School in the News: Florida State
As most/all of you know by now, Florida State fired head coach Willie Taggart after a 27-10 loss to Miami this past weekend. That dropped the team to 4-5 this year after a 5-7 year in 2018, bringing Taggart’s record to 9-12 over a little less than two years.
One way this MAY impact Michigan is in the form of Taggart himself, who previously coached under Jack Harbaugh and with Jim Harbaugh. Taggart was Harbaugh’s running backs coach at Stanford and helped produce Toby Gerhart’s Doak Walker Award-winning season. Taggart went on to become the head coach at South Florida, then Oregon, then FSU. It wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Taggart find himself as an analyst at Michigan or even taking a position coaching role in 2020. This is way out in the future, but Jay Harbaugh has coached other positions (tight ends, special teams), so if there’s a staff shakeup after this season, Michigan does have some flexibility to bring in Taggart.
On the recruiting front, Florida State has already lost a couple commits, including Deerfield Beach (FL) Deerfield Beach running back Jaylan Knighton, who’s from the same high school as a Denard Robinson.
Other FSU commits with Michigan offers:
- 4-star RB Lawrance Toafili
- 4-star WR Ja’khi Douglas
- 4-star LB Stephen Dix, Jr.
- 3-star ILB Jayion McCluster
Michigan would like to add another running back in the 2020 class, and Toafili was a primary target before picking the Seminoles. The Wolverines were also making a decent effort with Douglas, who’s a speedy slot/running back/returner.
