Towards the tail end of a long morning and afternoon at Media Day, I was able to talk with Stanford's new head coach, Troy Taylor. We only had about ten minutes, so I've transcribed the entire conversation here. My main takeaway from our short chat is that Coach Taylor is confident and excited about what lies ahead, and he's also incredibly nice. I could've happily talked with him for an hour or more on any number of subjects, but we hit on a few interesting things -- his theories on love as it relates to team building; his expectations about how he'll balance his three responsibilities as head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach; and how he'll approach the quarterback competition this summer and fall. Oh, and how nice is Coach Taylor? At the end of our conversation he thanked me for my time. So yeah, he's a nice guy. Read on...
GMC:
In your opening press conference, you quoted my favorite poem, "The Road Not Taken," and you talked a lot then and again today about love. What I'm wondering about is, as the head coach of a program that's got eighty to a hundred guys, how does that logistically work? If this were a basketball team, you've got twelve guys, you can maybe have them to your house every day...
Troy Taylor:
It's a great question. I've gotta love the team first, right? So all of my decisions have to be based on what's best for the family -- the team -- and then the individual. I've met with each player two or three times. So part of loving something is spending time with it. So you spend time getting to know people. With 110, you're right. It's difficult to do that. That's why assistant coaches have to get to know their guys, invest in them. I gotta do it; I work at it. It's a challenge, man. I have three kids and that's a challenge. I'm always trying to make sure you're spending enough time with each of them. You're getting a feel for their mannerisms, their body language, and how they're doing -- if they're feeling a little lost or feeling a little sad. And you do the same thing with your team. You're constantly reading body language, talking to them, "How are you doing?" It's not easy, but there's nothing more powerful than human connection, so the more I get to know my guys and my coaches... But, there's a finite amount of time, and I'm offensive coordinator, too -- and I don't think I'll ever quit doing that, because it's important that we score points! So I've gotta manage all those things, and that's not easy, but you've gotta have good people that you trust. Some of my staff, I'm just getting to know, but you gotta trust those guys. You gotta trust that they're gonna make good decisions -- who they want to offer or bring in or recruit and all those things. At the end of the day you gotta have trust because I just don't have enough time to be able to make every decision individually. Does that make sense?
GMC:
Yeah. And I was interested in that -- how you balance head coach vs. coordinator and what your work load looks like. For instance, you're going to be calling plays, correct?
Taylor:
Yup.
GMC:
What does that look like for you during the week and then game day?
Taylor:
I believe that if you're the play caller, you need to script too. You actually script every play in the practice. So we'll have maybe 140 plays that we'll script. I'll script. The staff will be responsible for having the cards ready. I do the game plan. And I'm a pretty good multi-tasker. The offensive thing, to be honest with you, I love the football part of the game so much, it's a big part of the reason why I coach. I see things strategically, it's something that really invigorates me. I love the creative part of it. So I just kind of balance it. I would say the hardest part is the in-season part, which will be for me during the season, media wise. A lot of head coaches don't do the game plan.
GMC:
Right, they're kind of like a CEO or the face of the program.
Taylor:
That's right, that's right. I am gonna do that. I've been able to do that in the past, and I'll continue to do it. You just gotta trust people in certain areas and use your time. I'm very big on staying on schedules. I wake up at the same time, I go to sleep at the same time. I stay on that, and I just kind trust what we're doing. I'm not trying to reinvent the game. Some people will implement a whole new, almost a whole new offense for each week. I believe in more of a John Wooden approach...
GMC:
That's funny. When you said, I was thinking exactly that, thinking about John Wooden, and his belief in coaching his guys, not coaching against the other team.
