Part III: Exclusive interview with Florida State coach Willie Taggart

It's time to get to know Florida State's new head football coach.

Willie Taggart sat down and spoke with Tallahassee Democrat FSU beat writers Wayne McGahee III and Curt Weiler in an exclusive interview about a number of different topics -- including the lead-up to his arrival at FSU, growing up an FSU fan, and what his first few days as head coach were like.

This will be the final part of a three-part Q&A series that will be released this week.

More: Part I: Exclusive interview with Florida State coach Willie Taggart

More: Part II: Exclusive interview with Florida State coach Willie Taggart

Part III will cover the lead-up to National Signing Day, the chase, and spring practice.

Q. From getting here, going through bowl practice, The Chase, now the first bit of spring camp, what’s the biggest thing you have learned about this team?

A. They love to compete. If you can put together a nice competition scenario, they love to compete. Like most kids, if you put them in something where they have to run, run, run, most guys don’t like running all the time. But, we put our guys in competitive situations where they’re running, they don’t even think about getting tired because they’re competing. It’s fun to watch.

The kids love to compete so everything we try to do is competitive. We’ll try to have something where there’s going to be a winner and a loser. Even in academics. We want to know which position group is going to have the highest GPA. We compete at everything we do and one thing I learned about these guys is they love doing it too. They always want to know where they stand. ‘Where am I at on this?’ It’s pretty cool because we all as coaches want highly competitive guys. That’s half the battle. Now you can teach them the fundamentals and techniques of playing the game. You can get the best out of them.

Q. You’re coming into a new roster where you haven’t recruited any of the guys. How did you go about building those relationships with them before the start of The Chase and spring practice?

A. Just trying to get to know them personally. Not even talking about football. Just trying to get to know guys, where they’re from, what they like, what they don’t like. Just talk to them. Sometimes that’s all those kids want is someone to talk to them. Spend time with each one of them, I don’t care who you are. Just spending time getting to know them and letting them get to know me. I think before any of this stuff can happen, any of the winning, anything that we all want, there has to be a relationship there first. There has to be a relationship where both parties respect each other and are honest with each other. We’re trying to create an environment where those guys can be honest with me, able to come into my office and talk about anything.

Sometimes, I invited some of the guys, come by and see me, let’s chat. We would come in and we would just talk. Not about football, you’re not in trouble. I just want to talk with you, get to know you. Trying to build those relationships on that. I think guys just appreciate the fact that you will spend some time just talking or listening.

Q. We’ve seen a lot of players taking to social media saying this is how Florida State is supposed to feel. What’s it mean to see yourself accomplishing having won them over?

A. It’s just a culture that we’re trying to have here for our football program. It’s hard for me to say how Florida State is supposed to be because I didn’t go to school here. From afar, I know what I thought of Florida State and that was winning and kicking everybody’s tail. I don’t know what it was like, but I just know any good football team out there, you can see that they enjoy being with each other, they enjoy playing for one another out there. We’re just trying to create an environment where guys enjoy being around each other and can have fun doing what they do. It’s tough as it is. Now with social media, it’s tougher than what it was. I always tell our guys this is hard, everybody has an opinion and the opinion is not always in favor of how you want it so you had better have fun while you’re out here playing because they’re going let you hear it if you’re not. It’s hard, let’s do it right, but when we do things the right way let’s have fun too. We can go to work, work hard and have fun.

Me personally, I don’t like boring people, grouchy people, grumpy and there’s always something wrong. It just drives me nuts. I smile and I’m a happy dude. When I get around those folks. I just can’t deal with it. Trying to keep it fun. I need people smiling, need people happy about coming to work. I need it more than they do. I need it more for me to be sane than they do. Trying to keep an environment where we can come here, have fun, get after it, compete and get the work done. Keep moving.

Q. You’re widely regarded as one of the best recruiting head coaches in the country. What do you think makes you such a good recruiter?

A. I like it. Not every head coach likes recruiting. I think that’s a big part of it. You have to love what you’re doing. I love recruiting, love building relationships and meeting new people and love changing the lives of these young people. You’ve got to love it. You hear a lot of people, they don’t like it. But I do. I think I have the best job in America. Every year, you get to meet new family and friends. Every year, for the most part, you have a limit to where you can change at least 25 young mens’ lives. Not only the young men, but their family, by giving them a scholarship. And you get to be around the great game of football. How many people can say that in their profession, what they’re doing, that they’re changing lives and meeting new friends every single year. I think it’s pretty cool.

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Q. In the lead-up to Signing Day, when you were doing in-home visits with the coaches, it seemed like there was never a visit that had just one coach there. It was always two and sometimes as many as ten. What’s the idea behind that?

A. Honestly, our coaches didn’t know each other so I needed them to spend time with each other. What a great way to do that on the road recruiting. You spend a lot of time driving around, getting to know each other, talking to each other. It was kind of like a win-win for us. We get to go see kids, but also our coaches are getting to know each other while they’re on the road because we were out a lot, we were hardly ever here for a long period of time together. A lot of weeks, it was someone different you were with. Just trying to get our guys to know each other and also making a presence with the recruit too, them getting to know us as well. More coaches there, the more coaches they get to know while we’re out recruiting.

It was two-fold. We wanted to make a presence to make recruits, but for me, I wanted to make sure the coaches were getting to know each other. We have a lot of guys that are from different areas. That’s really important to me because I think it’s hard for us to expect our players to change and do things that we need and want them to do if we’re not doing those things. I want our football team to come together, but it’s hard for them to come together until we come together as a staff and they see us that way. It makes it a little easier for those guys to buy in to what we’re doing. I think that helped big time because some of these (coaches) didn’t even know each other, but you watch them walking around, talking, joking with each other like they’ve been with each other for awhile. I think that’s pretty cool to see.

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Q. With this being your dream school, you walk out for that first practice as Florida State’s head coach. What’s that feeling like?

A. It’s like coaching any other team, to be honest, once you get out there. Probably before I got on the field, leaving out of my office, walking down I was like, ‘Here we go.’ I was excited. It was my first one. But once you get out there and get around the guys it was just football. It was back to business kind of like where you’ve been before. It’s been fun just watching our guys because you’re not sure about some, and just watching them grow. It gets me sometimes when I’m out there by myself and I look around and I’m like, ‘Man, I’m the head coach at Florida State University.’ That’s pretty cool.

Q. Do you get that feeling when you’re sitting in this office, you look out your window and there’s Doak Campbell Stadium?

A. Not anymore. When I first got here. Now, it’s become just a habit. But it is pretty cool. I get a recruit and we just go sit outside and we talk, which is pretty cool. You’re able to go outside your office, sit in the stadium, visualize some of the things they want to do and talk about Doak Campbell, what it’s going to be like. I will say there are times when I get out here, especially when it’s a sunny day and the sun is beating down on the field. It looks nice and I start thinking about the horse running out and running behind it. It’s going to be nice. September, it’s going to be pretty cool.

Q. Can you wait for the first game?

A. I can wait because we’re nowhere near where we need to be. I can wait right now. I definitely have to tell our players that it’s so important that we stay in the now, stay in this moment. Spring ball and getting better in spring ball and then we’ll go to the next moment. We’re trying to stay in the moment and not get ahead of ourselves. But I do think about going out there sometimes. I want to know if I can get on the horse. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be different than any other time, I will say that.