He did help the USF program provide a better on-field product, but never won a title and did very little to inspire the fanbase seems to me. Now he is the coach at FSU. Do you think this is a good move for the Seminoles? Or is this a really good sales job?

Im jus surprised he actually left...


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He will recruit the hell out of the state at FSU and with the athletes he will have he will win.

I don't think he's that great of a coach. Just hope he doesn't try that Stanford type offense at FSU. He did it for 2 years at USF before our AD told him cut the shiit or you're fired. Next week he told our QB to go "playground style" and we started winning.

If we didn't have Flowers amazing talent, Tags would be coaching HS ball now.

Not a USF fan, but I'll take a crack...

Great recruiter. Not sold on his coaching. I think he can/will regularly win 9-10 games at FSU, but I don't think that's good enough to keep him there long-term.

Downgrade from Jimbo.

(12-05-2017 05:45 PM)Cubanbull Wrote:  He will recruit the hell out of the state at FSU and with the athletes he will have he will win.

Ron Zook recruited the hell out of Florida and sucked wind. I kind of see WT as this type of guy.

His staff at Oregon was loaded with Florida coaches
Jim Leavitt - former USF Head coach
David Kelly - former UCF recruiting coordinator and WR coach
Mario Christobal - former FIU Head Coach

(12-05-2017 05:41 PM)StatueKnight Wrote:  He did help the USF program provide a better on-field product, but never won a title and did very little to inspire the fanbase seems to me. Now he is the coach at FSU. Do you think this is a good move for the Seminoles? Or is this a really good sales job?

Here's my 100% honest opinion. Taggart is a great recruiter/evaluator of talent. He came to USF when the cupboard was bare (thanks, Skip!) and convinced good players like Mack, Flowers, etc. to come here. I would have loved to see what he could have done with more time.

That said, I don't think he's a great gameday coach and he's too loyal to assistants like Woodie. Most people don't remember this, but Willie's seat was getting a little warm here at USF after his first 2-10 campaign was followed with a 4-8 one. In fact, he was so worried that he burned Quinton Flowers' redshirt just to manage to get to 4-8. We started out slow in his third year before he finally loosened up the offense, and in my opinion QF covered most of his coaching faults (along with Tom Allen's defense). When Allen left for Indiana, he promoted Woodie to DC, which was a disaster (as evidence, see the 2016 Temple game and our inability to make defensive adjustments). He managed to improve a talented Oregon team by 3 whole wins against an easier schedule this year, and only when Justin Herbert was QB. So in my opinion, he's a poor man's version of John Calipari. He can recruit some great players, but I'm not sure he can actually coach them to a title if he runs up against a well coached team.

Just for some perspective, 4 years ago today he was the head coach of Western Kentucky. So that means in 4 years, he will have moved from Bowling Green, KY to Tampa to Eugene to Tallahassee. And he will leave a bunch of Florida kids in Oregon who came there to play for him and never got the chance because they redshirted. That will likely be used against him in recruiting.

And one more thing. Taggart's been the head coach in exactly one bowl game in his meteoric rise to the top (which he lost to Western Kentucky). I doubt most of the FSU fans celebrating have ever even noticed that. It will be interesting to see how well he deals with the expectations coming his way. My prediction is that he doesn't last through the end of that 6 year contract.

USFFan

Leavitt can actually coach some defense. Always could. Leavitt just never had any money for assistant coaches so we always had OC’s that appeared to be in our their heads.

Willie Taggart will be good if he gets good recruits and good assistants. But I think Dan Mullen will regularly outcoach him. FSU fans will tire of that pretty quick. Personally, I think he was in a better long term situation at Oregon.

(12-05-2017 05:53 PM)StatueKnight Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 05:45 PM)Cubanbull Wrote:  He will recruit the hell out of the state at FSU and with the athletes he will have he will win.

Ron Zook recruited the hell out of Florida and sucked wind. I kind of see WT as this type of guy.

Why did you bring up bad memories

He will stockpile enough talent to win 9-10 games a year or more, every year.

(12-05-2017 07:52 PM)otown Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 05:53 PM)StatueKnight Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 05:45 PM)Cubanbull Wrote:  He will recruit the hell out of the state at FSU and with the athletes he will have he will win.

Ron Zook recruited the hell out of Florida and sucked wind. I kind of see WT as this type of guy.

Why did you bring up bad memories

He filled the cupboard for Urban legend.

Taggart was 1 game away from being fired at USF. In fact, he WOULD have been fired if we had not been paying Holtz still for another few years. Yes, we were THAT stupid.

Then, almost overnight, he turned it around mid season and went on a tear... largely due to Mack, Flowers and Adams.

IMHO, he is an awesome recruiter. Mediocre coach. But sometimes that's enough...

He put the ol' Todd Graham one year cross country boomerang move on Oregon and USF.

(12-05-2017 09:16 PM)Bull Wrote:  Taggart was 1 game away from being fired at USF. In fact, he WOULD have been fired if we had not been paying Holtz still for another few years. Yes, we were THAT stupid.

Then, almost overnight, he turned it around mid season and went on a tear... largely due to Mack, Flowers and Adams.

IMHO, he is an awesome recruiter. Mediocre coach. But sometimes that's enough...

Yeah, but who convinced Mack, Flowers, and Adams to come to USF when USF sucked beyond belief....Taggart.

I thought he was a pretty good coach and a great recruiter. His offense was extremely effective and one of the best in the country...after he ditched the Stanford Power run game that he learned under Harbaugh. Smart move and saved his job at USF.

What you're getting with Taggart is a decent in game coach, fantastic recruiter, great salesman, smooth talker, face of the program type guy. Think slick salesman type guy. Can sit down in a kid's living room and walk out with a commitment.

He will win by the simple fact that he will stockpile more talent than everyone else. I like Taggart and wish that he would have stayed at USF, but that was never going to happen. He is a coach for hire, willing to go anywhere and say anything to improve his stock. But maybe now that his at his "dream job" he will settle down there for a while.

There's always this gem...