Coach Taggart has done near-impossible at South Florida

[Whitey23]

 

[Whitey23]

One of the toughest things for any coach in college football to do is get a team to start winning when it seems like everyone outside the program is saying you’re on the hot seat. Willie Taggart, South Florida’s 39-year-old coach, though, has done just that.

Taggart, in his third season at USF, is coming off the program's biggest win in five years after his Bullshammered No. 22 Temple Saturday night 44-23. It’s USF’s fifth win in six games after a 1-3 start.

The turning point may have come on Oct. 2 after the Bulls lost at home 24-17 to Memphis — USF’s third loss in a row. Taggart, though, noticed how crushed his players were in the locker room after the game. “The guys were hurt, crying,” Taggart told FOX Sports Sunday. “I went home and I told my wife, 'I think we’re onto something.’"

Taggart knew his young team was trying to adapt to a lot of change. He overhauled his staff in the offseason. He also had made a big change on offense going from the pro-style attack that the Jim Harbaugh protégé had to a version of the spread he dubbed the Gulf Coast Offense, where it would go up-tempo and run zone read about 20 percent of the time and now with a dynamic young quarterback in sophomore Quinton Flowers. Taggart also took over as play-caller — something he did back when he was the coach at Western Kentucky.

“We stuck to what we believe in, and we could see it coming from what we were seeing daily in practice,” said Taggart, who went 2-10 in his first season at WKU before turning that program into a bowl team by year three. "Our guys are growing up and they see I have a great staff and how close we are, and they’re all in."

The Bulls have one of the younger teams in the country, starting freshmen and sophomores at both receiver spots, QB, tailback, on the D-line and in three positions in the secondary. In the 6-foot, 215-pound Flowers, Taggart has found an ideal triggerman for his new Gulf Coast Offense who is adept at completing over 60 percent of his passes while also being able to keep defenses on their heels with his feet via running QB draws, QB power or improvised scrambles.

 

[TexanMark]

As I was walking out of the stadium...I told a few Bulls fans congrats and their team will make a bowl game this season...they scoffed...all of them.

 

[Cusester]

It's a lot easier to turn a team around when your admissions standards are as low as South Florida's.

 

[OburgOrange]

Think he would come here?

 

[orangefog]

How big is our LA quarterback recruit?

 

[Whitey23]

How big is our LA quarterback recruit?

< 6 feet

 

[dollarbill44]

It's a lot easier to turn a team around when your admissions standards are as low as South Florida's.

I'm tired of this excuse. SU lets players in who qualify.

 

[orangefog]

< 6 feet

Oh shoot, he is 5'11".

 

[Rocco]

I knew they were better than 1-3 when we played them. You don't just accidentally play that well. I mean, we made them probably look better than they are, but you get the point. Shaf might this guy's DC next year at a bigger school.

 

[Millhouse]

A lot of us feel better now that their record looks more like the team we saw. They sure looked better than
1-3 or whatever they were at the time

 

[orangeinjersey]

I knew they were better than 1-3 when we played them. You don't just accidentally play that well. I mean, we made them probably look better than they are, but you get the point. Shaf might this guy's DC next year at a bigger school.

sign me up!

 

[Ish88888]

Nice story and i like taggert but a plant could get into USF, and how hard is recruiting when you are located in the heart of a top 3 recruiting state.

 

[creatorsgam]

Nice story and i like taggert but a plant could get into USF

:rolling:

Pretty sure I saw this guy at LB:

 

[donniesyracuse]

This is weird because I remember people saying how terrible he was as a coach. I won't mention any names.

 

[TheCusian]

This is weird because I remember people saying how terrible he was as a coach. I won't mention any names.

You can mention me. His record prior to this season was worse than Shafer's after 2 years. They were really bad and revamped everything - a gamble - and it worked.

Good for them.

 

[orangeinjersey]

Hmmm, didnt Scooch post a thread about coaches who turn it around in year 3 becoming successful

 

[Millhouse]

i like the part about stopping trying to be stanford and switching to the offense that everyone else succeeds with

 

[cuse309]

Nice story and i like taggert but a plant could get into USF, and how hard is recruiting when you are located in the heart of a top 3 recruiting state.

Again...this is just not true.

 

[dollarbill44]

Again...this is just not true.

Yeah, I think some people like to make excuses for SU's struggles by minimizing the success of others. If it was just about location, every team in Florida, Texas and California would be good every year. The view of, "we could be just as good as they are if we were in Florida and had no admissions standards" is a victim mentality. We need to own our failures and correct them, not assign them to circumstances beyond our control.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

They've had a nice turnaround.

I'm still annoyed we showed up to that game unprepared to play.

 

[orangenirvana]

Improve over the course of the season? They must have no freshmen or sophomores.

 

[Cusester]

Again...this is just not true.

I feel very confident that if the high school course work of the bottom 20% of SU's and USF's football team were compared, there would be a substantial difference in our favor, but I could be wrong. I will admit that their general admissions acceptance rate of 47.5 is much better than I thought.

 

[CousCuse]

I feel very confident that if the high school course work of the bottom 20% of SU's and USF's football team were compared, there would be a substantial difference in our favor, but I could be wrong.

Would Blair have gotten in there ?

 

[rrlbees]

Improve over the course of the season? They must have no freshmen or sophomores.

Our kids have improved.