Willie Taggart is still getting a buyout from the Seminoles.
Willie Taggart, who was fired as head coach of the Florida State Seminoles in 2019, has had a rough time in the last few years.
Saturday, Taggart was fired for the second time in three years after Florida Atlantic’s last game of the 2022 season, a 32-31 loss, ended the season with a loss. The loss kept the Owls from making the playoffs for the third straight year. The results were incredibly frustrating considering the starts that the team got off to before dropping off massively.
In 2020, Florida Atlantic started the season 5-1, in 2021 they started 5-3, and this season they are 5-5. But after November 1, the Owls had a combined record of 4-9 under Taggart, which showed that they couldn’t finish games.
Brian White, who is in charge of sports at Florida Atlantic, released a statement about the news.
“This evening, we changed who is in charge of the football team at Florida Atlantic University. We have a lot of respect for Willie Taggart, so it was hard to decide. He has done a good job of representing FAU. But, as we look to the future, we had to do something about the lack of success on the field. The search for the best coach to lead FAU Football when we join the American Athletic Conference next season will start right away and cover the whole country. In order to keep the search honest, we won’t say anything else in public until the next football coach for the Owls is named.”
Taggart led the Owls to a 15-18 record in three years, which included one bowl game. Since the middle of the 2020 season, when Florida Atlantic was 5-1, he has led them to a 10-17 record. Taggart was in a lawsuit this summer because one of the players he coached at Oregon sued him.
Taggart used to work at Florida State, where he had a 9-12 record in parts of two seasons. After losing 27–10 at home to Miami, he was fired. Since then, the Seminoles have paid him a monthly buyout, and the programme still owes him $4.25 million in 2023.
In his first six years as head coach, Mike Norvell has made an average of $4.42 million a year. Norvell gave Florida State nine wins in 2022, and they are still winning.
