Stanford Hires Tyler Jones From Virginia to Serve as New AD/COO of Athletics

Stanford athletics is continuing its rebuild. Once one of the most successful athletic departments in the country across all sports, the introduction of the NIL and transfer portal era has caused some Stanford sports to falter in recent years. This is especially true with sports like football.

Relying heavily on funding and revenue, sports like football, baseball and basketball require programs to stay current with the times in order to keep up with the other top programs around the country.

After former Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir stepped down from his role at the end of last school year, the university turned to John Donahoe, the ex-Nike CEO, to take charge, with a focus on modernizing the way that Stanford runs its athletics.

The Cardinal are continuing to revamp how they run things, announcing on Monday, April 13 that they hired Virginia deputy AD, Tyler Jones, to serve in a high ranking role for Stanford athletics. ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel was first to report the hiring.

Tyler Jones background

Hired to be Stanford's new deputy AD/Chief Operating Officer of athletics, Jones spent the previous three academic years at Virginia, starting as the deputy AD in June of 2023 before getting the role of Chief Strategy Officer, General Manager added to his title in July of 2025.

According to Thamel, Jones' role at Stanford will mainly involve overseeing all of the revenue generation and functions of operations. At Virginia, Jones served as the football program's GM and played a vital role in supporting the program through an 11-3 campaign in 2025. That was the most wins in program history.

Jones' hiring represents Donahoe's vision to fully modernize how Stanford conducts business within its athletic department. Under Muir, the Cardinal were severely behind in keeping up with the NIL/portal era, finishing 3-9 in four straight seasons in football while improving slightly to 4-8 in 2025, and currently enduring a seven season bowl drought.

In basketball, the Cardinal have not made an appearance in March Madness since 2014 on the men's side. Stanford has major success in baseball, including in recent seasons with three consecutive College World Series appearances from 2021-23, but since then, the Cardinal have missed the postseason every season.

Getting fully in-tune to this era is step one for the Cardinal. If everything goes according to plan, and Jones provides the same impact he has in previous roles, the future of Stanford athletics will be even brighter, and success could soon return to the struggling sports like football and basketball.

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