FSU Football: Willie Taggart has praise for Deondre Francois

FSU football has an interesting spring developing, but nothing is a bigger question mark than who will be the starting QB in 2018.

Just three weeks ago FSU football coach Willie Taggart spoke with ESPN’s Andrea Adelson and gave an update on Deondre Francois’s rehab progress.

Not only did he give an update on that progress, he made some blunt statements regarding Francois upon his arrival.

Taggart essentially called Francois out in the piece.

Calling Him Out

"“I told him, if you’re going to be the quarterback on a team that I’m coaching, those things can’t ever happen again,” Taggart said. “You’ve got to be a guy that players want to get behind and play for and that was high school Harry what you pulled. I don’t care who you’re mad at, you don’t do that to your teammates.”"

Taggart was referring to Francois deciding to not be at FSU’s senior day game against Delaware State.

The quote below is referring to Francois’s absence from certain team functions.

"“For me, I don’t care if you are hurt. You’re in there with your guys, especially the quarterback,” Taggart said. “I just felt like he wasn’t told to do those things or wasn’t held accountable. … From day one we’ve been talking about leadership, how to carry himself and how people look at him. I tell him, look, you and myself, things go bad, everybody’s going to look at us. Things go good, they’re going to give us credit. It’s what we signed up for. So we’ve got to watch ourselves, what we do, what we say, what we tweet, and every time I see him, he knows whenever he sees me coming around the corner he’s probably going to get nothing football. It’s going to be leadership-wise or what have you done today to build your teammates up.”"

Taggart spoke at the Georgia Minority Coaches of Georgia ‘Coaches Conference’ Friday and gave another update on Francois according to Noles247.

The Praise

"“His recovery is coming around pretty good, he’s doing a great job and rehab is coming along. Hopefully he can go through spring ball and do some 7-on-7, but he won’t be 100 percent.”"

It’s the same thing he said regarding Francois in the initial ESPN piece. We knew he wouldn’t be 100 percent for the spring but would likely take part in 7-on-7 drills.

In fact, Francois posted a video on social media of him going to practice to get some throws in early this week. There was also a video of him dancing in the locker room with teammates and the knee looked like he was recovering nicely.

The part that stands out though is Taggart saying Francois is doing a great job. He didn’t have to say that part as he could have said his rehab is going pretty good and hopefully he can participate in 7-on-7 drills.

READ: Willie Taggart Taking Page Fro Clemson’s Recruiting Strategy?

Thoughts

I think Taggart understands he needs Francois in some capacity, either as starter or depth purposes. It could be a little good cop/bad cop too.

Taggart called him out weeks ago to get his attention and could possibly be rewarding Francois for taking the steps to be the leader Taggart wants him to be.

What I do know is James Blackman is and has been showing those leadership qualities last year and during recent workouts. He’s not going to just give the starting job back to Francois and that’s going to show us just how much fight Francois has in him.

If Francois is named the starter for the opener, I think it’s safe to say Willie Taggart was pleased with his improvement in leadership among other football related things like learning the offense.

Next: 5 Reasons James Blackman Is Willie Taggart's QB in 2018

If not, look for James Blackman or possibly Bailey Hockman to take the reigns and Francois to depart.