Taggart making up for lost recruiting time

When new Oregon head coach Willie Taggart held his press conference in Eugene on Thursday, he was already behind the eight ball. Why? Because of the recruiting calendar for the class of 2017. With the NCAA ‘contact period’ closing on December 12th, Taggart had exactly four days to meet recruits face-to-face. After that and until January 11th is a recruiting ‘dead period’ during which no in-person contact is permissible.

Taggart of course knows this.

“Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting, recruiting,” he said on Thursday of his first priority as the new head of Oregon’s football program.

That is why on Thursday night he caught a red-eye flight to Honolulu, perhaps his last chance to meet with January enrollee and Alabama committed quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and Oregon committed kicker Adam Stack. Also during that short time frame he made four scholarship offers to prospects he was already familiar with from his days at University of South Florida.

Then from Hawaii it was off to California to visit some of Oregon’s commits and prospects he intends to continue pursuing.

Former Oregon defensive backs coach John Neal has been through coaching transitions before and understands what Taggart is going through.

“It is ultimately his job to convince these kids we had committed to get back in the boat with us,” said Neal. “That is the number one job. The second is you have got to keep the guys you have here. There is always turmoil and it gives people a chance to rethink their options. You can lose them on the road and you can lose them in your house. And so I think the first thing the new guy needs to do is get to that immediately.”

Despite the entire staff being fired along with head coach Mark Helfrich, the long-time assistant did what he felt was right.

“When I ended my thing here, the last thing I did for Oregon was to talk to the players and parents that I had committed here,” said Neal. “Then I tried to get them to stop thinking that they came here for John Neal. Because they didn’t come here for John Neal they came here for the University, they came here for the program, to wear Oregon colors and they still can. I thought it was really important that they know that.”

Neal predicts plenty of hard work on the horizon for Coach Taggart in a very short period of time.

“It is going to be a complete grind,” predicted Neal. “What happens is, he’s got to feel good about the guys we have committed. He is probably going to have to re-look at guys wondering if we knew what we were doing. They are going to have to look at that and reevaluate. Then they have to determine who they really want to try to go get. They have got to start over again and it is not going to be easy.”

The good news for Duck fans is that Willie Taggart is diving into his new job with gusto. And has the frequent flier miles to prove it.