POST GAME 2020: Georgia Southern - Willie Taggart
Coach Willie Taggart's post game teleconference for the Owls' contest against the Eagles on December 5, 2020.
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Comments
I couldn’t have said it as good myself. I kind of owe an apology to the FSU fans I argued with who were telling me about Taggart.
And you sound like an ill informed FAU fan who avoided the brunt of what my post was.
For the record, I despise FSU. I’m an FAU fan who didn’t like this hire from the get go.
Every where Taggart has gone )outside of FSU) the program was better than he left it.
7-5 Oregon was 4-8 the year before and Hebert was the first-year starter.
I am not big on play-calling because, in the end, it depends on execution.
People really forget we went 5-7 year two under Lane with much more talent and a much more talented QB.
The QB was young though and made all the difference, but even one of the best play-callers in the country can not overcome poor QB play.
Do you want to criticize Willie for sticking with Posey too long? That is fair as I think we beat GSU if Tronti plays the whole game.
In the end, though Posey is on a try in a season that is ultimately more about player development.
In 2015 USF averaged 33.3 points a game then in 2016 they scored over 43 a game.
If you want to see what the offense can be watch this game.
Next season comes down to our QB position, as that is just the reality of football for 99 percent of programs.
It’s pretty telling that OC didn’t respond to the first paragraph.
Let’s pretend that I’m wrong and players aren’t upset at Taggart Jr. playing. Potential transfers know that our offense is a disaster with Taggart in charge. There are still rumors flying around that players are mad and don’t respect Taggart. Potential transfers are going to know about this. The offense is a disaster. Do you think transfers on the offensive side of the ball want to come here? And QB’s play here knowing what’s going on.
Lane finished his tenure blowing out a ranked SMU, do you think this team could do that this year? Blame it on qb play, but again, if both of your qb’s are constantly in third and long positions maybe it’s not the players. Lane found a way for Tronti to make plays when all he did was run the ball. This offense can’t even seem to manage that.
That’s great that at USF the offense was great. That was 4 years ago. What’s happened since then? You don’t think the players he had at FSU were better than anyone on this team?
Lane didn’t coach against SMU.
But beyond that Lane put Tronti in the game for a change of pace. He never had to play him a whole game. He gave an entirely different look that Robison in 2019.
But beyond that. I’m not here to argue that the offense can’t be better. lane is probably a top 5 offensive mind In college football. That was never easily gonna be replaced. Look you yourself just bypassed the 2018 season which seems like all FAU fans love to forget for good reason. That whole season consisted of inconsistent offense with inconsistent QB play from 3 different guys. And just a small reminder an offense that had 3 guys who are currently playing in the NFL at skill positions. Lane struggled that year and had a spring practice plus wasn’t dealing with a pandemic with players consistently rotating in and out of practices let alone games.
I communicate with recruits, players, etc all the time, and nothing you say holds any real water and I just do not want to entertain it.
But I will try and give some logic to this.
Taggart has brought many players here that he was connected to at FSU. If they were going to stay away from him at any time, it would have been then.
There will always be players and parents upset no matter who the coach is.
There are over 350 kids in the portal right not because they are unhappy with something at the program they are at.
WTJ has played a total of 50 snaps this whole season at two positions.
Every WR who has taken snaps this -except for Terique Owens, who has 1- has more than WTJ.
And to be honest, WTJ looks pretty quick and athletic out there and would not care if they mixed him in some more for some creative packages.
There has been a couple of additional issues this year.
It becomes hard to stay in third and shorts when the running game is not working. The lack of passing threat and the fact none of the talented back can stay healthy kills us.
Being the change of pace QB is easy; we have seen both QB's come in and have success off the bench.
Also, being down a Bryant and Raine has killed us; those guys bailed us out of so many situations.
Last year vs. USM, Chris was only 8/17 for 189 yards. Harrison had 3 catches for 75 yards and 3 TD"s. He bailed us out of the game.
Jimmy's and Joe's make a lot of great coaches in this country.
And no matter how much you want to deny, you’re just proving that you’re not privy to anything that’s really going on.
Are you really claiming that there’s no reason for receivers to be upset about Jr. getting plays designed for him? Do you expect players to not care? You don’t understand what it’s like from their point of view. No ones expecting you to come out and say that what I’m saying is true.
But to claim Im wrong about players not respecting Taggart because of the designed plays to Jr. when a lot of people outside the program do know Is really funny.
Everyone knows and you and a couple others are calling me wrong.
I think every potential transfer knows about this already and how terribly run the offense is.
Who is gonna admit something that isn’t happening? You live in a fantasy land that is on repeat.
