(12-09-2016 11:44 PM)_C2_ Wrote: (12-09-2016 10:17 PM)quo vadis Wrote: Sorry, but jabbering your opinion about the nature of some of USF's wins and losses doesn't show Oregon made an awful hire. Only the future can do that.
You're exactly right. That said, what has Taggart done in his career other than improve the teams who took over? What are his big wins and major accomplishments? I can go on rambling in long form like above or ask it in a nutshell like here.
I've already answered that. I noted that Taggart is just 24-25 at USF, never won a bowl game, and never won a division much less a conference title with us.
So yes, he is a RISKY hire for Oregon.
He is manifestly not a coach with a sterling record of consistent high-level achievement. He's had his downs and ups, what has helped his career immensely is just that - his downs have come before his ups, thus giving the impression that he makes things better than when he found them.
That can make a huge difference. E.g., in 1999, LSU fired Gerry Dinardo and hired Nick Saban as his replacement. At the time, Dinardo had been LSU's coach since 1995, while Saban had been Michigan State's coach the exact same length of time. Each was at their first Power-level head coaching job.
If you compared their overall records, they were remarkably similar. They both had about the same overall won-loss record. Dinardo was 33-22, Saban was almost identical 35-24. Beyond that, Dinardo was better, having gone 3-0 in bowl games, whereas Saban was 1-3 in bowl games, including, ironically, a loss to Dinardo and LSU in the 1996 Independence Bowl.
So you would never expect that one guy would be fired in favor of the other. Difference was, whereas Dinardo started with 3 straight winning seasons, he finished with two losing ones, whereas Saban started with two losing and one .500 seasons, but his last two seasons were winners, including 10-2 in 1999. And no, Dinardo didn't start with any advantage. LSU was 4-7 the year before he took over, MSU was 5-6 the year before Saban took over.
So Dinardo was fired, and his career never recovered, and Saban got a new job, the critical one that led to his booming career, just because Saban was perceived to be on the upswing.