FSU has reached an agreement with Oregon coach Willie Taggart to become the Seminoles’ new head football coach, a source told the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday.
Taggart will be introduced as new FSU coach on Wednesday, after agreeing to a 6-year deal worth $30 million, according to multiple reports.
Taggart, a Palmetto native and former USF head coach who has worked under Jack and Jim Harbuagh, became one of the hottest available coaches in the country after his final season with the Bulls in 2016, earning the Oregon job this season.
Florida State officials met with Taggart after he took a recruiting trip in Arizona on Monday. He informed Oregon players of his intention to take the FSU job on Tuesday afternoon, according to a source.
Taggart’s hiring marks the end of one of the most historical, and contentious, sequences in Florida State history.
Taggart is expected to retain Oregon defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt, who was USF’s head coach from 1997–2009, to his Florida State coaching staff, according to reports.
Taggart led Oregon to a 7-5 record this season, an improvement from its 4-8 record a season ago, despite losing starting quarterback Justin Herbert to a collarbone injury for much of the season.
Taggart has a 47-50 overall record in his eight seasons as a head coach, but rebuilt Western Kentucky and USF to winning programs after his brief tenures at both schools.
At USF, Taggart’s record gradually climbed from 2-10, 4-8, 8-5 to 10-2 from 2013-16, where the Bulls ranked 19th in the final Associated Press poll in his final season.
FSU beat USF 55-35 in 2016, with the Bulls’ 11th-ranked offense scoring the fourth-most against the Seminoles defense, which ranked 22nd nationally, trailing the only teams to beat FSU that season in Louisville, Clemson and North Carolina.
Taggart agreed to a five-year deal worth $18.9 million last December to coach at Oregon, where he earned $2.9 million this season.
Taggart’s coaching career began immediately after graduating from WKU in 1997. He served as an assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and position coach under Jack Harbaugh for seven seasons, highlighted by a Division I-AA national title in 2002
USF Coach Willie Taggart with Jameis Winston – 2016 USF Football Spring Game Photos (4400×2933)
Current Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh hired Taggart as an assistant at Stanford, where he coached running backs for from 2007-09, guiding Heisman Trophy finalist Toby Gerhart.
Taggart won two games in his first season as Western Kentucky’s head coach, matching the same winning total in the previous two seasons, before consecutive 7-5 seasons in 2011 and 2012. Taggart led WKU to the program’s first bowl game in his final season before taking the USF job.
Taggart, who won a state 5A championship at Bradenton Manatee High in 1992 and was runner up in 1993, also has extensive ties to the state of Florida that could help in recruiting.
Florida State hopes Taggart can revive the 2018 recruiting class, which dropped to 32ndthis week after losing seven pledges. Under Fisher, the Seminoles had eight consecutive Top 10 recruiting classes.
“I think that’s very important that they are able to recruit in the state of Florida. That’s what we’ve always been able to do,” Wilcox said about potential coaching candidates after FSU’s bowl-clinching win over Louisiana-Monroe last Saturday.
“If they have a proven track record of being a great recruiter, and a great recruiter in the state of Florida and South Florida, that’s going to be a very good criteria we’re looking for.”
Fisher left for Texas A&M after weeks of negotiating the richest valued contract in college football history.
His relationships with FSU president John Thrasher, athletics director Stan Wilcox and the hierarchy of Seminoles Boosters began to wear on all parties involved as Fisher publicly lobbied for the expedited construction of a football-only facility among other improvements.
Adding to the frustrations, Florida State began the season as a No. 3 preseason team, before falling to 2-5, and regrouping to become bowl eligible in the season finale against Louisiana Monroe last week.
The Seminoles will finish the season against Southern Miss on Dec. 27 at the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.
While Taggart would have to move swiftly to secure FSU’s recruiting class, he would take over a roster built to compete immediately in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Willie Taggart (born August 27, 1976) is the head college football coach at Florida State and a former college football player. He previously served as head coach at Western Kentucky from 2009 to 2012, South Florida from 2013 to 2016, and Oregon in 2017. He is the first African-American head football coach at each of the four institutions.
Taggart was a prep standout at Bradenton Manatee High School in Florida, where he was a first team all-state and all-conference selection as a senior after guiding the Hurricanes to the state 5A Championship game. He helped lead the football team to the state title his junior season and helped the school post a 26–4 record during that two-year span, while recording more than 3,000 yards passing and 975 yards on the ground.
After high school, Taggart became a star quarterback for the Western Kentucky University (WKU) Hilltoppers from 1995 through 1998, being one of only three WKU players in the previous 50 years to be a four-year starter at the position and one of only four Hilltoppers players to have his jersey retired. In each of his last two collegiate seasons, he was a finalist for the prestigious Walter Payton Award, which is an honor given annually to the top offensive player in I-AA football. Taggart finished fourth in the balloting in 1997 and seventh as a senior the following year. An All-American as a senior, he was also the 1998 I-AA Independents’ Offensive Player of the Year. Taggart was recruited to WKU by Jim Harbaugh to play for his father, Jack Harbaugh.
