There’s no way to sugar coat it, 2017 has a bad year for Florida State. 7-6 seasons don’t cut it in Tallahassee, but it certainly wasn’t the disaster it could have been. FSU doesn’t have to look far to see the trainwrecks at Florida and Tennessee, and know it could have been worse. Following the 35-3 loss at Boston College, the Noles could have closed the book on the season, but they didn’t.
They beat Syracuse, went into the 4th quarter with a chance to beat Clemson, and then routed the final four teams on their schedule. Ok… Delaware State, Florida, Louisiana-Monroe, and Southern Miss aren’t scaring one, but the Noles still showed some things the program needed to see at the end of the year.
They showed pride and they had fun playing football again. Florida State could have went to Shreveport, LA and just went through the motions against Southern Miss. They could been in a tight game, or even had lost. The Noles started a bit slow, but dominated the rest of the way. James Blackmon continues to mature at QB and was solid Wednesay. Cam Akers is going to be a stud at RB. New coach Willie Taggert has some really good offensive players to build around in Akers and Blackmon or Deondre Francois at QB.
So let’s talk about Taggert… I think he’s doing everything right that you can do at this point. He’s bringing an enthusiasm to a program that really hasn’t been there all that much since Jameis Winston was there. The offense is going to be fast-paced and he’s going to recruit like crazy. He’s making the type of personal moves that I like too.
Retaining interim head coach Odell Haggins was such a smart move by Taggert. Haggins bleeds garnet and gold, has a great rapport and is very popular with Seminole players. If you heard his post-game interview, he is the kind of coach you want on your staff. Taggert gets that.
FSU won’t be rebuilt in a day, but they will be back and it could happen sooner than you think. There’s a lot of pride in that program and it showed after the Boston College loss.
