If Willie Taggart’s tenure at South Florida ends some time in the near future, poor recruiting certainly won’t be a reason why. According to 247Sports, Taggart brought in the AAC’s No. 1 recruiting class for the second year in a row, relying heavily on homegrown talent to accomplish the feat.
Eighteen of USF’s 20 commitments came from three-star recruits, and just three of the team’s commits came from players outside of the state of Florida. This list doesn’t include four-star offensive lineman and St. Petersburg native Reilly Gibbons, who announced last October that he will transfer to South Florida from Stanford.
Among those that signed their letters of intent are offensive tackle Glen Bethel, wide receiver Jarvis Baxter, tight end Mitchell Wilcox and safety Khalid McGee. Combine that with the strong recruiting class from last year, and USF appears to have a solid, young nucleus that could be the foundations from which the program can build itself back up on.
This is certainly good news for Taggart and his staff, especially given the struggles the Bulls have had on the field over the past two seasons.
While it’s true that Taggart inherited a program left in disarray by predecessor Skip Holtz, who somehow was hired by another FBS school less than two weeks after his firing, but USF hasn’t shown much progress (if any) with Taggart at the helm.
The Bulls have posted a dismal 6-18 record, including going 5-11 in AAC play, during his two seasons in Tampa. They did see a two-win improvement in 2014 from Taggart’s first season, during which USF went 2-10, but all four wins came against weak competition.
This has left him squarely on the hot seat heading into 2015, and the team will undoubtedly have to show clear signs of progress if Taggart is going to stick around for a fourth year at the helm.
His prowess as a recruiter is one of Taggart’s biggest strengths, but he needs to start parlaying that talent into success on the gridiron and he needs to do it soon, otherwise the USF brass will likely decide to part ways with their coach.
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