I am a bit late on this topic, but there was a bunch of outrage after the firing of former Florida State head coach Willie Taggart. Who had Florida State at 4-5 and 9-12 since he took over the program. So the first thing people did was start comparing Taggart’s results to other coaches around the country with similar results. Which isn’t very smart considering most programs they were comparing to doesn’t have the recent success like Florida State, and weren’t paying what they were for Taggart.
Expectations
As mentioned before, different programs demand different results. Between 2010-2017 Florida State went 85-23 and Jimbo Fisher coached all but two of those games. So going 5-7 wasn’t a promising start for a program that was averaging 10 wins a season in the current decade. They gave him the 2nd season in hopes there would be improvements, but in his final game they had lost to an equally struggling Miami team where at best the would be 6-6 which would be 11-13 in two years.
It’s not like Florida State was short on talent either. They weren’t recruiting at an elite level anymore, but they were between 11-20 in the cycles Willie was a part of. The problem was under his watch they were undisciplined and inconsistent. Where they have been near the bottom in the country in penalties and had one of the worst turnover margins in the country last year. They were 4-2 in games where they lead by three scores (17+ points) when the team was 80-0 this decade prior to his arrival. Even worse when you realize that two of those wins was an OT win vs UL Monroe where they were a botched PAT away from 2OT and against Louisville where after going 21-0 they ended up trailing in the 4th quarter, having to comeback in order to win the game.
Again all of this wouldn’t be such a big deal if the expectations weren’t so high for a program average 10 wins in the 2010’s and the pay check wasn’t so big with a few very achievable bonuses. He was the 15th highest paid coach at $5 million base salary and had $100k bonuses such as making a bowl game with at least 7 wins and having an APR of 950 which would have been in the 100’s in college football.
Comparable Situations
As stated in beginning fans and media upset with the firing started comparing Florida State to other team situations similar or worse than it. The main three I have seen are Chad Morris with Arkansas (who’s been fired since), Chip Kelly with UCLA, and Lovie Smith with Illinois.
As said before the programs had way lower expectations when hiring their current coaches. UCLA prior to hiring Chip Kelly have gone 57-47 this decade. Arkansas prior to hiring Chad Morris have gone 54-47 this decade. Illinois prior to hiring Lovie Smith have gone 31-44 this decade. So as you can see these programs have not had nearly the same results prior to their last hires as Florida State when they hired Taggart.
The teams you should be comparing yourself to if you’re Florida State is your Big 3 rivals, Florida and Miami.
Both were dumpster fires when their current coaches took over. For Florida, when Dan Mullen took over Florida were 4-7 and had two losing seasons in the last five years the only times they have had a losing record since the 70’s. In one year he made them a 10 win team and has them on a similar path this where they are posting offensive numbers they haven’t posted since the Tebow era.
For Miami, they did go 26-13 the last 3 years, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story as they were the streakiest team in the country. Here’s how the first 36 games of the Mark Richt tenure went:
- 4 game winning streak
- 4 game losing streak
- 15 game winning streak
- 4 game losing streak
- 5 game winning streak
- 4 game losing streak
Then after he retired Manny Diaz had a slue of transfers and a conundrum at QB. So to see that they are 6-4 with realistic shot at winning 8 games is just short of a miracle. And shows that no matter how bad the cards are stacked against you, that you can still find a way.
Why Taggart Being Fired Was Justified
As mentioned before after the loss to Miami, the Seminoles were looking a 6-6 season at best. Maybe potentially another 5-7 season. Even if they went 6-6 and won their bowl game, 12-13 after two years is not what Florida State envisioned and certainly not what they paid Taggart for. The team was really not showing any progress watching them–and I have watched a good portion of their games.
I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision for the decision makers to pull the plug this early. However, when your gut is telling you that this is not working out, it is better to cut your losses now than to simply hope things get better. They now get an early start on the coaching search. While they might not be able to afford the big names, they can still find an up and comer to help return this team to their former glory.