It becomes hard to stay in third and shorts because this offense is wildly predictable, and for some reason no one else can see that.
Losing those two TE’s is huge, I totally agree with that. Having unhealthy running backs is also a factor and I won’t disagree with you that this has been a wild year due to COVID.
I’ll end my diatribe on this topic with these few thoughts because obviously nothing I’m saying is getting through.
Every single FSU fan warned about Willie when we hired him, and I wanted them to be wrong because I really do hate FSU and just wanted them to be a crappy program, however the problems he had there have leaked over to this program. Our passing attack sucks, we can’t get a run game going, and there’s no consistency. If you couldn’t do it at a school with better recruiting classes and an already established winning mentality coming off a Natty a few years earlier, how are you going to make it work here?
In regard to WTJR, I don’t really think his playing time has affected the outcome of a game or any notable drives. But I will say that there definitely are people who are annoyed by his playing time and play design. What players are going to air their dirty laundry to an FAU media member? I don’t mean that to discredit you, I think you do a great job however you don’t sell out your teammates or your coaches over something that in the grand scheme of things isn’t a super big deal. But just use some common sense here. If you played, you’d be annoyed. And if you really think he looks like a legit D1 athlete, we must have wildly different standards. He’s only a freshman so maybe he will develop, but he’s not there yet. Also again, if you were being recruited would you want to go compete with the coach’s son who’s already getting time with plays designed to feed him the ball?
Am I in fantasy land with that too?
Taggart can be a great coach if he gave up control of the offense too good offensive mind.
He can win a NC like Miles did with the coordinators calling the shots on both sides of the ball.
But Taggart is not good at being the play caller.
We have a huge game tomorrow night and nearly all the conversation is about how bad our head coach is, how lousy his son is, everyone is leaving the program.
Well, that's it, we should burn down the stadium and shut down the program.
Your tone has changed quite a bit on Taggart. I've tried telling people stuff like this could happen. The bad part is he has missed out on QBs lately too so let's hope that changes here or we are screwed
I don’t know why people don’t blame Taggart for the team being around 110th in the country in points per game, yards per game, passing yards per game, and running yards per game.
You can see during the games he isn’t even doing imaginative things to beat man coverage.
We were up 7-0 at half time against UMASS. A competent coach would’ve developed Tronti to get better and start these final 2 years.
And of course what I heard about players not respecting Taggart like they did Kiffin. The only reason the whole team hasn’t turned on him after what happened with Jr. getting a lot of playing time is because the defense respects Leavitt.
It’s as if fans don’t remember we could easily be 4-3 or 3-4.
Now potential transfers on offense aren’t exactly lining up to come here.
The part that made me turn on him was when I heard that the players hated him because of those designed plays for Jr. Coaches can’t do anything like that.
And it’s a lot worse than people think. Everyone knows it’s going on. It doesn’t exactly show Taggart has character.
It was weeks and weeks of bashing Junior Diaz for him only to go on to be one of the highest-rated centers in the country.
I said Diaz couldn’t run block. And I stand by that. If he was a good run blocker the team could’ve finished a lot higher in certain rushing categories. And they might have won an extra game.
OC also said Riles was one of our best offensive lineman in 2018 and that no one is upset that Taggart Jr. was having plays designed from him at receiver when people outside the program know.
I’m done with this argument but if someone responds to something I said I’m going to respond.
Actually you're not, in this context. You're free to respond to normal jovial and friendly interaction and subject matter.
But in this case, you're saying the same thing over and over. That's called flooding and is a site rule violation. I don't care who responds anymore, this is done.
Here's the rules for review:
Site Rules
Despite multiple issues, and complaints, I have been beyond fair with you regarding your membership and posting rights on this forum, and our staff (me aside) appreciates your financial contributions as they benefit from them. But there is a pattern here and it's not good for our mission, congruent member experience, or goals to grow as a FAN BASED COMMUNITY.
You lock into a notion surrounding a player, staff member, or site member, and then have no regard for anyone else's experience. I would post examples, but not spending any time on that and it's not necessary. But it's over.
Fans of amateur programs don't put their leadership and athletes on blast, with the same diatribe - over, and over, and over. This is not productive.
As I have stated previously in personal messaging, complaints are being lodged and this behavior needs to come to an end.
Sorry it has come to this, but that's pretty much it and this is the last warning.
Any more, and i'm skipping my usual suspension and going straight to banning your posting participation on the site.
I hope you will understand and appreciate the rules that are in place for a reason, and make the necessary adjustments.
If not, wish you well.
JUST DO IT