USFbulls24

No coach is going to come out and say "Yeah, I'm driving this program into the ground, the only reason we're not winning is because I'm a horrible play caller". There's been a lot of times he's said the players aren't doing this, they aren't doing that, but to be fair he takes blame too. Not saying he always does, but he puts it out there. After the McNeese game he said I apologize to the fans for the performance and it was on him. After Memphis this year he said he didn't do enough to help the team out in the 2nd half. He somehow truly believes in what he's doing and I guess you have to respect him for that even though it just seems foolish by now to outsiders. At this point, I almost wonder if his staff is so far up his butt that they refuse to say something to him about change whether it be who calls the plays, throwing more, etc. or if they do say something maybe he just completely dismisses them? I can't imagine that these coaches don't speak up a little bit going on 3 years now of totally inept offensive play with Taggart running that show. It's not just Taggart's job on the line it's theirs too. Anything short of I'm not doing a good enough job, I will not sleep until I have it fixed, and I will hand over play calling duties will cause a stir. Forget about what he's saying. We have enough gripe with his actual coaching to give Bulls fans everywhere a heart attack.

I'm the 1st to criticize Taggart, but Jim McElwain inherited a team with a TON of talent. Comparing the situations is not fair. McElwain looks like one heck of a coach though after what he did at Colorado State and has the Gators rolling early on. Will Grier is a RS Freshman lighting the world on fire and looks scary good already. Goes to show what a good coach brings to the table from the get go and that coaching matters at any level. I'm with you 100% that there's not been near enough improvement on offense, but if you don't see any improvement since year 1 you're just closing your eyes. Our average PPG has gone up in every year he's been here. I AM NOT SAYING THAT'S ENOUGH IMPROVEMENT, I'm saying it is improvement. I believe Taggart running the offense is the only thing holding this team back from being a good AAC team.

Sign him up.

1) Syracuse2) 26-203) Marlon Mack4) Elkanah Dillon5) 345

Never said we needed to abandon the run. I said we need to throw more to be somewhat balanced on offense and make the defense have to guess a tiny bit. I didn't even mention the FSU game in my post so not sure what you're addressing with that one. I left the FSU game off my list simply because that's an unwinnable game in my opinion. I'll bet you'll find the exact scenario in that game too where if you take away the final drive of that game for us we didn't throw enough. The run heavy approach in the first half of the Memphis game and FSU game obviously worked perfectly. However, when you come out of halftime and the other side makes adjustments you have to do the same. This isn't pee wee football. Did you watch the 2nd half of the Memphis game? Coming out run heavy in the 2nd half of that game I totally understand and it's not crazy. It worked for a half we are in the game don't fix something if it isn't broken, but there has to be a point when it clicks that Memphis made a major adjustment and we aren't moving the ball at all. We are losing. Time to throw a little. As long as the defenses realize they have absolutely nothing to worry about regarding the pass we will struggle unless we play a far inferior opponent. Competing for a half isn't enough for me. Not anymore.

I really don't think anyone would disagree, or someone who understands our team at least. The gripe I have been reading is with the predictability and not throwing enough in general which is accurate and lucid when looking at the numbers or just watching the games. Let's just look at the last 2 games. Against Maryland, Box score says 22 passes to 50 runs. 6 of those throws came in the final 4 minutes of the game. I don't remember this game as well as Memphis because it was awhile ago, however I do remember the TD in the beginning of that game to Rodney Adams was the jet sweep that Flowers basically hands the ball off after it's hiked to him but counts as a pass. So 6 throws within the final 4 minutes, and we'll say we only ran that jet sweep one time in the beginning of the game (which is probably very far off). That means in 56 minutes we threw the ball 15 times downfield. Not the worst we've seen, but not enough. Box score says 26 passes in the Memphis game. Let's just say 6 of those passes were the jet sweep where Flowers gets the ball and tosses it in front of him which is basically a hand off but counts as a pass (6 is fair right?). The final 2 drives of the game when we were down 24-10 he threw 11 times. So 17 of the 26 passes were basically either a jet sweep run or came within the last 3:30 seconds of the game when it was basically too late. So we threw the ball 9 times downfield in 56 minutes of play vs. 43 runs. Unless you're running the triple option that is absolutely ridiculous. When this is your game plan you're not giving your offense a chance. It's not even like we're losing on a last second FG in these games. That would at least make some sense why his game plan and play calling is what it is. We're down double digits the majority of the 2nd half in both of these games. I'm not going to pretend like I know this team better than Taggart or anyone on here does, but it certainly doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Taggart is hurting this offense by not throwing the ball enough. It's not difficult to be a run first team, but keep some type of balance on offense to keep the defense guessing a little bit. Oh, and i know you're big on sources, I looked at ESPN's play by play option to figure out how many throws we had at the end of those games.

Love the dysfunction over there right now. I knew it would get bad once all of those WR's Bortles and Storm Johnson left, but wasn't expecting this bad.

Many said he wouldn't be on an NFL roster period that's all I meant.

Pretty cool to see. He's hung on in the NFL for quite awhile when many said he wouldn't even get a chance. Got the chance to meet him when we were both students and he was a real nice dude. Good for him.

He needs this game to save his job, this season, and to keep the players focused. We lose and go to 1-4 his seat gets even more hot (if that's possible?). Drop to 1-4 and how many players lose their hunger and think here we go again...?