After graduating from WKU in 1998, Taggart stayed on at the school as an assistant through 2006, serving as co-offensive coordinator under Jack Harbaugh on the Hilltoppers’ 2002 Division I-AA national champions. Taggart also worked alongside Harbaugh’s son Jim, who had been an unpaid certified assistant coach under his father in the final years of his NFL career.
When Jim Harbaugh was named head coach of the Stanford Cardinal football team following the 2006 season, he hired Taggart as his running backs coach. Taggart served in that role for the next two seasons, developing Doak Walker Award winner and Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart into a star during that time. The younger Harbaugh also gave Taggart responsibility for recruiting in Taggart’s home state of Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Riverside County, California.
In 2010, Taggart left his position at Stanford as the running backs coach in order to become the head football coach of his alma-mater, Western Kentucky. In their first year under Taggart, the Hilltoppers broke a 26-game losing streak while finishing the season with a record of 2–10.
In 2011, Taggart led WKU to a 7–5 season, where the Hilltoppers lost the first 4 games of the season, but then won 7 of their last 8 games. Although having a winning record, they were not invited to a bowl game that year. In 2012, Taggart led WKU once again to a bowl-eligible record of 7–5. The Hilltoppers accepted an invitation to play Central Michigan in the Little Caesars Bowl on December 26, 2012, on ESPN. However, Taggart did not coach in this bowl game having already accepted the head coaching position of the South Florida Bulls on December 7, 2012.
On December 7, 2012, Taggart took over as head coach at the University of South Florida in his native Tampa Bay area.In his first season, Taggart led the Bulls to a 2–10 season. The following season, Taggart’s team doubled the number of wins and finished with a 4–8 record. During the off-season, Taggart made several personnel changes, including replacing the offensive and defensive coordinators. The change of schemes as well as the development of his first two recruiting classes provided the team with much needed energy and depth of positions.
In 2015, led by conference leaders quarterback Quinton Flowers and running back Marlon Mack, the Bulls started the season 1–3 before finishing the regular season with a record of 8–5 and earning bowl eligibility for the first time in five years. The Bulls lost to WKU in the Miami Beach Bowl.
In 2016, the Bulls went 10–2 and won a share of the AAC East division. This was the Bulls first double digit win season in school history.
On December 7, 2016, the University of Oregon announced Taggart as the Ducks’ new head coach, replacing the fired Mark Helfrich.
In January 2017, three Oregon football players were hospitalized after grueling military-style workouts. Multiple sources described the workouts to the Oregonian as “akin to military basic training, with one said to include up to an hour of continuous push-ups and up-downs.” Coach Taggert personally visited the ill and hospitalized players to wish them a speedy recovery. “I have visited with the three young men involved in the incidents in the past few days and I have been in constant contact with their families, offering my sincere apologies,” Taggart said in the statement. “As the head football coach, I hold myself responsible for all of our football-related activities and the safety of our students must come first. I have addressed the issue with our strength and conditioning staff, and I fully support the actions taken today by the university. I want to thank our medical staff and doctors for caring for all of our young men, and I want to apologize to the university, our students, alumni and fans.”
Taggart’s hiring at Oregon drew attention to the low number of African American head coaches in major college football (14 out of 128 schools). The hiring came several years after Oregon’s passing of House Bill 3118, which requires state-funded schools to interview qualified minority candidates for top coaching and athletic administration positions.
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | Coaches# | AP° | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (Sun Belt Conference) (2010–2012) | ||||||||
| 2010 | Western Kentucky | 2–10 | 2–6 | 9th | ||||
| 2011 | Western Kentucky | 7–5 | 7–1 | 2nd | ||||
| 2012 | Western Kentucky | 7–5 | 4–4 | 5th | Little Caesars Pizza* | |||
| Western Kentucky: | 16–20 | 13–11 | * Departed Western Kentucky for South Florida before bowl game | |||||
| South Florida Bulls (American Athletic Conference) (2013–2016) | ||||||||
| 2013 | South Florida | 2–10 | 2–6 | 8th | ||||
| 2014 | South Florida | 4–8 | 3–5 | 7th | ||||
| 2015 | South Florida | 8–5 | 6–2 | 2nd (East) | L Miami Beach | |||
| 2016 | South Florida | 10–2 | 7–1 | T–1st (East) | Birmingham* | 19 | 19 | |
| South Florida: | 24–25 | 18–14 | * Departed South Florida for Oregon before bowl game | |||||
| Oregon Ducks (Pac-12 Conference) (2017) | ||||||||
| 2017 | Oregon | 7–5 | 4–5 | 4th (North) | Las Vegas | |||
| Oregon: | 7–5 | 4–5 | ||||||
| Florida State Seminoles (Atlantic Coast Conference) (2018–present) | ||||||||
| 2018 | Florida State | 0–0 | 0–0 | (Atlantic) | ||||
| Florida State: | 0–0 | 0–0 | ||||||
| Total: | 47–50 | |||||||
