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Willie Taggart Is Ruining Florida State

Trey Daubert / College Football / September 4, 2019

How much does coaching matter in sports? That’s sort of a tough question to really pinpoint an exact answer to. We know this much. It varies from sport to sport. In College Football, coaching means EVERYTHING! Florida State was a respectable program under Jimbo Fisher. Jimbo went 83-23 at FSU with a 5-2 Bowl Game record. When Fisher left for greener pastures (literally) at Texas A&M, Florida State thought Willie Taggart was a logical replacement. It turns out that Taggart has done nothing except run the program into the ground.

The Taggart hire had disaster written all over it from the start. Taggert went 16-20 as the head coach at the University of Western Kentucky. Then he went 24-25 at South Florida. Taggart found himself at Oregon in 2017 and went 7-5 but had a losing record in Pac 12 play. Taggert NEVER showed an ability to be a winning coach. He landed the Florida State job anyway. Don’t ask me how.

In the least shocking turn of events ever, Taggert is running FSU into the ground. Literally… Florida State was atrocious last year.

2018 Offense (Rank out of 130 FBS teams)

Points per game vs. FBS opponents: 20.6 (114)
Yards per play vs. FBS opponents: 5.07 (107)
Yards per rush vs. FBS opponents: 2.69 (129)

Yards per pass attempt vs. FBS opponents: 7.1 (73)
First downs per game vs. FBS opponents: 16.5 (119)
Third down conversion percentage vs. FBS opponents: 28.74 (128)

Redzone conversion percentage vs. FBS opponents: 75.86 (116)
Redzone touchdown percentage vs. FBS opponents: 55.17 (105)
Sacks allowed per game vs. FBS opponents: 3.18 (118)

Plays gaining 10-plus yards vs. FBS opponents: 142 (88)
Time of possession vs. FBS opponents: 27:12.82 (118)

Yeah, that’s Florida State we’re talking about. Heading into 2019, Taggert hired Kendal Briles to run the offense. Smart call. However, Florida State still loses the coaching edge. The Seminoles put up 31 points at the half against Boise State. When it was time to make adjustments coming out of half time, Florida State didn’t score losing the game 36-31. That’s on Taggert. The longer the game kept going, the worse Florida State looked.

That’s not the worst part. This was Taggert’s excuse for losing the game:

“I think after going through last weekend and seeing our guys going down and cramping, one thing we talked about with our medical staff is our guys got to hydrate.”

“That can’t be on Friday, that can’t be on Thursday, they need to start hydrating early in the week and take care of their bodies. We can’t leave it up to our players just to do it. We’ve got to force them to hydrate and take care of themselves.

“I don’t know if we did a good job of that last weekend. One of those situations where you live and learn, and we’ll make sure that we help our guys when it comes to that.”

Can’t make it up. This was a home game. Not a road game. Players knew the game conditions. You know cause they go to school and practice in Florida. If things were planned to hydrate guys, again, that’s a Taggart issue.

Ranking of New Hires in College Football

Florida State is becoming the joke of college football. Taggart is running this once proud program into the ground. I can’t see Taggart making it to another season. Somehow, things are getting worse for the Seminoles, not better.