Earlier this month, Stanford football hired former Sacramento State head coach Andy Thompson to be their assistant head coach, co-defensive coordinator, and inside linebackers coach. In a corresponding move, Mark D’Onofrio‘s contract as inside linebackers coach wasn’t renewed as Thompson will be filling his role. Thompson took over the head coaching job at Sacramento State after Troy Taylor left to take the head coaching job at Stanford, so this is a reunion for the two of them. During his two years as head coach, the Hornets went 11-14 overall. Last season was particularly rough as they went 3-9 overall and 1-7 in the Big Sky.

Stanford Athletics: Andy Thompson joins football staff

“I’m thrilled to have Andy Thompson join our staff as my assistant head coach, co-defensive coordinator, and inside linebackers coach,” Taylor said in the team release. “Andy is truly one of the brightest defensive minds that I have ever been around. His players love playing for him and he will be a great resource to me in guiding our program…I want to thank Mark D’Onofrio for all he has given to Stanford football. Mark is an outstanding coach and person. We wish him well in his continued coaching career.”

Thompson brings a lot of experience as a defensive coordinator to Stanford, having held the role at Northern Arizona from 2009-18 and then at Sacramento State from 2019-22 before becoming head coach. Thompson played linebacker, quarterback, and safety at Montana. He’s got a lot of Big Sky experience as Northern Arizona and Montana are also Big Sky schools.

Being totally honest, this is a bit of an odd move for Stanford to make. I don’t doubt that Thompson can be an asset to Taylor’s staff. His experience as a college football defensive coordinator speaks for itself. It’s just that the defense for the most part seemed to make a lot of improvements over the course of the season with the inside linebackers arguably being the strongest unit on the entire defense.

I mean heck, it was the linebackers who forced a fumble and recovered the ball in the end zone to keep them in the game at San Jose State. Not to mention cornerback Collin Wright’s interception. The defense did their job to put Stanford in position to win at San Jose State, but it was the offense that ultimately let them down. So I dunno. It just feels weird to feel to make a coaching change at a position of strength, but not do so at positions that were perceived as a legitimate weakness (e.g. offensive line).

The other piece of this is all the different hats that Thompson will be wearing: assistant head coach, co-defensive coordinator, and inside linebackers coach. That’s a lot of responsibility for one guy to have. Especially at the FBS level. It’ll be interesting to see how Thompson manages his different responsibilities and also how he meshes with defensive coordinator Bobby April III, who from what I could tell was running solid scheme that was putting pressure on the quarterback and putting players in position to force turnovers and get stops.

None of this is to say that hiring Thompson can’t work out for Stanford or that it was a mistake to bring him on. As I said, Thompson does have a lot of experience coaching defense and has had a good deal of success in the Big Sky. There could be some real value there. It’s just a question of how he will mesh with the other defensive coaches and what that will all look like.

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