The offense is for sure different.

Philbin has the temperament of a cantaloupe.

If Chip Kelly becomes available every single major school that has a head coaching vacancy will be throwing money at him. We wouldn't even be on his radar.

The line makes no sense. Making it an even line would even seem odd. Time to make some $$.

Doesn't trust him and knows he's not a good passer. However, what he can't seem to get through his head is that he's making his team and offense one dimensional and it's crippling. Doesn't matter who is behind center at this point, unless we are running the triple option from here on out he's gotta throw the football a heck of a lot more than we've seen. Pointing to close losses as improvement won't cut it for him in Harlan's office come December.

Notice what you said showed a lot of improvement. The defense. The defense played fantastic. The problem has been and looks like it will continue to be the offense which Taggart runs. As long as he is running our offense I have no confidence we will score enough points to get things turned around.

Was harder for me to deal with when it was Holtz. I didn't come to expect L after L yet. I expect the losses at this point.

Couldn't of asked for our defense to play any better. Once again Taggart running our offense cost us the game. He didn't open up the passing game until it was too late, as usual.

The Al Golden that had 10 NFL players on his roster last year that managed to go 6-7? Miami had so much talent last year and Golden couldn't find a way to get them to 8 wins. This is his 5th season, no bowl wins (I know the first few years they weren't allowed to go to one, but still). This is Strong's second season at Texas. He took over a mess as well. He's got success on his resume at our level and has proven to be able to recruit Florida and get kids to Kentucky.. Strong would be far from a terrible hire. If Strong is a terrible hire (hypothetically) that would make the hiring of Taggart being 16-20 in 3 seasons at Western Kentucky the worst hire of all time.

Every game outside of FSU on our schedule is a "winnable" game. UCONN and SMU are MASSIVELY improved this season. Syracuse played LSU tight and lost by 10. UCONN kicks a FG against Missouri at the end of the game they're in OT with them. They have a good defense. SMU gave Baylor and TCU fits for a few quarters both top 5 teams. Before the season I would have and probably did pencil in W's against UCONN and SMU. Not now. I bet they're dog fights and if I had to guess we go 1-2 in the next 3 games beating one of UCONN or SMU.

I don't think anyone is making the argument that he should stay after this year. The assumption is that he is gone at the end of the year (which is sad), but the question is more could the season be saved with someone else calling an offense? I actually would not mind that scenario for next year. There's no way Taggart lets go of running the offense this year. Go get TCU's QB coach or Baylor's QB coach or Oregon's etc etc. an offensive minded coach on a fantastic dynamic offense over the past few years and let them run the offense. Taggart is a major asset with recruiting. He just get's in his own way trying to run the offense which he's proven that he's piss poor at.

Really not trying to be a jerk, in all seriousness can you point to one thing that proves or shows that Taggart is a good head coach. Recruiting doesn't qualify... How does recruiting not count? He has brought in great talent, including Asiantii woullard who will be eligible next year, and his coordinators are all really good. Recruiting is the most important part of coaching in my opinion, as long as the coach lets his staff do their jobs, which he hasn't seemed to do which is the real problem. What in the.... Recruiting is the most important part of coaching? Recruiting is absolutely important, but Jim Leavitt was not exactly a fantastic recruiter.... Developing the talent you recruit is more important than recruiting 4 stars left and right. Look at UCF's recruiting classes over the years. They never had a class noteworthy and they won a BCS game. After their BCS season they had something like the 80th ranked class. Went on to win the conference again. Maybe you can explain that one to me? The players and talent on the field is at the mercy of what plays the coaches call. So many times we have been competitive for a half, go into the locker room, come out for the 2nd half and the opponent makes an adjustment and Taggart doesn't. Perfect example was last night. The second half Memphis put everyone in the box and called run blitz after run blitz after run blitz. Taggart didn't do anything about it until it was too late. Obviously you have your opinion, but I struggle to understand anyone describing Taggart as a head coach with "good". Then again, I look at results like W/L so maybe I'm crazy.

Really not trying to be a jerk, in all seriousness can you point to one thing that proves or shows that Taggart is a good head coach. Recruiting doesn't qualify...

Our defense played awesome. Tom Allen and those kids on that side of the ball deserve all the credit in the world. Once again the problem was offense. Once again we are one dimensional. Once again, you don't give yourself a chance to win when you don't make the defense have to think about anything other than the run. We have play makers on that side of the field Taggart has no excuse. The only time other than (Western Carolina or FAMU) that our team wins a game is if the defense plays absolutely out of their mind and pretty much has to score a defensive TD. The offense under Taggart never once bails out the defense for a down game on that side, or even a bad half for god sakes. This team is no question better than what we've seen over the last 4 years or so. HOWEVER, when you're saying that or hearing that you have to put it into perspective. We were the garbage can of college football (and may still be) we had nowhere to go but up. Taggart has us improving, but we play in the AAC, he is now 7-21 in 28 career games and very likely 7-22 in 29 career games after next weekend. This improvement that has been made may be enough for you, but excuse those of us that expect a better showing than 7-21 in 28 career games as our head coach in an awful conference. At the rate of improvement we've had it'll only take another decade or so for us to compete for a conference championship. Can't wait.

Will be interesting to see what the stands look like on TV. Will look like a red/white out.