New Stanford coach Tavita Pritchard (R) played quarterback at Stanford and was a longtime assistant coach at the school. (Photo by Matthew Visinsky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Stanford is turning to another former quarterback for its next head coach.
The school announced Friday that it is hiring Washington Commanders assistant coach Tavita Pritchard as its next head coach. Frank Reich has been the Cardinal’s interim coach in 2025 following Troy Taylor’s firing in the spring.
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Pritchard has been the quarterbacks coach for the Commanders since the start of the 2023 season. He went to Washington after he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Cardinal for the previous five seasons.
“Winning in college football today requires a leader of men who can build and motivate teams, recruit future stars, and develop and connect with talent,” former Stanford QB and current general manager Andrew Luck said in a statement. “Tavita Pritchard is exactly the right head coach at the right time to help us build on the foundation of this season and lead Stanford football to its next great era. Coach Pritchard is a culture builder, a teacher of football of the highest caliber, and a humble yet determined servant leader who is committed to the success of Stanford’s student-athletes. I could not be more excited to welcome Tavita, Caroline and their family back to campus.”
Before he was the team’s offensive coordinator, Pritchard also served as the wide receivers coach and running backs coach along with a two-year stint as a defensive assistant after starting as a grad assistant in 2010.
Pritchard and Luck overlapped on the Stanford roster in 2009, when Luck was a freshman and Pritchard was a senior.
Luck fired Taylor in March after an ESPN report about Taylor’s workplace behavior. After the report detailed allegations that Taylor had bullied and mistreated female Stanford staffers, Luck said in a statement that the program “needs a reset.”
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Stanford had gone 3-9 in each of Taylor’s first two seasons with the school. He sued ESPN this summer over the report and said that he had not been fired for cause.
Reich, the former NFL QB and head coach, was hired as Stanford’s interim coach to replace Taylor but the school made clear that Reich would be one-and-done. Stanford is 4-7 ahead of its regular-season finale against No. 9 Notre Dame on Saturday.
Pritchard will leave his role with the Commanders after Sunday night’s game against the Denver Broncos. Washington is 3-8 and five games out of first place in the NFC East thanks to a six-game losing streak.
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Pritchard is tasked with resuscitating a Stanford program that has fallen from the heights it experienced in the 2010s under coach David Shaw. Stanford won at least nine games in seven of Shaw’s first eight seasons, but it hasn’t won more than four games in a season since 2018.
“Stanford is a place like no other and my family and I are full of gratitude to be returning home in every sense of the word,” Pritchard said in a statement. “I have a clear vision of the hard work, brotherhood and tenacity it will take to build a championship Stanford football program. I cannot wait to partner with Andrew and begin working with the best student-athletes in the world to achieve excellence on and off the field.”
