Former Ute OC – Troy Taylor is on the top of the list

[ProudUte]

For the Stanford head coaching job.  At least that is what Bill Riley is reporting.

He has done great at Sac State.

[Central Coast Ute]

If the way they treated Shaw is any indication, he could have a losing team for a long time and not get fired. I’d take that job in a heartbeat

[ProudUte]

I am not sure that I want a guy with Utah ties to get the job at Stanford.  Stanford does a good job of getting Utah kids to go there.

[Rick]

He is a California guy.  Not sure his short stint here as our OC would give hime any kind of connection locally with kids.  Also, the kind of offense he runs is not super compatible with kind of kids Stanford typically gets.  If they go with him he will be a huge bust.

[jamarcus24]

We’ll see.  If Troy got the job I’m sure he’d be here a lot.  I know David Shaw spent a lot of time here over the last decade.  Speaking of, David Shaw is a guy I think would be great on this staff.  Maybe he’d be interested in laying low and taking an analyst job or as a position coach under Kyle while he waits for his next big job.  He’d be a great get for us.

[Central Coast Ute]

Shaw will be working in the media

[Waybackutefan]

that would be awesome, I really liked that guy for the 10 minutes he was OC. 

[D T]

Stanford Job

[hbUte]

“Bubble screen” Troy Taylor – thank god he lasted only one season with us.

[chinngiskhaan]

He lasted two, no?

[hbUte]

Yeah, you’re right…he did last 2 (long) seasons with us.
Maybe he’s better as a head coach than as the lead OC…I thought he was just horrible.

[prestitute]

I think he is a really solid coach, but he wasn’t compatible with our style at Utah. 

[belli1976]

iPhone offense!!!

[The Miami Ute]

Interesting hire…Troy Taylor’s name is all over Cal’s record book and he was one of the best QBs to ever play there.

[2008 National Champ]

*cough* Aaron Rogers, Jared Goff, Davis Webb… That’s off the top of my head. Don’t make me drop Kyle Boller, Joe Kapp or Nate Longshore. I’m not sure Taylor makes their top ten.

That being said, Taylor has done a great job at Sac State and could have had a lot of success at Utah if he didn’t play mad scientist and introduce a new formation every week. Huntley started off great in 2017 (until he got hurt) and once Taylor simplified the offense in 2018 to allow him to make one read and go, it really changed him from an athlete to a QB. Ludwig gets a lot of credit for Huntley but it was two years of Taylor that got him to be someone that Ludwig’s preferred schemes could take advantage of. I guarantee that nowhere on Ludwig’s play sheet was the design for Huntley to avoid immediate pressure and hit someone deep on 3rd and long at an almost 80% clip but some people sure seem to think it was.

Not to mention that Taylor brought Kiel (sic?) McDonald with him from Eastern who did a great job with the RB’s, including flipping Ty Jordan from Texas. Taylor deserves a lot more credit than he gets from the Utah fanbase.

edit: forgot to mention the job he did with Jason Shelley in 2018 who has never been able to replicate the success he had during that end of season run.

[The Miami Ute]

For a guy that normally knows his stuff, I think you screwed the pooch on this one. I’ll give you a pass because I don’t know if you ever saw him play. Taylor was Cal’s starting quarterback from 1986–89 and was the team MVP from 1987-89. He led the Pac-10 conference in total offense in 1989 (253 yds. per game) and finished his collegiate career as Cal’s all-time leading passer (8,126 yds.) and total offense leader (8,236 yds.), records that stood until they were broken by Jared Goff in 2015. His 51 career touchdown passes stood as a school record until surpassed by Pat Barnes in 1996. By the way, in my book, the best Cal QB ever is Joe Roth. He was a stud that left us way too soon.

[2008 National Champ]

I guess it comes down to what you value. 2-9-0, 3-6-2, 5-5-1, 4-7-0. Those are Cal’s records for the 4 years in question. Being a 4 year starter is going to get you high on the counting stat lists even on bad teams and my memory of those teams was them running mostly west coast which inflated passing stats. After Taylor left, Cal finally developed a running game with Russell White while Mike Pawlawski put up similar QB #’s and they started winning enough for Bruce Snyder to get the Arizona State job.

I’d have been in 2nd grade for Joe Roth and only concerned about the Huskies so I had to look him up. Tough story to read but thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[The Miami Ute]

You have to give the guy some credit. Even on bad teams, he was able to put up stats that survived to the present. The present is the ultimate era of inflated stats due to rules changes and the addition of extra games.

[2008 National Champ]

I’m not sure we are that far apart on Taylor. You said one of their best ever and I said maybe not in their top 10. Both of those statements can be true at the same time. For me, Taylor was the standard QB who put up big passing numbers playing for bad teams who had to throw the ball a lot because they were always behind. I saw a lot of those at Washington State growing up so Taylor isn’t someone who stands out in my mind as an all-time great.

Another example would be Elway. Great numbers, bad team. I’d probably just look at him as above average if he didn’t have such a celebrated pro career, along with a huge upset over what I hoped was an eventual national champion Washington in 82. Plunkett/Luck will always be my top two for them while Elway is more of “oh, right, he did go there.”

[The Miami Ute]

Talking about Stanford QBs, I grew up watching Guy Benjamin and thought he’d have a long and fruitful pro career. It just didn’t work out for him.

[dystopiamembrane]

He took a perennial s**t show in Sacramento State to an undefeated regular season, still alive for a national championship.