- Coach Willie Taggart has a mantra for his players this season in the hopes of improving.
- The new football season begins at the end of August.
- Historically, head coaches for Florida State do better during their second season with the football team.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – In less than two months, the Florida State Seminoles football team will be taking the field to start the 2019-2020 season. Coach Willie Taggart, entering his second year as the head coach for the Noles is hopeful that his team will make it further this time around. He has set in place a simple two-word mantra for his players: “Get Better.”
“The mindset was to make sure that we don’t do the things that we did last year. Improve on the things we did wrong and make sure we correct all those mistakes and a lot of that starts with ourselves and improving ourselves,” Taggart said during an interview with ChopChat.
"Get Better"
Many fans have not hopped on the Taggart bandwagon after last season’s record. The Seminoles had an overall record of 5-7 and a minimal 3-5 in the ACC conference. Their 36-year bowl game streak was broken as they did not qualify for any postseason play. However, Taggart has history on his side this year.
In as long as FSU has had a football program, five out of the seven new head coaches to be brought on board had major improvements during their second season after having a terrible first season.
Coach Taggart was interviewed on an AP Podcast with Ralph Russo and explained why he did so well in Oregon:
“The problem is from an APR standpoint it wasn’t that bad at those other places. So that part was completely different here. There were probably some guys that probably needed to move on and you couldn’t ya know, and that part of it made it a little more difficult and you got to deal with some guys because you’re trying to keep APR up. So that part of it is what made Florida State different than all the rest of them,” said Taggert.
It was also implied during the podcast that Coach Jimbo Fisher didn’t do FSU any favors for the team when it came to growth. Taggart has worked his players hard during training camps, trying to prepare them for the season, watching the film tape to go over all of the mistakes that were made last season.
Taggart sounds like he’s ready to show the fans of sports betting in Florida the progress he’s made with the players during the offseason. The first game is August 31st against the Boise State Broncos at 7:00 ET. It will be televised on ESPN. Florida State has been given 20-1 odds to win the ACC Conference Title.