Taylor:
That's right. Now, I watch a lot of tape, and I'm gonna know my opponent. We'll make adjustments in protection and personnel, but we're gonna run our system. All the research and development and changes we do will for the off-season the season. We'll research and say, "Okay we're gonna try this, this, and this," but once we get into the season, we'll have a few kinks on 3rd down and the red zone, but you can't put in new concepts and expect the players to be great at it. It just doesn't make any sense. Maybe Tom Brady could. But they need repetitions, so you have get those reps and collect that data in their brain. So part of that is, listen, we're gonna kinda do what we do. We will watch a lot of tape and do that, but we have our scheme and our system. We gotta trust that. The other part is that you're not good at what you do if you don't have some sort of balance of life, I don't think. If you're struggling at home, it's gonna affect what you do at the office. I just believe that. It's a taxing job. I want my coaches to feel like they have a full life, that they can go home and be a good dad, be a good husband. I don't think it's worth staying there until one o'clock on your off days...
GMC:
Diminishing returns.
Taylor:
Yeah. It sounds like you're putting in a lot of work, but what good decisions are you making? I think about football all the time. I'm there at seven in the morning, and I'm working on football. If I do that all the way until 10:00pm, what are you gonna get out of me at 11:00pm. Do you know what I mean? I just don't think your brain can handle that much. You need to go home and debrief, refresh, get some sleep, wake back up. I think for coaches that discipline is just as important for the players, because it will spill over into how you treat them, your decision making, how short you are with people. So to answer your question -- try to stay on a schedule, believe in what you do, get in a routine, knock it out in a certain amount of time. I don't eat lunch, I don't really work out. Maybe take a walk. I just kind of work on football.
GMC:
So I've heard you talk about scheme vs. working with the players that you have, and one of the biggest questions surrounding the program right now is who's gonna be the quarterback. I'm not gonna ask you that question because you probably don't know...
Taylor:
Oh, I'll answer it, because I don't know.
GMC:
Right, that's what I'm saying. At this point you probably have no idea. But when you go into that, how are you making that decision? And as offensive coordinator, how much of your time is specifically with the quarterback.
Taylor:
I'm the quarterback coach.
GMC:
So what's that process going to be, and what are you looking for in the guy who wins that job?
Taylor:
We have four guys. We have Ari Patu and Ashton Daniels, who were there when I got there. They participated in spring, so I got a chance to see them -- they're very inexperienced, they haven't played much, right? -- so I had a chance to watch them play. We've got two more guys, Justin Lampson's a graduate transfer, and then Myles Jackson, who came in as a freshman. So we're getting a look at those guys, getting to work with them throughout the summer, and we'll see them in fall camp. The most important factor for a quarterback is accuracy. People say leadership and decision making -- those things are really important, but you can be a great leader, you can make great decisions, you can have a strong arm, but if you can't the ball to where you want to, all the offensive ingenuity is irrelevant. So it starts with accuracy, and then there are the other things -- decision making, anticipation. But to answer your question, it's just kind of a feel. The really challenging part is that with quarterbacks, until you get them into a game, you don't really know. I have an idea, but guys sometimes get better, and sometimes get worse.
GMC:
How often are you surprised? How often does it happen that you think, "This is my guy," but once he's in there it doesn't shake out the way thought, or vice versa -- "I don't think this guy's quite ready, but he's gonna be my starter," and then all the sudden he's exceeding your expectations?
Taylor:
When I was at Folsom I had a quarterback decision between two guys. Jake Browning, who was gonna be a sophomore, and another guy who could throw the ball 75 yards, had a full beard. Jake was gonna start, but the other guy was gonna play. I thought it was gonna be Jake, but you just never know. So the other guy quit, and Jake threw eleven touchdown passes in his first game. He was pretty good. But could I have predicted that? I couldn't have necessarily predicted it. You have hunches and all that, but until you get 'em out on the field, it's just one of those things that you can't replicate the game environment in practice. For most of the positions you can, that it was one you cannot. So it's a hunch, it's intuitive. Am I always right? No, I'm not always right. But you try to make an educated guess and put them in positions to be successful, and if you've gotta adjust, you adjust. So to answer your question, I have no idea. We'll see.
GMC:
So you're okay having two quarterbacks in the beginning if it comes to that?
Taylor:
We'll see. I'm not against anything that's gonna help us move the football and win football games. So if it's one, if it's two, if it's three, I'll do whatever. But most of them it's one. We'll see, brother! Thanks for your time!
