Troy Taylor And Stanford Facing The Monster He Built On Saturday
Talk about awkward, Troy Taylor will have a run-in with his former team on Saturday as he and Stanford will be hosting Sacramento State for what is Stanford's first home game of the season and the first home game of the Troy Taylor era.
When talking to the media on Tuesday about the matchup, Taylor discussed that while he wishes well for Sacramento State, he won't be rooting for them this week. When Taylor inherited Sacramento State's program in 2019, they'd essentially hit rock bottom.
From 2015-2018, the program had just one winning season and accumulated a record of 13-30 while having a 10-25 record in Big Sky play. When Taylor took over, he immediately led them to a 9-4 record and an FCS Playoff appearance. This very impressive inaugural season was somehow his worst, as Taylor went 9-3 the following season and 12-1 during his final season with an FCS Playoff Quarterfinal appearance.
On top of rejuvenating the program, he also sparked interest from fans. This past season, the Hornets set scoring records thanks to the explosive offense while also seeing attendance records of an average of 15,000 fans at home games. A record 23,173 people turned out for the 2022 Causeway Classic against UC Davis as well. A program that was once an afterthought had become a staple of the community and is still looking to stay that way despite Taylor's departure.
He will be facing players he recruited, coaches he hired, and most importantly the brand that he helped build.
For Stanford, they are trying to bounce back after a devastating loss to USC that saw the Trojans hang 56 points on their young defense. More importantly, they are also hoping Taylor can repeat his work at Sacramento State, just in Palo Alto. The Program has taken a major hit following the latter years of David Shaw's tenure, as the program's winningest coach fell out of touch with college football and its everchanging landscape. The program fell behind in recruiting and NIL, and while it will never be a huge player in the portal it still neglected the transfer portal despite it being a possible tool. Shaw never changed coordinators, he never really modified the schemes, and it seemed there was an "it will work itself out" attitude when in fact Stanford was drowning.
This a mindset that hurt Stanford in realignment as they along with Cal were nearly left behind after initially being viewed as Big Ten candidates, and ended up having to essentially beg their way into the ACC. Shaw's decade of excellence was overshadowed by three down years, which Taylor is now trying to undo.
This Stanford team that Taylor inherited has a lot of work to be done, as they lost nearly the entire offensive unit from last year outside of two starters, and also lost nearly all of their defensive starters. It is littered with youth and players who haven't seen time at the college level, and while Taylor is proud of what he built in Sacramento a win over his former program is the confidence builder this team needs.
Especially when you consider they are set to play six straight ranked teams from Week 4 on.
It could be bittersweet, but Taylor and this team absolutely need to storm the gates and take down the castle Taylor so proudly built. It's time for him to build a new one, and unfortunately for him, it requires breaking down his old one.
