Florida State lost, again, and now is the time to start wondering if things can possibly get any worse.
A handful of coaches at major programs have experienced a rough go of things to start the year, but none harder than Willie Taggart.
For the third straight week, Florida State turned in a lackadaisical performance that left a lot to be desired. Things got so bad in Saturday’s road blowout loss to Syracuse that fans in the Carrier Dome began mocking the Chop Chant.
We’ve reached the point, just three games into Taggart’s tenure, that the Noles are a joke.
Perhaps the most shocking part about all of this is that it’s not particularly shocking at all. Florida State got walloped in its opener against Virginia Tech and then had to claw its way back against Samford. Losing to Syracuse is only surprising if we’re assuming this is a Noles team of yesteryear — which it is not.
There’s a chance that Taggart comes out of this on the other side able to salvage his tenure. But right now everything that’s going wrong seems to be because of coaching. One drive in particular perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with the Noles this year.
As time melted off the clock at the end of the first half, Florida State was driving to put points on the board. It looked like the Noles would either hit a field goal to bring the game within three points, or score a touchdown to take a halftime lead.
Neither of those things happened.
Instead, Deondre Francois and the Noles offense failed to get out of bounds in time to stop the clock. Taggart was emphatically screaming on the sideline for the right thing to be done, but that’s the type of thing that needs to be coached.
Taggart is in a nearly impossible spot. He’s taking over a program that should have, but didn’t, pay its previous head coach in order to convince him to stay. Outside of that, the team hasn’t looked the same since it got stomped by Alabama in last year’s opener, a game which literally broke Francois.
None of that is Taggart’s fault but he’s going to be the first guy blamed for everything that goes wrong. Florida State is getting absolutely railroaded by everyone from Syracuse to Stamford and the boosters aren’t going to blame themselves.
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All of that is to say, this isn’t singularly Taggart’s fault. This team isn’t the one he recruited and the problems he inherited aren’t easy to fix. However, every loss like the one against Syracuse makes that notion of firing Taggart for a bigger fish at the end of the year less ridiculous to the powers that be in Tallahassee. That doesn’t mean it’s the right move, but everything in college football is about optics, and they’re not great for Taggart. Florida State had beaten Syracuse in 10-straight games dating back to the 1960s, and the Orange had lost its last five ACC games.
Both streaks ended on Saturday.
It might have been unfairly hot inside the Carrier Dome on Saturday, but there isn’t a place in college football right now hotter than Willie Taggart’s seat.