Willie Taggart leaving Oregon Ducks to become head coach at Florida State

EUGENE -- Almost a year to the day after the Oregon Ducks ended their last coaching search, it's time to start a new one.

Taggart, 41, is leaving Oregon after just one season to coach at Florida State, a source confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive early Tuesday afternoon.

Taggart will succeed Jimbo Fisher, who resigned last week to become Texas A&M's coach, in a move that returns Taggart to his home state, where he has family and has recruited with success ever since breaking into coaching in 1999.

Sports Illustrated's Bruce Feldman and reporter Brett McMurphy were first to report Taggart's decision to accept the Florida State job.

Players were notified Tuesday afternoon that a team meeting has been called in Eugene for 1:15 p.m.

Taggart now has the distinction of being the first Ducks football coach in 75 years to last just one season in Eugene. He will owe a buyout of $4.5 million -- $3 million per the terms of his UO contract, plus the repayment of an additional $1.5 million that UO covered for his buyout from South Florida one year ago.

He gone [?]
-- Ty Griffin (@ty_griffin10) December 5, 2017

He will arrive in Tallahassee with a 47-50 career record after previous stops coaching Western Kentucky and USF. In Eugene, he leaves behind a brief tenure marked by a surge in UO's national recruiting profile, a rocky beginning and increased buzz for a UO program that had stalled upon his hiring.

Oregon had long been one of college football's most stable programs, an outlier that prized its coaching continuity in an industry where short leashes and greener pastures are the norm. Taggart was UO's first football coach hired from outside the program in 40 years.

Now the Ducks will begin their second coaching search in as many years.

Potential candidates could include co-offensive coordinator Mario Cristobal, defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt, former Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin, Cal coach Justin Wilcox, who played at UO, and Boise State coach Bryan Harsin, who garnered interest during UO's search a year ago. In addition Steve Greatwood, the former UO player and longtime Ducks assistant who just finished his first season at Cal, has made his interest in the opening known to UO officials, a source told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

A top priority is now holding together as much of UO's seventh-ranked 2018 recruiting class as possible ahead of the Dec. 20-22 signing period, a source told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Complicating that goal, however, is UO's berth in the Dec. 16 Las Vegas Bowl against No. 25 Boise State, the timing of which will force the Ducks to alter their plan of hosting a massive recruiting weekend Dec. 15. Some recruits had been rescheduled to arrive this weekend.

Oregon presented a contract extension worth more than $20 million over the next five years to Taggart before UO's 69-10 victory in the Civil War on Nov. 25. Within days, a USA Today report singled out Taggart as a top candidate for the Seminoles as they prepared to hire a coach from the outside for the first time in Taggart's lifetime -- 41 years. Late last week, FootballScoop reported that Florida State was expected to offer Taggart its head coaching position.

Even as Taggart this week grew frustrated with questions about Florida State, even he acknowledged that it "absolutely" made sense that he would be linked to the opening.

"I coached (in Florida) and had a good season there and I just came here and had a good season here," he said Friday. "Our players have done a good job. Whenever you do a good job people talk about you. I'd rather people talk about me like that than the other way."

According to a NBC Sports Northwest report, Taggart told Ducks players in a meeting Friday that he would listen to overtures from Florida State, calling it a "dream job."

On Monday, Taggart visited four-star 2018 quarterback commit Tyler Shough in Arizona before meeting with Florida State officials for the first time.

During their meeting, Shough told The Oregonian/OregonLive, Taggart offered "no real news about an update between the schools. He talked about Oregon most of the time, and us." Shough said he remains committed to Oregon.

That evening, however, after meeting with Seminoles officials, Taggart canceled an in-home visit in Houston with four-star receiver commit Miles Battle, a source confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive, after being first reported by Duck Territory. Battle told Duck Territory that a make-up visit had yet to be rescheduled.

Taggart reportedly flew back to Eugene that evening, where unverified reports of his departure began swirling after UO's recruiting coordinator, David Kelly, was found to have begun following Florida State players on Twitter. Yet a UO spokesman late Monday said that the school had not been informed either way as to Taggart's decision.

