FILE - In this Sept. 22, 2018 file photo Florida State head coach Willie Taggart, center, celebrates a win with his team at the end of an NCAA college football game against Northern Illinois in Tallahassee Fla. Decades of Florida State football dominance is displayed on the walls just outside of Taggart’s office. Trophies and plaques commemorate All-America players and championship teams. Lots of them. Taggart takes responsibility for last year’s 5-7 finish, but remains confident in his plan to get Florida State back on track because it has worked before. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon, file)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Decades of Florida State football dominance is displayed on the walls just outside of Willie Taggart's office. Trophies and plaques commemorate All-America players and championship teams. Lots of them.

Off to the side, in a poorly lit corner, next to two chairs and a couch that serve as a waiting area for visitors, is the 4-foot tall trophy the Seminoles received for winning the 2017 Independence Bowl. The bronze eagle, clutching an American flag in its talons, is the last piece of hardware from the previous regime at Florida State, though former coach Jimbo Fisher already had begun his new job at Texas A&M when the 'Noles beat Southern Mississippi in Shreveport to cap an otherwise dreary season.

Unlike the trophy, most of what Fisher left behind was impossible to miss in Taggart's first year as Florida State coach.

Flawed roster. Mentally fragile players. Academic and off-the-field problems.

It all looked very familiar to Taggart. He stepped into similar situations earlier in his career at Western Kentucky, South Florida and Oregon. Florida State needed far more than a little sprucing up. This was a full-on rebuild, and the Seminoles' first losing season in 42 years only served to drive that home.

Taggart takes responsibility for last year's 5-7 finish, but he remains confident in his plan to get Florida State back on track because it has worked before and this year's Seminoles are giving indications it will again.

"The trust is there that wasn't there before," Taggart said. "And usually that's typical: When taking over a program one of the hardest things to get is the trust, and really you don't know whether it's there or not until you get into the season and you get to playing. So from that standpoint it's night and day with our team compared to this time last year. Just the whole culture of what we're trying to build is totally different.

"Last year they were trying to understand what kind of culture we want, while also trying to get over a culture that they had. So you had to fight through that a lot last year especially when things didn't go your way."

(For more of Russo's interview with Taggart, listen to the AP Top 25 College Football Podcast .)

Things rarely have gone Florida State's way since a much-hyped season opener in 2017 against Alabama. The Seminoles entered No. 3 in the country, but the Crimson Tide manhandled them. Starting quarterback Deondre Francois was lost for the season with a knee injury and the team spiraled. By November it became apparent Fisher was looking to leave — which he did before the regular-season finale, a rescheduled game against Louisiana-Monroe.

Taggart was concerned about how a team that appeared to fold in 2017 would handle adversity. The answer came 30 minutes into the Labor Day night 2018 opener: not well.

"I talked to our guys in spring about the Virginia Tech game. What if we're down 21 to zero? How are we going to respond? It's like I spoke it into existence," Taggart said. "I should have shut up."

Florida State mostly played uninspired and unorganized in 2018. There were familiar red flags even before that.

At his previous stops, Taggart said, problems "socially and academically" portended poor play. Florida State had both.

"Where this was different here was because all the other programs I had taken over the head coach had gotten fired. Where this one the head coach didn't get fired, he left. And that was different even for me in taking over the program because our kids was hurt," Taggart said.

Florida State's football team ranked last in the FBS in the most recent Academic Progress Rating, perilously close to being subject to NCAA sanctions. Part of that was players leaving early to pursue professional careers, but Taggart said some of the players who departed after the 2017 season were in danger of not being eligible had they come back. He also said he was persuaded to stick with some players who were disciplinary problems because dismissing them could further drag down the APR.

Francois, in particular, dealt with several off-field issues in 2017 but still began the season as the starter. He was dismissed from the program in February.

Taggart was setting different expectations for players and the buy-in, especially among upperclassmen, was tenuous.

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