I really like Willie Taggart as a person, so I hope he finds success whenever he is not competing against the University of Florida. This was a good hire for the School With a Circus (SWAC). On one hand I wanted them to suffer through 9 years in the Pit of Misery like Florida, but I would rather have the Sunshine Showdown be nationally relevant again, with UF ending the losing streak.
Taggart had to leave USF to get a pay raise. His salary has doubled almost with each move, from $1.7M at USF to $3M at Oregon, to $5M at FSU (with bonuses that could push a total compensation of $6M).
Tennessee deserves what it is getting. They hired a good athletic director several months ago, and he hired a good coach. UT let the mob override the coaching hire, and they slandered Greg Schiano and possible defamed his reputation to the point where it may impact his ability to get hired elsewhere. Now that whole hiring process is toxic! They fired the athletic director while he was interviewing Mike Leach! What on Earth is that craziness! Now no coach in his right mind would go there unless UT rolled out dump trucks of cash to make it worthwhile, maybe $7M on the low end.
The latest rumors are the Jeremy Pruitt and Hugh Freeze are in the mix, and both have been accused of NCAA or school violations in the past!