Wku’s Taggart No Prima Donna This Quarterback Gets In Mix, Leads Potent Rushing Game
At most colleges, the quarterback of the football team is viewed as a prince.
He is paraded onto the field each Saturday afternoon in a sparkling clean uniform, and the primary duty of his loyal subjects on the offensive line is to make sure that uniform won’t need to be laundered Monday morning.
He is not to be bent, folded or mutilated.
At Western Kentucky, however, they just snap Willie Taggart the ball, send him down the line of scrimmage and let opposing defenders take their best shots.
It might seem like inhumane treatment for the Hilltoppers’ slightly built 5-foot-11, 175-pound senior. But in most cases, those best shots miss.
“Actually, you end up laughing a lot when you watch him on film, because he makes guys trying to tackle him look silly,” said Eastern Washington defensive coordinator Jerry Graybeal, the man responsible for devising a plan to slow Taggart down when the Eagles (11-1) take on WKU (10-1) in Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. quarterfinal-round matchup of the Division I-AA playoffs at Albi Stadium.
The difficulty of the challenge confronting Graybeal and Eastern’s defense is defined in the numbers. The Hilltoppers, an independent from Bowling Green, Ky., come into Saturday’s game averaging 366 rushing yards per game, the most of any I-AA team in the country.
And Taggart is both the trigger man and leading ground gainer in an I-bone option offense that has mystified opponents all year.
Taggart, who was a prep standout at Manatee High School in Bradenton, Fla., where he played briefly with former Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier, has carried the ball 165 times and rushed for 1,246 yards and 16 touchdowns.
He averages 113.3 rushing yards per game and 7.6 per carry, and in a 52-31 rout of Southern Illinois earlier this fall, he was named the national I-AA offensive player of the week after rushing for 289 yards and three touchdowns.
“Obviously, he’s their Rex Prescott,” Graybeal said in reference to Eastern’s senior tailback who became his school’s all-time leading rusher this season. “You look at video of their offense and you understand that he’s a field general in the true sense of the word.”
Adding to Graybeal’s dilemma is the fact that Taggart can throw the ball, too - as evidenced by his 53.8 completion percentage (64 of 119), which has produced 1,010 yards and nine more touchdowns.
“He’s accurate, very accurate,” Graybeal said. “He throws the deep ball right on the money, and he’s had some big gains with the play-action pass.”
Taggart, who has started at quarterback the past three seasons after sitting out his freshman year as a academic non-qualifier, relishes his role.
But he says his carrying the ball 54 times more than anyone else on the Hilltoppers’ roster is not by design.
“It’s all about taking whatever the defense gives up,” Taggart explained. “If they stop me, then the tailback will have a good game. It’s not designed just for me to run the ball.”
EWU head coach Mike Kramer disagrees.
“They play primarily four guys in the backfield, but their main focus is on Willie Taggart,” he said. “This is a full-fledged commitment to the quarterback running the football.”
Taggart has 4.47 time in the 40-yard dash and describes himself as a “north-and-south” runner. He attributes his ability to stay healthy to having “really good offensive linemen” and outstanding survival instincts.
“I like to get north and south,” Taggart said, “but if a guy’s in the way, I’m always going to try to make him miss. I’m not going to challenge any of those big linebackers and try to run over them, not at my size.
“I don’t usually hit someone unless they’re already falling backward.”
Which helps explain why Willie Taggart is one of the few quarterbacks in the country who has learned to survive in that mean, nasty and dangerous downfield jungle so seemingly unfit for a prince.
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