Reich Details BC and Stanford's Academic Prioritization at 2025 ACC Football Kickoff

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Stanford football interim head coach Frank Reich was extremely honest about the lifespan of professional football careers when he took the podium at 2025 ACC Football Kickoff.

In response to a question about the similarities between Boston College and Stanford—two highly-respected academic institutions with power-four football programs—the reality, Reich admitted, is that football is a blip in the grand scheme of a professional football player’s life. Even for the greatest ones to ever grace a field.

According to Reich, the priorities of a football player must lie beyond the sport.

I asked @StanfordFball coach Frank Reich, who has an extensive NFL background—similar to Bill O'Brien—about harnessing the academic excellence while keeping the football program strong.

I mentioned this is something Bill O'Brien has harped on at BC. His response: pic.twitter.com/oR1rPwac6z
— Graham Dietz (@graham_dietz) July 22, 2025

“You can only compartmentalize your life so far,” Reich said. “For those who try to say football is a separate deal, and [say] ‘I have a different approach,’ it’s just, it’s short-lived.”

Reich’s boss—Stanford football general manager Andrew Luck, a former Indianapolis Colt who amassed legendary status during his short-lived career—is one of the best examples of this truth.

ESPN’s Seth Wickersham intricately undressed the ugly reality of Luck’s football career, plagued by head injuries and other abrupt setbacks, in a feature he wrote on why the former 2012 No. 1 overall pick stepped away from the sport.

It comes down to the fact is that succeeding at football is not succeeding at life, which Reich understands. But understanding this sooner than later, and adapting the approach to sport in this sense, is what molds the best student-athletes.

“You find the people and the players and the coaches who understand that there’s a certain way of doing things,” Reich said. “Whether that’s in the academic world or in the athletic realm or at home as a father, husband or brother. Whatever the case is, there’s certain principles and standards you live by in life that help us to win and create a winning culture.”

This principle is one that BC football head coach Bill O’Brien has grasped as well.

Development of the whole person, which is a University motto—not just a football program aphorism—is paramount to what O’Brien is trying to implement in Chestnut Hill.

O’Brien recruits student-athletes based on who wants the academic slice of the BC pie, which is something that Reich admitted is a similar priority of the two schools.

While Reich is just months into his tenure and technically has an “interim” label next to his position, Luck, who is heavily involved in the recruiting side of Stanford football, is also a person who undoubtedly searches for “whole” individuals in the recruiting world—not just great football players who can make a wagon out of Stanford without the character development piece.

"Andrew's the continuity, he's the leader of the program," Reich said. "Like in recruiting especially, I wasn't really involved."

Reich and O’Brien have faced this part of human existence as well, individually. They can attest to the rollercoaster nature of life, especially in sports.

Both were NFL coaches who were fired at a certain point, and it could have been at a time when they felt comfortable or uncomfortable in their own respective situations.

But perspective is everything.

Looking back, it’s all the moments of failure which the coaches both appreciate the most. That’s how they got to where they are—as coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference competing once again, just in a different realm of football.

And in order to learn that, according to Reich, developing in spaces outside of football is essential.

As for the next chapter of his life, is it odd to be coaching against O’Brien—and, additionally, against arguably the best NFL coach of all time, Bill Belichick, who is at the helm for North Carolina now—in this new space? Sure. No doubt about it.

As it currently stands, those three are the only coaches in the ACC to have extensive NFL head coaching experiences.

But Reich made it clear that the transition for O’Brien last season is something Reich and Belichick can learn from. In addition to BC and Stanford, UNC is in a similar boat in terms of prioritizing academic excellence as a supplement to athletics.

Having those two in the conference actually makes Reich feel at home, even if their expertise in coaching will challenge that of Reich's.

“I kind of wish they were in another conference, because they’re both really good coaches,” Reich joked. “Obviously [for] Coach Belichick, the respect we all have for him speaks for itself.”

Reich made sure to highlight his major praise for O’Brien as well, acknowledging what O’Brien has done to transform football on the Heights. He thinks the ACC is in good hands.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for him and, you know, we were in the same division in the AFC South there for a few years,” Reich said. “I think he’s a very good football coach and we played them twice a year so we talked a good bit before and after games. … I just think it’s great for the ACC.”