FSU Football: Writer wrong to call Willie Taggart worst first year coach

FSU football did not have the first season that their new head coach would have wanted, but it was far from the worst of anyone making their debut.

With the 2018 college football season in the rearview mirror for teams like FSU football that weren’t able to make it to a bowl game (still hurts to say that), the second guessing has begun after the regular season and people are starting to discuss the impact that first year coaches – like the Seminoles’ Willie Taggart – had on their teams.

Yes, there was way too much preseason hype as it turned out for Taggart when he came into the program – partly based off people wanting to get past the feeling of abandonment from the previous coach and partly off the continuous media circus that wants instant results without looking at how bad the previous coach left things.

Nonetheless, Willie Taggart is being critiqued based off the performance on the field and gong 5-7 in his first FSU football season. While it wasn’t even close to being the worst record for any first year leader, CBSSports.com writer Barrett Sallee went out of his way to not just rank Taggart the worst new Power Five coach, but the worst in all of the FBS this season.

"Willie Taggart (5-7): The 36-year bowl streak ended, the Seminoles led the nation in penalties, and they were disjointed from the jump – F"

No one in garnet and gold is arguing the disappointment from this season and saying that Taggart or FSU football deserves a passing grade, but the worst in all of the FBS? Sallee claimed the grades were “solely based on their performance this season”, so let us see how he graded coaches whose teams had a worse “performance” than the Seminoles this season.

"Chad Morris, Arkansas (2-10): D-Sean Lewis, Kent State (2-10): DScott Frost, Nebraska (4-8): Six straight losses to open the season didn’t exactly sit well, but the Cornhuskers came on strong late to finish 4-2 and give fans hope. – BJonathan Smith, Oregon State (2-10): D-Mike Bloomgren, Rice, (2-11): D+Steve Campbell, South Alabama (3-9): D+Chip Kelly, UCLA (3-9): Closing strong with a win over rival USC was great, but that record in the Pac-12 South is unacceptable. – CDana Dimel, UTEP (1-11): D-"

So, using Sallee’s “judgement”, it is better to have double digit losses in the MAC and Conference USA than to finish with five wins in a power conference. Along the same lines when talking about  Kelly, who was supposed to be an offensive messiah for the Bruins, Taggart should have lost to Boston College and won a meaningless game against Florida like UCLA did with their rivals, right?

How about being like Nebraska? All season, Scott Frost was given a pass while Taggart was ridiculed in the national press. Maybe FSU football should have done the Nebraska approach and reversed their results – going 1-4 to start the season and 4-3 to end it so we could say we “came on strong late”.

The three coaches who finished with the same record as Taggart: Arizona’s Kevin Sumlin, SMU’s Sonny Dykes and Tennessee’s Jeremy Pruitt – were graded at D, B- and C+ respectively while that former FSU football coach who is now at Texas A&M was given an A- for having finished with one more win than Sumlin had at the school last year.

The words from that so called “expert” has given me the inspiration to grade things myself – so, Barrett, consider yourself a failure as you get a “F” for your attempt.