Willie Taggart lobbed a serious allegation against some of his players following Florida State’s embarrassing 59-10 blowout loss to Clemson on Saturday.
Taggart, who is in his first year as FSU’s head coach, said he felt that some players quit on the team during the game.
A 30-7 loss at Syracuse seemed like the low point for Taggart’s Seminoles this season, but this 49-point loss may have surpassed it.
With games at NC State and Notre Dame and home contests against BC and Florida looming, FSU seems destined for a losing record and perhaps not being bowl-eligible. Taggart needs to get his players to buy back in and focus rather than give up. He’s also falling well short of the preseason promise he made.
Florida State lost a touchdown on a trick play against Miami on Saturday because of an illegal forward pass.
The Seminoles had a 2nd-and-7 from the Miami 39 in the fourth quarter and attempted a trick play. Deondre Francois passed to DJ Matthews, who then threw to a wide open Keith Gavin for a touchdown. A flag was thrown on the play immediately to wipe out the touchdown.
Replay appeared to show that Francois’ pass to Matthews was forward:
Another angle shows how close it was:
It was a great play that had Miami fooled, but perhaps that’s because the Canes recognized it was a forward pass. The Noles need to work on their execution.
Florida State’s players have gotten together to try and figure things out before their season slips away.
The Seminoles are now 1-2 after losing 30-7 to Syracuse on Saturday. They looked terrible in a 24-3 loss to Virginia Tech in their opener, and they barely beat Samford 36-26 in their second game. Very little went well in their loss at Syracuse, leading to a meeting between the players, according to the Tallahassee Democrat’s Wayne McGahee III.
Quarterback Deondre Francois described the meeting as “very positive.”
“Got together and trying to iron out the problems that we have, just trying to see what we can do better,” Francois said of the meeting, via McGahee.
Players were arguing during the game, and Francois was so frustrated he blew off a teammate trying to help him up.
The downward trend for Florida State began last year. The team was 5-6 when Jimbo Fisher resigned to take the job at Texas A&M. They had to reschedule their game against Louisiana-Monroe. They won that game easily and then won their bowl game as well to finish 7-6. But this year it looks like another 7-6 record would be a stretch.
The poor start has led to calls for Willie Taggart’s job already even though he’s only three games into his FSU head coaching career. The pressure on him to start performing is intensifying, and the players clearly feel that.
Saturday was a miserable day for the Florida State Seminoles, particularly quarterback Deondre Francois.
Francois was sacked four times as his offensive line struggled mightily in a loss to the Syracuse Orange, resulting in a number of hurries and knockdowns. After one play, Francois’s frustration seemed to boil over as he refused help getting up from offensive lineman Abdul Bello.
The Seminoles ended up losing 30-7, and they increasingly have the look of a program in crisis. Their first half performance was widely savaged, and they were no better in the second half. They looked fatally flawed in many ways, ill-disciplined, and poorly coached. It may end up being a very long season in Tallahassee.
The Florida State Seminoles subjected everyone watching to a truly brutal first half of football on Saturday afternoon.
While the Syracuse Orange weren’t particularly impressive, the Seminoles were downright awful. The story of their half was terrible offensive line play, an inability to move the ball, and constant penalties.
It would be fair to say that Twitter was rather disgusted by the showing.
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We have seen many variations of the turnover chain that Miami made popular last season, and Florida State has put its own spin on the trend this year. While some coaches might frown upon a sideline gimmick like that, Willie Taggart is all for it.
If you watched Florida State’s win over Samford last weekend, you may have noticed defensive players sporting a luxury backpack on the sidelines after turnovers.
Taggart said the idea stemmed from defensive players wanting to “secure the bag,” and it was hard for the Seminoles coach to oppose the idea after five turnovers last weekend.
“They wanted to do something for turnovers and they decided they wanted to secure the bag and that was their message — securing the bag,” Taggart said, per Katherine Wright of the Orlando Sentinel. “They secured it five times on Saturday. I’m very impressed with it.”
You can’t blame a coach for embracing a trend that motivates his players take the ball away from the offense, no matter how silly it may seem. A turnover backpack is a lot less lavish what Boise State was using earlier this year, and we’re guessing teams will come up with some more ideas as the season rolls on.
