Willie Taggart

[JTrue]

I'm not pleased with our start. and I won't use a page out of CWT's book and say I have faith (because, like he said, faith is believing in something there's no evidence for). I hope he can win here. I want him to win here. 0-12 is not the end of the world. It will suck, but is 0-12 any different than 2-10? By the end of the year though, there better be some legit bright spots and a splash or two on the recruiting trail. I'll chalk this season up to something like my golf game. I suck, but as long as I hit one or two shots I can hang my hat on for the next time out, its a success and next round there better be a handful of shots I'm happy with. 

Edited September 30, 2013 by JTrue

[BullFan98]

Give it time. This is not a shocking start. He took over crap

You are right. I at least thought everyone knew we would be terrible this year. I get the out of left field lose to McNese St. And even FAU. This is his first year. He will have his first full year of recruiting. The clock begins to tick and he has to start turning the program around. We need to be patient and give him an opportunity to make changes and right the ship. I get everyone is blowing off steam and no one wants to become complacent with this type of performance. He needs time to correct the last three years.

Edited September 30, 2013 by BullFan98

[Gismo]

The team should have enough talent to beat McNeese and FAU. Turnovers killing us too. QBs not protecting the ball. If anything I have to question our QB and Oline development. Maybe our strength and conditioning is not up to par, who knows.

Willie be given plenty of opportunity to show he has what it takes to make USF a winner. There are a few bright spots on this team being Shaw and an increase in turnover generation by the defense, but the overall the team is not getting it done.

[nobullaboutit]

Rome was not built in a day & neither will this team be built in just a season. The team was in shambles & we know that reason. Just look at LA TECH'S record.

[Bull Matrix]

I will wait until this season finishes and how next season goes to see if he can win at this level. I believe he can. He has been around winners and he has the right mind set. He knows what the problems are and he is not afraid to confront them. He brought a new system in with our current players so you are going to see this look like a trainwreck at first. He has the running game working well with Shaw. Now we just need to give our QB more pass protection. That has been our killer and the turnovers too dont help.  I dont think we are looking at 0-12. I expect us to be 2-2 right now with loses to Miami and MICH ST. The FAU and McNeese ST games are puzzling to all of us. Let's see if he can right this ship this year and beat Memphis, SMU, Temple, UCONN. All are winnable games. Once these players start buying into this offense and learn it then we will be more of a football program. 

[Bulls On Parade]

Not a shock this team is not good..we are lacking alot of talent. 

 

If by late next season this team has not shown much improvement then I might change my position. 

 

If we starting seeing some nice improvement this year we will be ahead of schedule. 

[MikePhillips]

 

Willie is my guy. This season is lost but I want to give him three years just like we gave Holtz. Its hard to be patient, but we have no other choice.

Why is he your guy? I want to look forward to next season but I am having trouble.

 

 

Here is what I like about Taggart-

 

1) He was an athlete, and a **** good one. He BEAT USF as a quarterback of Western Kentucky in 1998. Yea that was 15 years ago, but it still happened. I was at that game. Players need someone they can respect. Taggart is a respectable man, he has the past experience to earn that respect, and he still looks like he's in **** good physical shape right now. He's not some 280 pound overweight coach, he still looks like he can wear pads and knock helmets.

 

2) He's from Bradenton, and he's not stranger to Florida culture. We all know the state of Florida is a hot bed of talent, the fact that he went to high school 30 minutes from our main campus certainly gives him an edge to this area. He talks like Florida people talk.

 

3) Look at his history -

 

Western Kentucky lost 20 STRAIGHT games before he came in as coach. You think life sucks as a USF fan when you're 0 and 4? Western Kentucky lost TWENTY (yes, 20) straight games before he took over. 

 

WKU 2007 - 5 wins, 7 losses

WKU 2008 - 2 wins, 10 losses

WKU 2009 - 0 wins, 12 losses

WKU 2010 - 2 wins 10 losses (Taggarts First Year)

WKU 2011 - 7 wins, 5 losses (Taggarts Second Year)

WKU 2012 - 7 wins, 6 losses (Taggarts Third Year)  

 

2012 WKU was invited to the Papa John's Bowl, and lost to Central Michigan 21 to 24. See his stats for yourself-

 

http://www.totalfootballstats.com/WesternKentuckyHilltoppers.asp

 

 

Right now, USF is playing WKU's 2008/2009 Season. Just like history proved, our 2014 season will most likely be like WKU's 2010 season, our 2015 season will be like WKU's 2011 season, and our 2016 season will be like WKU's 2012 season.

 

Taggart is ABSOLUTELY the right man for this job. You can't make chicken soup out of chicken poop, and I'm not saying that's the quality of our players, but our program is in shambles after the "Holtz New Era". 

 

Give this man some breathing room, he has the tools, the field knowledge and the commitment to turning programs around. He already did it to a team that lost 20 straight games, and he took them from 20 straight losses to a bowl where they lost by a field goal.

 

Show some support, and give this man some breathing room so he can work. Taggart is not going to build the "rugby" style offense that allowed us to squeak by teams in the past. That whole "have the quarterback scramble for 200 yards a game, then panic when he gets hurt" offense is not how you build a succesful program. Yea it's winning... till 80% of your offense gets injured. 

 

Just let him do his thing, we're in the suck right now, and there is no better person than Taggart to pull us out of it. He's been here before, he's got ties to this area so he's not going to dodge out and leave us. He'll fix us up

[DELdaBull]

The team is showing so improvement if you look hard enough.

[TallyBull]

Nowhere to go but up... I agree with Jtrue that even if he loses every game this year, so long as he wins 3-4 next year he gets at least a third year, possibly more.

[BullsFanInTX]

He should be given 3 years just like Holtz.  If he hasn't turned it around after year 3, then he should be fired or be on an extremely hot seat.

 

I don't think some of you realize just how much in shambles Skip left USF.  He utterly destroyed the program.  The program is now back to 1997 levels.  He left the cupboard bare.  There's not even a can of soup in the cupboard.  It will take time for Willie to build things.  We should see progress down the stretch this year.  I was encouraged by a few things I saw in the Miami game believe it or not.  One of them was Bench's toughness and competitiveness.  This year we are just looking for progress.  There is at least 4 teams in the AAC that USF at least has a chance to beat.  2 other teams (Temple and UConn) are just as bad as USF.  Yes, I expected to beat McNeese and FAU handily, but It's still too early to judge coach T.  Look at what he did at WKU, which was in a WORSE situation than USF is right now.

 

Holtz destroyed this program beyond recognition and is currently doing the same to La Tech.