STANFORD – Long before Andrew Luck became an NFL star, he was sitting on a couch in the Stanford quarterback room, a nervous freshman asking veteran starter Tavita Pritchard a basic protection question.
“I worked up the courage to ask Tavita what hound-two protection was,” Luck said. “Tavita spent 20 minutes with me on the couch. I couldn’t hear anything the first 10 minutes because I was too intimidated that the starting quarterback was actually taking time out of his day to teach me something.
“That moment stuck with me — his humility, his service, his belief in lifting up the people around him.”
And now they’re back on the same team. Luck, now Stanford’s general manager, introduced Pritchard as the 37th head coach in program history on Tuesday, completing an eight-month coaching search that brought a familiar face back to the school that shaped him.
Pritchard, 38, returns to the Farm after three seasons coaching quarterbacks for the Washington Commanders, where he helped guide Jayden Daniels to AP Offensive Rookie of the Year honors and a trip to the 2024 NFC Championship Game. For Pritchard, whose Stanford roots date back to 2005, the chance to return as head coach was both emotional and deeply personal.
“Stanford is where I grew up,” he said. “To come back here with the chance to build belief, brotherhood, and competition — it’s a dream.”
Pritchard delivered one of the program’s most iconic moments in his first start, a 41-point upset over No. 2 USC, though Luck quickly took over the starting spot once he arrived.
After graduating in 2009, Pritchard spent 13 years on the Stanford staff under Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw, working his way from defensive assistant to quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator. He helped guide Stanford through its most decorated modern era — three Rose Bowls, the 2012 Fiesta Bowl, the 2011 Orange Bowl, and nine straight wins over Cal – and was also there for its sudden downturn that led to Shaw’s resignation in 2022.
Pritchard succeeds Frank Reich, who served as interim head coach in 2025 and guided the Cardinal to its first four-win season in five years, including a victory over Cal to reclaim the Axe. Reich will stay on as a senior advisor.
Luck said that the search for a permanent coach involved roughly 30 candidates before Luck returned to the person he once leaned on as a young quarterback.
“Tavita has always been the person who elevates everyone around him,” Luck said. “That’s who he was in the quarterback room, and that’s who he is now.”
Luck said just as Stanford experience wasn’t a requirement when he hired Reich as an interim coach, previous head coaching experience wasn’t a prerequisite during this search.
Pritchard, who will call plays, didn’t get into specifics about his offensive scheme. But he said it would emphasize toughness and imposing the team’s will on opposing defenses.
“The misconception about Stanford student-athletes, they’re silver spoon, intellectual, so there’s a softness to it, when that actually couldn’t be further from the truth,” Pritchard said. “There is a grit and a toughness that exists in Stanford people that we will lean into because that’s consistent, that’s something that I know in my bones. We’ll use that.”
The quarterback room, of course, will be central.
“We want great quarterbacks, as many as we can bring in who fit Stanford, competing every day,” Pritchard said. “Competition made Andrew who he was. And yes, for the record, I still think I should have started over him.”
For Luck, watching his former teammate step into the role felt like a full-circle moment.
“We’re going to stub our toes,” he said. “But with Tavita, with the alignment we have now, with the belief in this place — we will build something special.”
Pritchard agreed.
“It’s all about people,” he said. “Supporting them. Believing in them. Building something together. Stanford has done it before — and we will do it again.”