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After the news broke early Wednesday morning that the Oregon Ducks were hiring Willie Taggart as head coach, the initial reaction quickly gave way to hot taeks as pundits weighed in on the move.
Count the Pac-12 Network’s Yogi Roth in the pro-Taggart camp:
“They’re getting energy. They’re getting ingenuity. They’re getting a guy who’s done it at multiple places as a head coach,” Roth says.
Taggart, of course, studied under both Jim Harbaugh and his father Jack Harbaugh. The older Harbaugh coached him as a player at Western Kentucky, and then Taggart spent almost another decade on the coaching staff at WKU.
Taggart, now 40, later took over as head coach at Western Kentucky and turned the program around.
“They went from 2-10 his first year to back-to-back bowl seasons his last two seasons there,” Roth says. “At South Florida they were 2-10 his first year, averaging only 14 points on offense. This year they’re 10-2, ranked No. 25 in the current AP poll and averaging over 40 points per game.”
One of Taggart’s biggest strengths is his recruiting, with experience in both California and Florida.
“He’s going to continue this big-time footprint that the Oregon brand has,” says Roth. “Overall, I think it’s a really good hire.”