Former Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett and Sacramento State coach Troy Taylor are among the finalists for the Stanford head-coaching job, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Stanford has completed the final round of interviews, and a decision is expected in the coming days, sources told Thamel.
Garrett, 56, was the Cowboys’ coach from 2010 to 2019, going 85-67 in the regular season and 2-3 in the playoffs. He was fired after the 2019 season when the Cowboys finished 8-8 and most recently was the New York Giants‘ offensive coordinator before being fired during the 2021 season. He is currently an analyst for NBC Sports.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said he hopes his former coach gets the job.
“Willing to talk to whoever I can to endorse him and just talk of how great of a coach he is,” Prescott said Thursday. “Thinking of him in the college level, I think it’s a very well fit, just a guy that does things the right way, is consistent as ever, has great messaging, and I just think he’d be huge for a program like that that’s so [prestigious]. Yeah, I think it would be awesome. Hope to see him in it.”
The 54-year-old Taylor, who graduated from Cal, is coaching Sacramento State in Friday’s FCS quarterfinals against Incarnate Word. He has been the coach at Sacramento State since 2019, is a two-time Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year (2019, ’21) won the 2019 Eddie Robinson Award as FCS coach of the year and is a finalist again this year after leading his team to a 12-0 record entering Friday’s game.
The Stanford job became open when David Shaw resigned in November after 12 seasons. He was the winningest coach in Stanford history with a 96-54 record. His resignation came after back-to-back 3-9 seasons and a 14-28 stretch since the start of 2019.
The news of the finalists was first reported by The Athletic.
Also on Thursday, Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee announced he is leaving school to enter the NFL draft.
ESPN’s Todd Archer contributed to this report.