get a biwe and you'll be in the state of California for your last three games Louisville at home then C in Berkeley California then San Jose in San Jose State and San Jose California so scheduling wise as far as that conversation that people were having of the jet lag toward the latter part of the season it's home Home Road break and then in the state of car California for the final three do you find that to be the the best case scenario so to speak as you get used to being all over the country potentially for this ACC yeah I think schedule wise you know we have eight games where we're in the Bay Area so that's pretty beneficial um and then um you know but you can have to play well no matter where you're playing these are good teams or like I said they're they're well coached but uh yeah I think I think anytime you can have those stretches where you're local and you're you're not traveling too much after having you know two trips back to back with Syracuse and Clemson I think it is welcome to to be a little bit more familiar area and uh be able be in a routine where you're you're not on the plane quite as much when we talk about the travel through the schedule the travel through your career Troy when we look at it going back to 94 at Casa Robel high school as an assistant coach then in 1995 Colorado as a grad assistant and helping out with the receivers 96 to 99 at Cal as a tight ends and recruiting coordinator quarterbacks and wide receivers you worked with there in 2000 Christian Brothers High School as an assistant 2002 to 20 four fome high school as the co-head coach and then back did your homework got the whole thing man that's that's impressive it's been it's been uh it's been a good ride and yeah you know my my it's definitely a road The Road Less travel you know my route is a high school coach spending a lot of time at the high school level but I've always said that you know that's where I really learned to coach is at the high school level uh where you got to you got to help your guys be successful no matter where they're at you know and um I wouldn't my my path for anything I love the high school route love the early years in college and all that and I can't imagine being in a better place than Stanford University with these student athletes is they're just amazing and when you look back on that road and fome high school 2002 to 2004 and then we go to 2012 2015 can you bring me into the in between of that time period in your life yeah so you know I ended up doing some some some radio work for C where I went to school and and was the color analyst and so I did that I was able to continue to work within a class period with the F Fulon football program so I was always really involved in Fulon football program for you know 14 years and it was just a matter of you know being able to manage all those things be a teacher um be a radio analyst and work with the football team within a a class period in the day and then I you know had three children so and I also had a a thing I called The Passing Academy where I trained quarterback so it was a very busy time in my life um but uh I really decided to to focus in on on just the coaching teaching and parenting part and being a great husband hopefully and uh you know I did that for a while and and then made the switch to to make a run in college football if we had had success at fulam and just felt like needed a a challenge to try something different and so that's where it emerged ended up at Eastern Washington and then Utah and then the head coach at Sacramento State and then here at Stanford so it's been kind of a started off and kind of college football went to the high school level so I could really be around my kids and um and be a great family man and then uh give another shot my kids are a little a little bit older and now the the college football route so it's been fun and um this is you know this is my last run at at coaching here at Stanford and uh want to turn this into a great great program win some championships and make this place proud you talked about you know working in another aspect of sports and still being connected to the football program and then you spoke about being there with your kids and wanting to be there as they grow up what eventually called you back and raised you to the Collegiate level once again what was that thing inside of you that that itch that they call it how did that all come about yeah so we had you know we had really when when I started out at fulam we just kind of built the thing up and it really became kind of a laboratory in that football class period that we had to try different things offensively and then the development of the the program culturally um a really good friend and a co-head coach Chris Richardson and I work together at fulam and with a lot of good coaches and just built the program to you know one of the best in the the country if not the nation and um really wanted to see what it would look like the things it that I had learned and we had learned what it would look like in the next level and so um really just reached uh Chris Peterson a mentor of mine and friend um I had mentioned to him he was recruiting our quarterback Jake Browning go to Washington I mentioned him that I thought I think I might be interested in a opportunity in college football and uh told him that and Coach Pete's just one of those amazing guys that really invests in your life and helps people and he said let me think about it and then about a week later get a call from Bo Baldwin the outstanding coach who was at Eastern Washington at the time and said hey I have an offense coordinator job open and Coach Peterson is said that you're the guy I should interview so he both flew out we talked football for four and a half hours and really connected he's an incredible person incredible coach um and he he offered me the job the problem is I was making about two-thirds the amount of money if I took the job in Eastern Washington I was as a teacher in my quarterback school and all that so I had to talk my wife into you know moving up to Washington and for it's a little bit of money and um it was a great