Hagerty Family Football Head Coach Willie Taggart
On his message to the team after the loss
“I just talked to them about our keys to victory. Each week, I give our guys the keys to victory. and they don’t change much on what we feel like we need to do in order to win ball games. We feel if we do these things, we’ll win. Number one is playing with fanatical effort. I thought our guys did that for three quarters. Number two is playing smart, no selfish penalties. We didn’t do a good job of playing smart. We had too many costly penalties at really bad times in that ball game. (Number three is) dealing with adversity in the ballgame, because everything is not going to go the way we wanted, but you keep fighting and find a way. We got ourselves in a hole, but we kept fighting and we had a chance there at the end, but some of those selfish penalties hurt us, and then some other aspects of the game hurt us too that we couldn’t control. It’s disappointing, because we know we can’t do those things, and we made some bad decisions and bad plays at a critical time that cost us…But I like this team because it’s different. I really love the way they fought and came back and gave themselves a chance there. I know they’re going to work their tails off and see to it that they are not in that situation again.”
On defensive linemen stepping up with players out
“I thought those guys did some good things, guys that during the week for the most part didn’t think they were going to have to start and play as much. It wasn’t always perfect, but those guys did some good things. I was impressed with (Jacob) Merrifeld, I thought (Keem) Green did good things throughout the game. But I thought overall defensively, we have to be better fundamentally. I thought we were not really fundamentally sound in what we are doing and that cost us at times.”
On preparing to face Southeastern Louisiana
“It’s good for us to finally get an opponent that we can scout for what they did this year. (Both first opponents have new defensive coordinators with no previous film to scout). Last year they threw the ball around and they had a really good quarterback. This year they have a different style quarterback. He’s a big kid that can run a little bit. They used him last year with some gadgets and things of that nature. You watch him against Louisiana-Lafayette, it’s a different style of play. And they have some talent receiver wise. It’s a good football program. They have won a lot of ball games and are one of the top FCS schools out there. They have some skill guys that can run. At the end of the day for us, we have to be better at what we do.”
On Southeastern Louisiana’s team compared to last year
“On offense, they lost a lot of guys from last year, but they’ve still have some skill guys. Again, the quarterback is different and plays a different style. You can tell they’re good coaches because they play to the strengths of their players. They have some quarterback runs. The running backs are explosive and they have some fast receivers out there. We know the things that they do, we just have to play our defense the way we’re supposed to and not have as many mistakes. We have to tackle better. There were a lot of missed tackles last week that were critical in that ball game.”
On the college football playoffs expanding to 12 teams
“I think it’s great for college football. It’s great for a program like us to know you’re going to have a chance if you can be one of the top conference champions. You can be a part of the party and not just watching like everyone else. I think it’s a good thing for the game, and you’ll possibly see some surprises as you go.”
