OT: FSU Hires Oregon HC Willie Taggart

Submitted by SolidSmeef on

http://www.espn.com/espn/now?nowId=1-21679467

 

Considered one of the best relatively young Offensive minds in football.   This seems like a solid hire in a solid coaching search, especially compared to the tire fire that is the UT search.

Edit

8 years as Head Coach at 3 schools

47-50 overall

Each team got better each year under him

 

Derwin James just announced he isn't playing in their bowl game either, as he is skipping it to prep for the draft.

 

MGoBoard

Brodie

December 5th, 2017 at 4:33 PM ^

Well, I mean, context is key. 

In this case, the context is that Western Kentucky had never had a winning season in the FBS until Taggart took over and turned them from 0-12 to a winning team in two years. In contrast, Hoke replaced Bill Lynch (who had won a conference title at Ball State and was 6-6 in his final season) and then reeled off five consecutive losing seasons. 

Taggart took over a USF team that Skip Holtz cratered (8-4, 5-7, 3-9) and then built them back into a winning team in two years and a 10-win team in three. Hoke took over SDSU, a doormat, and within a year he had won 9 games... HOWEVER, SDSU maintained that success after Hoke left his DC in charge. Said DC was a former head coach with a decent record at New Mexico and can plausibly be said to have been the biggest single factor in the turnaround there. 

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SalvatoreQuattro

December 5th, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^

Before that 6-6 season Lunch had five straight losing seasons at BSU including s 1-21 stretch. All this occurred after he won the MAC with a 8-4 record.Hoke follows that with four straight losing seasons before achieving two winning seasons in his final two. He lead BSU to it’s best season ever at 12-1. I am not saying Taggart is Hoke but only that his HC resume looks similiar to Hoke’s. Taggart is a Harbaugh disciple so obviously he has a strong coaching base.

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TrueBlue2003

December 5th, 2017 at 6:03 PM ^

correctly, but I assume you mean that contrary (?) to Hoke, Taggart is regarded as an elite recruiter. 

Whether that wasn't the case for Hoke when he arrived, he proved to be an elite recruiter for Michigan, as evidenced by highly ranked classes and tons of guys getting drafted.

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TrueBlue2003

December 5th, 2017 at 6:18 PM ^

WKU had only been an FBS school for the three years before Taggart arrived. So to say they never had a winning record in FBS is highly misleading. Also, I would think a team generally goes through a transition when making the jump from FCS to FBS (gonna be hard to win a lot of games with the same guys you recruited for an FCS program against all FBS competition). Proper context would look at those those transitions tend to go.

And if you're going to ding Hoke for SDSU staying strong after he left, don't you have to similarly ding Taggart as his successors were actually more successful than he was (Petrino and Brohm).  I would argue that Hoke gets more credit for SDSU sustaining itself since his DC took over as HC (evidence he hired good people on the defensive side of the ball, at least).

The fact that guys outside of Taggart's tree were more successful than he was at WKU might indicate, it's a program well suited to success in the Sun Belt (although, they admittedly had two home run hires after him).

And as for USF, that was a program that was quite successful under Jim Leavitt.  The Holtz era was a bit of an outlier.  It's a former Big East school in a fertile recruiting state that now plays in the AAC where it's not that hard to win games.

 

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lhglrkwg

December 5th, 2017 at 5:18 PM ^

Taggart clearly improved both WKU and USF considerably. Brady Hoke was middling at Ball State before stumbling into one great year which then saw Ball State crater again after that. Ever since Taggart boosted WKU they've been solid.

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Leaders And Best

December 5th, 2017 at 4:39 PM ^

That is similar to the argument people make about Harbaugh wearing out his welcome because he has switched jobs. Both guys just rose up the coaching ladder fast.

Taggart went from USF to Oregon to FSU (hours from where he grew up as a FL native). 90% of coaches in college football would have done the same thing.

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Mr Miggle

December 5th, 2017 at 7:10 PM ^

Desperation?

Can't see how he's a good fit for Oregon. He has no connections to the conference footprint. Rather than pick over out of work retreads, Oregon has the resources to poach someone that's doing a good job. Easy to justify, too. They're colliectng buyout money, rather than paying it. 

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Everyone Murders

December 5th, 2017 at 4:12 PM ^

*Taggart* OP.  Willie Taggart.

(Unless this is like a madcap adventure movie where the AD accidentally hires a physics teacher with a similarly-spelled name.  Disney presents Who Hired Taggert?!?  And then teacher/coach Taggert beats the real coach Taggart in the championship game by using a rubbery compound initially intended for the defense industry that makes players able to jump higher - glubber.

It's the feel-good hit of the Christmas season!)

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