Willie Author Taggart
(born August 27, 1976) is an
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
college coach. He has held the head coach position at five NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision programs:
Western Kentucky
Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state.
;Always included
* The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...
(2009 to 2012 seasons);
South Florida
South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...
(2013 to 2016);
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
(2017);
Florida State
Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...
(2018 and part of the 2019 season); and
Florida Atlantic
Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 12-cam ...
(2020 to 2022). At all four schools, he was the first African-American to be hired as the head coach.
Playing career
High school career
Taggart was a prep standout at
Manatee High School in
Bradenton, Florida
Bradenton ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698.
History
Late 18th and early 19th centuries ...
, 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
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
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.
College career
After high school, Taggart became a star
quarterback
The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...
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
James Joseph Harbaugh (; born December 23, 1963) is an American football coach and former quarterback, who is the current and 20th head football coach of the Michigan Wolverines. He played college football at Michigan from 1983 to 1986. He play ...
to play for his father,
Jack Harbaugh
Jack Avon Harbaughhttp://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Ebattle/celeb/harbaugh.htm (born June 28, 1939) is a former American football player and coach. He is known for being the longtime head coach at Western Kentucky Hilltoppers fo ...
.
Coaching career
Early coaching years
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
Jack Avon Harbaughhttp://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Ebattle/celeb/harbaugh.htm (born June 28, 1939) is a former American football player and coach. He is known for being the longtime head coach at Western Kentucky Hilltoppers fo ...
on the Hilltoppers' 2002
Division I-AA national champions. He 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
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
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
Tobin Bo Gunnar Gerhart (born March 28, 1987) is a former American football running back. He was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the second round of the 2010 NFL Draft. He played college football for Stanford University, and was a unanimous ...
into a star during that time. The younger Harbaugh also gave Taggart responsibility for recruiting in Taggart's home state of
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
,
Georgia,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, and
Riverside County, California
Riverside County is a County (United States), county located in the southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most ...
.
[
]
Western Kentucky (2010–2012)
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
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
. 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.
South Florida (2013–2016)
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
Marlon Devon Mack (born March 7, 1996) is an American football running back for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at South Florida and was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in the fourth roun ...
, 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
The Miami Beach Bowl was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sanctioned Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football bowl game played for three years (2014–2016) at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida. The bowl was crea ...
.
In 2016, the Bulls went 10–2 and won a share of the AAC
AAC may refer to:
Aviation
* Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California
* Alaskan Air Command, a radar network
* American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York
* American Aviation, a company from Cleveland, ...
East division. This was the Bulls first double digit win season in school history.
Oregon (2017)
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." Taggart 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.
Oregon went 7-5 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12 in 2017 with Taggart at the reins. The Ducks beat Nebraska, Arizona and rival Oregon State. They were bested by UCLA, Stanford, Washington State, and suffered a 38-3 blowout loss to Washington. Additionally, the Ducks lost The Las Vegas Bowl to Boise State on December 16 with Mario Cristobal at the helm after Taggart accepted the position at Florida State.
Florida State (2018–2019)
On December 5, 2017, Taggart accepted the head coaching job at Florida State
Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...
, replacing Jimbo Fisher
John James "Jimbo" Fisher Jr. (born October 9, 1965) is an American college football coach and former player. He is the head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies Football, Texas A&M Aggies. Previously, Fisher was the head coach at Florida State Seminol ...
. In his first season, the Seminoles finished 5-7, their first losing season on the field since 1976, Bobby Bowden's first year. They were not invited to a bowl for the first time since the end of the 1981 season, breaking the longest active bowl appearance streak in FBS. Florida State fans were not used to staying home for bowl season, and there were numerous calls for Taggart's firing. However, school president John Thrasher
John Thrasher (February 24, 1818–November 13, 1899) was the founder of the city of Norcross, Georgia, an original pioneer of Atlanta, and a well-travelled entrepreneur throughout the American Southeast.
Founding of Atlanta
In 1839, T ...
and athletic director Dave Coburn voiced confidence in Taggart. According to a story in ''Bleacher Report
Bleacher Report (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London.
Bleacher Report was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System in Aug ...
,'' Florida State had bottomed out in 2018 due in part to cultural problems dating from Fisher's tenure. In particular, Taggart was stunned at the football team's casual approach to academics. When he arrived, Florida State had the worst Academic Progress Rate in FBS, and was on the brink of an automatic bowl ban, which further complicated his efforts to rebuild the program.
Following a 4-5 start to the 2019 season, Taggart was fired during mid-season in November 2019. For the removal of Taggart, Florida State had to pay over $20M in buyouts, including about $18M to Taggart after the firing and over $4M paid to Oregon at his hiring ($3M to end Taggart's contract with Oregon and an additional $1.3M that Oregon still owed South Florida for hiring Taggart away in 2016).
Florida Atlantic (2020–2022)
On December 11, 2019, two days after Lane Kiffin
Lane Monte Kiffin (born May 9, 1975) is an American football coach who is currently the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels. Kiffin formerly was the offensive coordinator for the USC Trojans football team from 2005 to 2006, head coach of the Nati ...
resigned as head football coach at Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Florida, Dania Beach, Davie, Florida, Davie, Fort Lauderd ...
and accepted the head coaching position at Ole Miss, Florida Atlantic announced the hiring of Taggart as the school's next head coach. The 5-year contract was to pay Taggart $750,000 annually with a $3M buyout if Taggart leaves before December 1, 2022. On November 26, 2022, Taggart was fired by Florida Atlantic after a 32–31 overtime loss to Western Kentucky
Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state.
;Always included
* The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...
. Taggart only went to one bowl game at his tenure with the owls, a 25-10 loss to the Memphis Tigers in the Montgomery Bowl in his first season, which was 2020.
Personal life
Taggart and his wife, Taneshia, have two sons, Willie Jr. and Jackson, and one daughter, Morgan.
Head coaching record
* Departed Western Kentucky for South Florida before bowl game
* Departed South Florida for Oregon before bowl game
* Departed Oregon for Florida State before bowl game
Notes
References
External links
Florida Atlantic profile
Florida State profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taggart, Willie
1976 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
Florida Atlantic Owls football coaches
Florida State Seminoles football coaches
South Florida Bulls football coaches
Oregon Ducks football coaches
Stanford Cardinal football coaches
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers football coaches
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers football players
Sportspeople from Bradenton, Florida
Players of American football from Florida
African-American coaches of American football
African-American players of American football
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American sportspeople