FSU Football: Willie Taggart explains team’s mindset entering 2019 season

FSU football is determined to not have a second straight losing season in 2019, but it took an honest look at what happened last year before moving on.

In just over two and a half months, the FSU football team will take the field in Jacksonville and look to do something that hasn’t been done since the 2016 season: win their opening game when head coach Willie Taggart kicks off year number two in charge of the Seminoles as they face the Boise State Broncos.

Of course, for Taggart and the Noles a lot of what will be done at least at the start of the season will be to get the bitter taste out of their mouths from a 2018 campaign that saw the Seminoles finish with the first losing season in over four decades with losses in four of their final five games in the regular season.

While there was nothing to cheer about in Tallahassee when it comes to last season, the future is at least brighter with a Seminoles program that is thought by many to be better in the upcoming season and should – baring an epic letdown over the course of the year – be bowling again at the end of the 2019 campaign.

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So, how did the FSU football team get to a place in their minds where it was time to move on? During an event at the end of last month in Miami Gardens as part of his annual Seminole Boosters coach’s tour, Taggart told Chop Chat that the mindset was two basic words: get better.

"“The mindset was to make sure that we don’t do the things that we did last year. Improve on the things we did wrong and make sure we correct all those mistakes and a lot of that starts with ourselves and improving ourselves…and be better teammates, better coaches and doing everything we can for our university because our university has been good for all of us.”"

For Taggart and the FSU football team this season, that mindset has to include a hot early start to the season with a schedule that is somewhat favorable – just one game outside of the state of Florida out of their first five contests – before heading off to face defending national champs Clemson on October 12th.

If the Seminoles can somehow be undefeated – heck, at this point I would take a 4-1 record at that point – when they face off against the Tigers, Taggart and the Noles can breath much easier in terms of having a winning season and getting back to a bowl game this season.

However, if the wheels fall off again in the same way they did during Taggart’s first season in Tallahassee, things could get very interesting in a very short time for the current head Seminole.