The Notre Dame football rivalry series with the Stanford Cardinal is not nearly as one-sided as fans might expect. However, in recent years, the Fighting Irish have definitely had the edge and lead the overall series 23-14.
On Monday morning, new GM Andrew Luck make a big statement saying “no more” as far as being the punching bag of recent seasons. Less than a week after Luck fired head coach Troy Taylor, he’s named Taylor’s replacement.
Stanford’s stunning hire adds twist to Notre Dame football rivalry
Sources: Stanford is hiring veteran NFL coach Frank Reich as the school’s interim football coach for 2025 season. Both sides have agreed this will be only a one-season agreement. At that point, Stanford will launch a national search. pic.twitter.com/21NuVUCjjt
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 31, 2025
In hiring Frank Reich, the Notre Dame football rival has announced its desire to be a real player in the ACC. Announced its desire to be something more than a tuneup game for the Irish. But it also shows that Stanford is having to take a rather unusual direction in order to get there.
The unusual direction isn’t just about hiring a former NFL head coach that’s never done the job in the college ranks. Never done any job in the college ranks. The really odd part of this whole deal is that the Cardinal are not hiring Reich to lead the program going forward. According to Pete Thamel, he will only be there for one season.
Thamel said that once Reich has led the team through this season, he’ll leave and Stanford will officially look for their next head coach. It’s either a brilliant approach, or one of the worst in the country.
Several questions arise from this deal. The first and biggest is, “how does Stanford recruit while it tells prospects that the guy in their living room will absolutely not be there and they have no idea who will?” If another team was telling people about the Cardinal, they’d be accused of negative recruiting.
The whole deal also puts Notre Dame football into an interesting situation. It’s entirely possible the Fighting Irish already know that they will be taking on Frank Reich’s squad in what will be his final game at the helm. All of this is very, very wild.