Amidst Florida State rumors, Oregon has reportedly offered Willie Taggart a new contract

Oregon head coach Willie Taggart may be getting a new deal with the Ducks, thanks to his name being linked as a potential candidate to replace Jimbo Fisher at Florida State, if Fisher leaves. According to Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated, Oregon has offered Taggart a new five-year deal:

If Taggart accepts, the new deal would pay a little more than $20 million over five years. But Taggart has reason to wait. If Jimbo Fisher leaves Florida State for Texas A&M, Taggart could be a candidate for the Seminoles’ job.

Andrew Greif of The Oregonian also reported the following:

A source confirmed that Oregon has offered Willie Taggart a new deal to keep him at UO (and away from FSU). Deal was offered last weekend and buyout would be $4.5M.
— Andrew Greif (@AndrewGreif) November 29, 2017

Fisher leaving is a big if, but as Tomahawk Nation reported Wednesday, FSU has been engaged in preliminary vetting of Taggart and Virginia Tech’s Justin Fuente, in case Fisher does leave.

The former USF head coach has strong ties inside the state of Florida that would benefit him well in Tallahassee. Here’s Tomahawk Nation’s take on him as a potential Fisher replacement:

A native of Bradenton, Florida, Taggart began his head-coaching career where he played QB: Western Kentucky. He turned around that program after just the first of his three seasons and then brought back South Florida, where he registered win totals of two, four, eight, and 10 (in that order) from 2013-2016 before being hired by Oregon. Taggart is 5-1 with his starting QB this year, and 1-4 without. He’s an excellent recruiter who could seriously reinvigorate FSU’s fortunes in the Tampa area.
Looking closer at his record, the improvement is impressive.
He took Western Kentucky from 2-10, to 7-5, and 7-5, winning 14 of his final 20 games there and upset Kentucky. He set up the roster for Bobby Petrino and for Jeff Brohm, both of whom also used it to jump to better jobs.
Under Skip Holtz, USF went from 8-5, to 5-7, to 3-9. The program was a disaster. Taggart came in and went 2-10, signed a great recruiting class, went 4-8, signed another, then went 8-5, and 10-2 (USF went 11-2, but Taggart didn’t coach the bowl). He was 17-4 in his final 21 games at USF. He set up Charlie Strong with probably the best G5 roster in America.
Now he is on pace to bring in the best recruiting class Oregon has ever had, and by a huge margin.

In Tampa, he built a flexible offensive juggernaut that switched on the fly from a complex pro-style to an up-tempo spread, featuring a roster made up of in-state recruits:

In their iteration of the spread, USF wants to move at tempo, but with exactly enough time to shift and motion at the line, just like it’s noon on Saturday in Ann Arbor. Then the receivers, using Baylor’s famously wide alignments, can take their DBs — and themselves — out of the play completely, if needed.
The result challenges your best defender to tackle someone out of a motioning backfield in open space. That’s where 40-yard plays are born, not from a big pile on the line.
And with a roster from the talented Sunshine State, USF likes those odds. If you can’t stop them, or if you bring in help on QB run reads, Flowers has at least one deep option on every play in one-on-one coverage, where the Bulls will again gladly challenge best on best.
Each play call is everything your grumpy, Big Ten dad loves and hates about college football, at the exact same time.

His first Oregon class, after just a few weeks on the job, included seven solid signees from the Sunshine State, and his 2018 class includes three Florida four-stars, some impressive for a program on the other side of the country. The plan at Oregon is to recruit nationally, but Taggart’s already entrenched in Florida:

“Can we get some Geto Boys?" [assistant Mario] Cristobal asks without looking up from his chart.
He’s referencing a group from Texas. Notably missing from Oregon’s class: Texas and talent-rich cities in SEC and Big Ten territories. Taggart’s abbreviated transition class bookends with seven Floridians and 11 Californians.
"Could’ve been even better with even a few more days," Taggart says.
"The strategy is that we’re gonna recruit California hard. We’re coming to California. And we’re gonna recruit Texas hard. But we’re always gonna recruit Florida. And Georgia. Those are football states. We’re gonna recruit football states. So we’re gonna recruit for Oregon in Ohio. I haven’t seen a limit yet to this brand, so we’re going.”

Regardless of what Taggart ends up doing, he’ll be set up nicely either way, it seems.

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