Week 3 of the college football season is nearly upon us, and it could be a big week for several teams. In fact, a handful are headed into their games with a whole lot to prove. It could be that they’re off to a surprisingly good start and are aiming to show everyone that they’re legitimately as good as they’ve looked. It may be the opposite, and the team needs a win to get on track and show what they’re capable of. It could even be a team that is about to face their stiffest competition yet and need a win to show that they need to be taken seriously as potential heavyweights as well.
As Week 3 of the college football season looms, here is a look at ten teams that may be feeling that they must make a major statement of their intentions on Saturday.
10) Oklahoma State
The Cowboys have put up two impressive results so far, but the opposition of Missouri State and South Alabama hasn’t really tested them. 17th-ranked Boise State certainly will. Oklahoma State wasn’t expected to be a frontline contender for the Big 12 this season, but a home win over a ranked opponent such as the Broncos on Saturday will lead to a few people to sit up and take notice.
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The opening week of the college football season gave us some surprising results. Highly-ranked teams looked like they couldn’t justify the hype. Five Top 25 teams fell during the opening weekend, with one going down to an unranked opponents and several others coming dangerously close. That doesn’t include some unranked teams who had hopes of making noise but were ultimately cast aside quite quickly.
Here are ten teams that had very foreboding starts to the 2018 season that could be a sign of trouble ahead.
10) Kansas
Look, nobody in the world was expecting the Jayhawks to be any good this season. The likelihood was always that they’d assume their traditional position of Big 12 doormat and would be fortunate to win two or three games. On the evidence, they’ll be lucky to win one. They lost in overtime to FCS Nicholls State on Saturday at home, and that’s the easiest game on their schedule all season. This isn’t Appalachian State — with all due respect to the Colonels, they went 8-4 last season. They were still good enough to beat Kansas, and that should send a chill down the spine of under-pressure Jayhawks coach David Beaty.
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Florida State may have missed out on a touchdown during their game against Virginia Tech on Monday night due to a lack of review.
The Seminoles had a 2nd-and-10 at the Virginia Tech 31 during the second quarter and threw a quick pass to Nyqwan Murray, who took the ball down towards the end zone. The call on the field was that he was down at the one, but replay seemed to show Murray may have actually gotten into the end zone.
Scoring plays are reviewable in college football, so the opportunity to take a look at the play was there. However, FSU went quickly on their next play and didn’t give the officiating crew much time to think about reviewing the play. Willie Taggart also missed the opportunity to challenge the call.
Florida State quickly went backwards with a false start penalty. They ended up settling for a field goal on the drive to make it 10-3 instead of potentially 10-7. Those were key points they missed.
Trezman Marshall is one of the top linebackers and overall defensive players in the country for the 2019 recruiting class, and he has offers from several national powerhouse programs. There are some that Marshall feels are mentally prepared to compete for a championship, and others that aren’t.
Florida State falls under the latter category.
Marshall, who spoke highly of Florida State coach Willie Taggart, said in an interview with Jeff Sentell of Dawg Nation that he can tell from his meetings with FSU that the players are not “focused” enough to contend for a title.
“You can just tell by going up there to talk to the (FSU) players,” Marshall said. “They aren’t focused on winning a championship just yet. They want to play football. Everyone wants to play football. You can say that about everybody, but I’m focused on going to a place with a bunch of players who are focused on winning a championship.”
Marshall also said he feels a connection with Taggart but is not a fan of the overall coaching staff at Florida State.
“I don’t like coaching staff there but I love the head coach. That’s the best head coach that I have been talking to and have met,” he said. “That’s what I have seen so far.”
Marshall has verbally committed to Georgia, and the Bulldogs are just coming off a heartbreaking loss to Alabama in the national championship game. He said he feels a better connection with Taggart than Georgia coach Kirby Smart, and he took to Twitter on Friday to insist he meant no disrespect to FSU’s coaching staff.
In fact, Marshall has not ruled out flipping his commitment to Florida State.
“Florida State is coming with full force,” he added. “They are steady coming. They are not letting up. I can tell you they are not letting up at all.”
Marshall might respect some of the interesting motivational tactics Taggart is using with his new players, but it’s hard to imagine him committing to Florida State after some of the things he said. If he did, there would probably be some awkwardness when he first arrived to campus.