move though we had we had a lot of fun and it was really just to be challenged you know you you know going at going into fome it was really to build a great football program culturally and um to win championships and then when we did that um the next thing was okay what's the next challenge and so that Road's kind of taken me to hear and um you know for me it's never been about money it's always been about the challenge and being around good people and creating something that's that's lasting hopefully everywhere i' I've been hopefully it's a little bit better than when I got there and so um I guess the the the short answer is I really like challenges and uh so every move I've made uh has been not about money or any of those things or Prestige or uh it's it's all about the challenge and the opportunity to see you know what we can do well I can appreciate that I can respect that coach and it's good to hear especially in today's world we do a thing on the show called rapid fire here on wake up call inside of the Heritage Hill Studios gives us an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better and as well as you uh getting ask questions coaches never get to ask the question so we're going to have a couple back and forth you get to start it can be football related or it could be anything music movies food you get to ask the first question whatever's on your mind and I have to answer it what do you got for me oh okay um how much do you know about the history of Stanford football you know I I know I know some pieces here and there some players and then obviously like I said the connection of Cory my big thing with Stanford is uh growing up on the East Coast what I know about Stanford is The Prestige of the school and when I think about Stanford I think about you better you better challenge yourself you better be prepared to be educated in a big way and so I would say when I hear the name I always think it makes me kind of think ivy league type of education and it makes me think history when it comes to education and football that there's a level that you hold at Stanford that is probably far and above the average level is what I would say my first knee-jerk reaction is all right great answer my question what you got for me what' you say yeah am I up or are you up now yeah I I'm up so I'm going to ask you this so the Stanford Cardinal so people say Okay Cardinal is the name we see a Christmas tree how would you describe the mascot of Stanford um unpredictable um creative and energetic um you know that it's great they they run a contest to see who will be the the you know the mascot and then they get to design their costume which is which is pretty cool so you never know what the what a mascot's going to do and uh it's usually something really creative all right I love that what's your final question for me okay my final question I love that you know about The Prestige of Stanford University and academics in the past 10 years what team on the west coast has had the most NFL draft picks in the last 10 years I'm just a loaded question yeah I feel like the answer is you but uh is Stanford but Stanford yeah it's the most NFL draft pick so that's what he was talking about recruiting is first thing people all say is our academic status and um but we've also had uh more NFL draft picks than anybody else I think part of that is you know the past staffs here and hopefully will continue that have done a great job of developing players but also I think NFL Scouts and teams are drawn to Stanford players because they're they're intelligent they're Dependable um they can multitask and and they're usually pretty mentally tough so um you can come here and get a great degree uh if you don't play in football the average starting cat salary for Stanford underground is over $200,000 and if you do play in the NFL which you got the best chance of any school on the west coast you're can have an opportunity to do that yeah I'm looking I'm looking back at some of these names here Dalton Schultz Bryce love as well as Colby Paul Colby uh Parkinson and then Davis Mills Walker little who I covered when he was going through his recruitment trying to figure out what school he was going to to Tanner mcke and Michael Wilson and so on and so forth so there's definitely a long history at Stanford and very notable names my question back to you is something that you said coach my final question for you you said this is your last go around how energized are you at this job and as much as this may be your last go around how long can that be I mean even if this is the last stop is this the last stop where we get off the bus and tell the bus to go do something else because you're going to be here for a while right yeah I think it's that I mean I I uh I love coaching they I can't believe they pay me to do this job it's fantastic that doesn't mean it's not challenging and um it's not tiring and all those things but I'm really energized by being around our student athletes and our coaching staff so you know I could do this for a really really long time remember I was a high school teacher and coach for 14 years they paid me $2,500 a year to coach in California you get a stip in so I wasn't doing it for the money I was doing it because I love loved it um certainly there weren't necessarily big stadiums and full of people so wasn't doing it for the prestige and all those things so I just do it because I have a good time and um and when I stop having a good time then I'll do something else but right now I'm having a blast Troy Taylor music to my ears doing something because you love it and you have a passion for it not for the prestige not for the power not for the accolades or the money I know this is the first time you and I got to talk but fantastic first impression I have of you Troy and I look forward to seeing you on the east coast and seeing you in the ACC but above all things I want to say thank you for why you do what you do because I think a lot of people need to hear that and I'm glad that somebody's willing to say it thank you brother I appreciate it and look forward to seeing you the future take care [Music]