For South Florida head coach Willie Taggart, the 2015 season will likely determine his fate with the school. After going 6-18 in his first two seasons in Tampa, the Bulls will need to show clear signs of improvement if Taggart is going to see a fourth year with the program.
The hiring of Taggart in December of 2012 was met with plenty enthusiasm from USF fans, as he was regarded as one of the country’s top young coaching prospects after helping to turn around a Western Kentucky program that had gone winless in the season before his arrival.
Taggart, who spent three years as Jim Harbaugh’s running backs coach at Stanford, went 2-10 in his first season with the Hilltoppers, but proceeded to lead them to back-to-back 7-5 records before leaving to take over at USF.
He came to Tampa and took over a program that was left in shambles by predecessor Skip Holtz, and it was quite clear that this would be a significant rebuilding project. However, the Bulls went through a dismal 2-10 2013 campaign in Taggart’s first year, and the team only improved slightly on its way to a 4-8 record this past season.
USF’s four wins came against an FCS opponent (Western Carolina) and a trio of AAC foes (UConn, Tulsa and SMU) that were the bottom three teams in the conference standings and combined to go just 5-31 in 2014. The season ended on a particularly sour note: a 16-0 loss to rival UCF, the Bulls’ first shutout loss at home in school history.
While USF did double its win total from Taggart’s first year, the Bulls were still a consistently bad football team that struggled in just about every facet of the game. Just how bad was USF in 2014? The Fremeau Efficiency Index, a rating system used by advanced statistical analysis website Football Outsiders, ranked the Bulls 116th in the FBS on offense, 93rd on defense and 106th on special teams.
Taggart’s team was an all-around disappointment, resulting in a major shakeup to his coaching staff at the end of the year.
Offensive coordinator Paul Wulff, defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan and secondary coach Ron Cooper were all fired in early December. To add insult to injury, UCF head coach George O’Leary hired Bresnahan earlier this month to be his new defensive coordinator.
Taggart brought in former Purdue head coach Danny Hope to serve as offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator alongside David Reaves, while also bringing in Ole Miss linebacker/special teams coach Tom Allen as USF’s next defensive coordinator.
Though the first two seasons of Taggart’s tenure haven’t inspired much confidence amongst fans, there are reasons for cautious optimism heading into 2015.
Taggart’s 2014 recruiting class, considered the best in the AAC, will play a bigger role, with some players having already seen significant playing time as freshmen. The Bulls also look poised to bring in another solid recruiting class, one that’s ranked second in the AAC according to 247Sports.
Landing Allen as his next defensive coordinator was nothing short of a home-run hire for Taggart and should provide an instant boost to the USF defense. On the other side of the ball, AAC Rookie of the Year Marlon Mack, who rushed for 1,041 yards in 2014, a program record for a freshman, looks like the kind of player that can anchor the offense.
Taggart appears to have assembled the right pieces for a team that can reach a bowl game, and now he has to put them together. Fan support and enthusiasm for the program has dropped dramatically since Jim Leavitt was fired in January 2010 after USF officials found that he had struck a player and attempted to interfere in the ensuing investigation.
The days where the Bulls were consistently bowl eligible and even occasionally found themselves in the rankings (ascending as high as No. 2 at one point in 2007) seem like a distant memory, and attendance at Raymond James Stadium has plummeted in recent years.
The bottom line: it’s bowl game or bust for the Bulls in 2015. Anything less, and athletic director Mark Harlan will almost certainly pull the plug on the Willie Taggart era.
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