So Voodoo5 did an interesting article today. They went back to the WKU beat writer and got some insight on Taggart and compared to what's going on here. I find a few things within the article and interview very interesting. One of the things that comes up is something that's come up in this forum a number of times and that's Taggart's indecisiveness or lack of commitment. In the interview, the WKU beat writer, Chad Bishop, states that Taggart was pretty stubborn when it came to his management of his QB and stuck with him. However, Chad did say that he ended up switching out the QBs (something we are familiar with) and maybe what saved him and unluckily for Brandon Doughtry, he tore his ACL. This forced Taggart to basically stick with Jakes and play him out.
So...what changed here? Why all of the sudden has Taggart been so fluent with his changing of the QB here? He's been doing that since season one although we will give him the excuse that he wasn't sure what he was working with here and didn't really have a true QB. Why has Taggart changed his way of handling? Is it by his own doing? Nervousness? Or is it due to a heavy influence from upstairs? I don't know but I find it really interesting and can't really explain or answer it.
I also find it really interesting looking at the numbers put up by Jakes as Taggart's QB. What do those numbers look like to you? To me, they are scary close to what White was putting up when he played. Not a ton of yards. Very low count on TDs and very low TD to INT ratio (until his last year). Wild to see that. So, even though White was pretty much doing what Jakes was, why were we struggling so much? Especially when our defense was playing extremely well at the end of the first season? Maybe strength of opponents. Maybe lack of a run game the first year. So many excuses/reasons that I guess you can pick. So...MAYBE White wasn't as much to blame if Jakes is putting up similar numbers and was getting much better results in the win column. Very interesting. Also, the last question in the interview says that it only took the team 16 games to figure the system out. Well...we are well over that mark. Chad then says that as soon as we find our QB, we will be fine. So, like I said, if White was putting up similar numbers, shouldn't that mean that we found our QB because that's all that WKU had? Hard to stick by that though because we know that's somewhat true. Yes, White was putting up the numbers that Jakes was putting up but he was in a constant QB carousel so we didn't truly have a QB. I don't know. You can look at it both ways I guess.
Also, I will say that I don't understand why people complain about Taggart's style. We all should have known before he even got here that his style was conservative. I knew it and said that a lot of fans would find it "boring" and a lot did. That's his style but doesn't mean that it won't work as described in the article. I don't understand why people find that hard to understand. We just didn't have the tools to execute. Maybe that's what the people are complaining about. Or maybe the lack of taking a chance when we are down 16+ and run the ball on 3rd and 5. If that's the case, I understand and that's more on scenario ball than game plan I think. We all should have known that Taggart's system is meant to wear an opponent down and kill time. That's conservative or "boring" ball as many claim. Ragin told me before that it wasn't boring and I agree. Just show me that wins. That's all I care about. Nothing boring about that but I told him that a lot of fans would claim it boring and they sure did. It's a lot easier for them to do so when we are losing.
So...what changed here? Why all of the sudden has Taggart been so fluent with his changing of the QB here? He's been doing that since season one although we will give him the excuse that he wasn't sure what he was working with here and didn't really have a true QB. Why has Taggart changed his way of handling? Is it by his own doing? Nervousness? Or is it due to a heavy influence from upstairs? I don't know but I find it really interesting and can't really explain or answer it.
I also find it really interesting looking at the numbers put up by Jakes as Taggart's QB. What do those numbers look like to you? To me, they are scary close to what White was putting up when he played. Not a ton of yards. Very low count on TDs and very low TD to INT ratio (until his last year). Wild to see that. So, even though White was pretty much doing what Jakes was, why were we struggling so much? Especially when our defense was playing extremely well at the end of the first season? Maybe strength of opponents. Maybe lack of a run game the first year. So many excuses/reasons that I guess you can pick. So...MAYBE White wasn't as much to blame if Jakes is putting up similar numbers and was getting much better results in the win column. Very interesting. Also, the last question in the interview says that it only took the team 16 games to figure the system out. Well...we are well over that mark. Chad then says that as soon as we find our QB, we will be fine. So, like I said, if White was putting up similar numbers, shouldn't that mean that we found our QB because that's all that WKU had? Hard to stick by that though because we know that's somewhat true. Yes, White was putting up the numbers that Jakes was putting up but he was in a constant QB carousel so we didn't truly have a QB. I don't know. You can look at it both ways I guess.
Also, I will say that I don't understand why people complain about Taggart's style. We all should have known before he even got here that his style was conservative. I knew it and said that a lot of fans would find it "boring" and a lot did. That's his style but doesn't mean that it won't work as described in the article. I don't understand why people find that hard to understand. We just didn't have the tools to execute. Maybe that's what the people are complaining about. Or maybe the lack of taking a chance when we are down 16+ and run the ball on 3rd and 5. If that's the case, I understand and that's more on scenario ball than game plan I think. We all should have known that Taggart's system is meant to wear an opponent down and kill time. That's conservative or "boring" ball as many claim. Ragin told me before that it wasn't boring and I agree. Just show me that wins. That's all I care about. Nothing boring about that but I told him that a lot of fans would claim it boring and they sure did. It's a lot easier for them to do so when we are losing.
