Willie Taggart is off to a scorching recruiting start at Oregon, as Barton Simmons noted in Tuesday's Cover 3 column.

The Ducks' 2018 class currently ranks sixth nationally and first in the Pac-12 with 13 commitments, eight of whom are four-star prospects. It’s an impressive effort by Taggart, especially when taken with his finish to the 2017 cycle when he helped Oregon to a Top 20 class despite arriving in December.

Oregon is currently on pace for a Top 10 class, which it has never done in the history of the 247Sports Composite rankings.

But arguably the most interesting thing about Taggart’s recruiting success is where he’s doing it – specifically on the East Coast.

Mainstay recruiting territories like California and Oregon represent a large portion of the Ducks' commits, but four of the team's 11 verbal pledges hail from east of the Mississippi River.

Specifically, the Ducks have three commitments from Florida.

It’s not surprising to see Taggart have success in the Sunshine State. Oregon hired him away from South Florida, after all. But it's telling that commits are willing to take a seven-hour flight (if you’re leaving from Orlando) to attend the school, let alone visit it.

These are pre-established relationships paying off for Taggart.

“(Distance is) nothing major,” four-star cornerback Isaiah Bolden told 247Sports. “Coach Taggart and I are so close.”

Along with Bolden, Oregon holds verbal pledges from four-star wide receiver Warren Thompson and three-star defensive end Jonathan King out of Florida. Each of them had offers to stay at home – or even in the same region – but Bolden said his fellow Floridians chose the Ducks for an important reason.

“The football family be different under Coach Taggart,” Bolden said. “It’s building something special and putting Oregon back on the map.”

Still, it’s one thing to be committed to a school in June and another to sign in February (or December).

But in his effort to sign these East Coast studs, Taggart has a few advantages. First, some of his relationships with these players date back years. Second, and probably more important, prospects from Florida are often more willing to leave home than any other battleground state. In the 2017 class, for example, only seven of Florida’s Top 25 prospects opted to stay in the Sunshine State for college – though several of those players attended IMG and weren’t Florida natives, which slightly skews the numbers.

“There’s so many of (players) and everyone recruits the crap out of it,” 247Sports Director of Scouting Steve Wiltfong said. “There are so many SEC programs that are near Florida where their families can come see them play. … Kids are being discovered in that state earlier and relationships are being formed earlier. It’s helping out-of-state programs pluck the in-state kids, where, back in the day, the process didn’t start until they were seniors and in-state schools had a big advantage.

“For Willie Taggart, in particular, it’s impressive. He has a proven product people saw in-state and he had the opportunity to go to Oregon, and the other side of the country is enticing to some. We’ll see if he keeps these guys.”

Oregon must do most of its recruiting work on the West Coast in order to thrive. Distance simply dictates that. But under Taggart, the Ducks can certainly supplement their classes with East Coast talent.

Bolden, at least, thinks Oregon can keep it up in Florida.

When asked how many kids the Ducks will sign from the Sunshine State this cycle, he said, “solid six.” Bolden wants to turn Eugene into a bit of a Northwest Florida. So, considering Taggart’s ability to pull kids in from both east and west, where will this 2018 Oregon recruiting class finish?

“Easy Top 10,” Bolden said.

If that's the case, the Ducks will have Taggart’s Florida relationships to thank for its record-setting group.