FSU Football: Willie Taggart closes book on last season at ACC Kickoff

FSU Football made it very clear during the opening day of the annual event with coaches, players and the media that the focus is solely on 2019.

In front of hundreds of media members ranging from locations like Miami, Philadelphia and all points in between, the annual ACC Kickoff event took place starting Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina – and it started out with the 15 time conference champion FSU football team sending their player and coaching reps to the stage.

Following a few minutes of wide receiver Tamorrion Terry and defensive tackle Marvin Wilson answering what seemed to be pretty positive questions, the attention was turned to head coach Willie Taggart – a man who was the first coach to lead the Seminoles to a losing season in over four decades last season.

For most of the time, the questions were again greenly positive about FSU football and what could take place – but then, toward the end, the question was asked to address what was a history making 2018 campaign and what it means for this upcoming season.

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Taggart, who has been criticized by both those outside of the Seminoles program and even some in the family, has always stuck up for himself and his future and made one thing very clear: it’s 2019 and forward is the direction the Seminoles are looking in.

"“We put that behind us. We learned from our mistakes, the things that cost us to be the way that we were. We’ve been working on it diligently since then to make sure we correct those things and don’t do the same things that we’ve done before.Again, ’18 is behind us. That’s part of our history. We’re going to keep it there, continue to focus on ’19.”"

Now, the critics are going to continue to focus their venom toward the FSU football program until Taggart proves that he can have a winning season with the Seminoles – hopefully that coming in just a few short months – but give Taggart credit for not shying away from the reality of what took place.

There is no looking back and being able to change what took place last season: the Seminoles had their first losing season since 1976 and that is something that is going to be with Taggart and the Noles until they win more games than they lose in a single season.

But, Taggart has kept the right attitude and has the Seminoles focused on the only thing they can change: what will take place in 2019.