Hired thanks to his reputation as a master recruiter and program-builder from previous stops at Western Kentucky and South Florida, Taggart won over donors and amassed goodwill by poaching in-demand assistants such as defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt and co-offensive coordinator Mario Cristobal. He littered his public comments with catchphrases, telling UO fans to "buckle up" in his introductory press conference and challenging players to "do something."

In January, three players were hospitalized and UO's head football strength and conditioning coach was suspended without pay as a result; less than two weeks later, co-offensive coordinator David Reaves was arrested on a charge of DUII that he later pleaded no-contest to. Jimmie Dougherty, a UO assistant in the car with Reaves at the time of his arrest, left for UCLA shortly thereafter after being encouraged to find a new landing spot. In July, star receiver Darren Carrington was arrested on a DUII charge in downtown Eugene, and was dismissed from the program two weeks later.

But through it all, Taggart kept recruiting -- both players and fans.

Shortly after arriving he retained much of UO's existing 2017 recruiting class and then added to it; UO finished 19th in the 247Sports rankings less than two months after Taggart arrived in Eugene. The Arizona Wildcats alone saw four of their 2017 recruits flip to UO after Taggart's arrival.

By the summer, his 2018 class was ranked among the nation's top five and remains on pace to become Oregon's highest-ranked, ever.

Taggart also benefited from bringing fans closer to the program. Throughout his time in Eugene, he kept fans updated on his thoughts and whereabouts by keeping a steady presence on Twitter.

On national signing day, assistants scattered across the state to meet with fans at events from Medford to Bend and Portland. In April, for the first time since early in Chip Kelly's tenure, the public was invited to practices, including an open scrimmage at Beaverton's Jesuit High School, the first UO practice believed to be held outside of Eugene in a decade. And in July, in a new move for the program, Oregon hosted a recruiting camp inside Autzen Stadium that was open to the public. Several thousand showed up.

"So often we ask all of those folks to come here and to support us on Saturdays," Taggart said after the scrimmage at Jesuit. "I just think it's right that we go to them at some point and be able to bring our team there and work out for a lot of our alumni and fanbase."

The moves were well-received by fans who'd felt shut out in recent years as Oregon closed practices and became tight-lipped about program information.

Players also felt close to Taggart and his staff. After inheriting a disjointed roster still feeling the sting from finger-pointing following UO's 4-8 season in 2016, Taggart called improving team chemistry a top goal, and by the end of preseason camp in August, players declared the offseason a resounding success and the roster very close.

The team met for 6 p.m. dinners three times a week in the offseason where a player would be randomly chosen to stand and discuss a current world event. To bust cliques, the roster was divided into nine "player accountability groups," each led by an assistant who drafted players from all positions. There were team-wide tournaments in softball, Ping-Pong and Madden, the video game.

"We've got to learn to like each other," Taggart said in the spring, "and love being around each other."

Oregon began 3-0 and was ranked for the first time in a year behind an explosive offense that led the nation in scoring and a defense, led by a first-year coordinator in Leavitt, that became one of the country's most disruptive after spending 2016 as one of college football's worst.

Everything changed after starting quarterback Justin Herbert fractured a collarbone Sept. 30 and missed the next five games, a stretch in which UO went 1-4 and saw its quick-strike offense devolve into a shadow of itself. The low point came Nov. 4 in a 38-3 road loss at rival Washington, when UO failed to score a touchdown for the first time in a decade, a streak stretching 130 games.

Upon Herbert's return Nov. 18, however, Oregon routed Arizona and Oregon State by a combined score of 117-38 to finish with a bowl berth having regained its early-season momentum.

All of which brought Taggart close to his one-year anniversary as UO coach.

Hired Dec. 7, 2016, Taggart smiled broadly as he arrived at Eugene's airport. While being whisked from the plane to a waiting SUV with UO officials, Taggart told reporters within minutes of arriving that he'd come to Oregon believing he could win a national championship.

Taggart inherited a 4-8 team. Twelve months later, Oregon has one of the country's top young quarterbacks and one of its most improved defenses. Last Friday, before Oregon took the practice field amid rumors that Florida State would target him in its search, Taggart said that Oregon is "headed in the right direction."

As for Taggart, he's now headed in a southeasterly direction: home.

-- Andrew Greif
agreif@oregonian.com
@andrewgreif

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