FSU Football: 3 reasons Willie Taggart handled coaching search perfectly
By Kelvin Hunt
Newly hired FSU football coach Willie Taggart provided the blueprint for all coaching moves.
FSU football fans are no strangers to the negative effects of a head coach being summoned by another university in hopes of hiring them.
They’ve experienced it the past three years or so, and know how it feels to keep the coach and now how to lose one.
Oregon football fans and administrators went through it last year somewhat voluntarily when they decided to fire Mark Helfrich.
Their first candidate turn them down and they decided to hire Wllie Taggart. Unfortunately for them, neither would know just a year late Taggart’s true dream job would become available.
It just so happens Taggart and former FSU head coach Jimbo Fisher have the same agent Jimmy Sexton.
If Sexton was aware Jimbo would be bolting for another job a year after signing an extension with FSU, I’d bet money he would have told Willie Taggart to stay put at South Florida and not take the Oregon job.
It was truly terrible timing for Oregon, but they should have known better than to hire a coach with almost no west coast ties to begin with. I bet they won’t make that mistake again either, so it was a learning moment for that program moving forward.
There has been a lot of venom spewed at Taggart for how he handled the coaching search and transition from Oregon to FSU football. Frankly, I can’t understand why because I don’t think he could have handled it any better.
In fact, he handled it light years better than the former FSU coach he’s replacing. Let’s look at three reasons why Willie Taggart handled the coaching search perfectly.