247Sports' expectations for Stanford's Troy Taylor are low

One of the biggest headlines stemming from this college football offseason was the stepping down of David Shaw, and the hiring of Troy Taylor.

The now former Sacramento State head coach and current Cardinal coach is tasked with reviving a program in Stanford that many view as stuck in their old ways. With the previous regime in charge, there seemed to be a reluctancy to modernizing with college football, but Taylor has already showed a willingness to adapt to the sport's changes.

The new head coach has been attacking the transfer portal offering a much needed offensive lineman in Alec Bank, and landing Gaethan Bernadel, a linebacker transfer out of FIU. Despite his new approach to being the head coach at Stanford and his offensive prowess, 247Sports' Will Backus is not expecting Taylor to accomplish much in the early stages at Stanford.

Backus provided expectations for each first-year Power Five head coach during the 2023 season, and addressed the major roster overturn as a huge issue for Taylor whose expectation was "year zero" saying:

Though he did great work at the FCS level with Sacramento State, Taylor inherits a rough situation. Stanford completely stagnated under former coach David Shaw. The Cardinal have not had a winning — outside of 2020's COVID-shortened campaign — since 2018. Following Shaw's firing, the football team lost a ton of talent to the transfer portal. Stanford is hampered in replacing that talent, as rigorous academic requirements make it difficult to comb the transfer portal. The offensive line got hit especially hard, which is never great in a physical game like football. Folks are excited about Taylor, and for good reason. But he has a long road to get his new team anywhere near relevancy.

While the team did lose their entire starting offensive line from a year ago, it is fair to say that the unit struggled immensely. However, the loss of talent was huge even if majority of the transfers are graduate transfers. Stanford is set to replace the entire staring offensive line, receiving core, secondary, and most importantly their star quarterback. This of course means the more experience that can be added from the portal the better, and Taylor will really have have to develop the players on the roster. Something that the last staff seemed to struggle with as time moved on.

The Stanford Football program will look much different next season, and while expectations are low for the team, fans still have a plethora of reasons to be excited.