Taggart explains status of quarterback, coaches to start the spring

Opening his second spring as Florida State’s head football coach, Willie Taggart sounds very much like he did in his first. The need to reinvigorate a football team — and fanbase — is apparent, and the words “hopeful” and “optimism” are out in full force.

Taggart says he is happy with the team’s offseason condition drills (termed “The Chase”) and where his team is at heading into spring ball: “We’ve got a chance to practice and get better. Our guys have been working really hard and seeing improvement in The Chase; it really has me excited about today and seeing our guys translate that onto the football field.”

Taggart also provided a key update regarding the staff. FSU’s request to move Coach Kelly to an off-field role was denied by the NCAA. Without a waiver, moving Kelly off-field would render some players that Coach Kelly recently helped recruit ineligible. In Taggart’s words:

“We’ve tried to get a waiver with coach Kelly and unfortunately the waiver didn’t come through for us moving him off the field. If that happens then a couple of players will become ineligible. It’s one of those unintended consequences. We thought we would get the waiver because of the fact that coach Kelly had been with me at two other spots not just out of high school but unfortunately that rule applies to him too.”

Whether this was an NCAA over-engineered solution or misstep by FSU remains to be seen.

Taggart also reported that FSU continues to wait on word from the NCAA about the status of Jordan Travis’ waiver to be eligible without sitting out a year due to transfer.

Check out the full interviews with Coach Taggart below: