The University of Oregon has made their decision on the next football head coach, and it will be now former South Florida head coach Willie Taggart. ESPN’s Brett McMurphy was the first to report the news, and SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey has confirmed it.
Taggart has been the head coach at South Florida for the last four seasons. Prior to that he was head coach at Western Kentucky. Most notable to 49ers fans, he was an assistant coach for three seasons at Stanford under Jim Harbaugh. Before that, he played for and then served as an assistant for Jim’s father Jack at Western Kentucky.
Last week, after Oregon fired Mark Helfrich, Chip Kelly was asked about the Oregon job. He said at the time he was staying in the NFL. Helfrich said he tried to pitch Kelly on the job, but Kelly wants to face the NFL challenge, and also hates recruiting. And so, with word that Oregon has a head coach, we can remove that from the discussion. There are other head coach openings, but with Kelly’s comments last week, and Jay Glazer’s Sunday report that Kelly will be back in 2017, we can move on. It remains to be seen if Jed York changes his mind and fires Kelly along with Trent Baalke, but we’ll see what January brings.