It’s impossible to overstate how different the first day of spring practice was for the 2018 Florida State football team.
We all know what the previous ones were like. There was yelling. Lots of yelling. Some cursing. Some hat-whips. And more yelling. There weren’t many high fives. And there was certainly no music – unless the Marching Chiefs happened to be practicing at the same time on the band field.
Well, here’s what the new ones are like, at least judging from Wednesday’s open practice: There’s a lot of music. Two concert-level speakers were brought out to the practice field. A playlist was designed, with Willie Taggart providing the theme, to the person in charge of the music. He then met with a musical therapist to come up with the appropriate playlist for the first day of spring practice.
The first song on the outdoor practice field was “Simple Man,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd (you know Willie, he’s all about being lethally simple).
The last song played was DMX.
And in the middle was a wide array of song choices – everything from Imagine Dragons to Jay Z to Guns N Roses.
During the water break in between the two halves of practice, dozens of players started dancing like they were at a house party. I mean, it was a sight to behold. They were bouncing around like they were in the club on a Friday night.
Can you even imagine a scenario, outside of a nightmare or fever dream, in which Jimbo Fisher would have allowed any of this?
If you wheeled out two big speakers to his practice field and started playing DMX, there’s a good chance you would’ve been taken out by a sniper. Or Fisher might have gotten his bow from the car and used you for target practice (“arrow don’t care who bleeds from it!”).
There would be zero chance of that happening on his watch.
Just like there’s absolutely zero chance Fisher would have raced down field like Taggart did on Wednesday to chest bump Tamorrion Terry after the wide receiver made a great catch on a deep ball near the end of practice.
Mainly because Fisher would’ve been confused as to how an underclassmen receiver actually caught a pass in his offense. He would’ve screamed at Terry for making his upperclassmen look bad, would’ve then screamed at Dawsey for a block Kenny Shaw missed six years ago, then would’ve yelled for Bobo Wilson to get back on the field.
I kid, I kid.
We all know Jimbo Fisher was a great coach at Florida State. Not a good one. A great one. He won three ACC titles and a national championship. And proved that serious, no-fun practices can produce great success.
But that’s not Willie Taggart’s style. At all.
He wants to teach. He wants to practice perfection. But he wants his players engaged, having fun while they’re doing it.
Will it result in championships around here? Who knows?
But if you were at the first spring practice of the Willie Taggart Era, you were reminded in dramatic fashion just how different this thing is going to be.
“It’s a different atmosphere now,” sophomore defensive tackle Marvin Wilson said. “It doesn’t feel like a job anymore. It feels like something we love. You loved football in high school, now you love it again in college.
“… From the start (of last season) it felt like you were coming to work. Instead of just coming in to play football. Now it just feels like everyone is family now.”
Again, this isn’t to say you can’t succeed doing it the way Fisher does it. And this isn’t to suggest that Taggart’s Era will yield multiple championships. If he’s not winning games nobody is going to care – and frankly fans might be a little irked – that his players are having dance-offs in the middle of practice.
That could get old real quick.
But this is how Taggart does it. This is how he runs his program. And this is what he thinks will get Florida State back to winning championships.
"That's just me, that's just who I am and what I'm all about," Taggart said. "I don't believe in doing anything and not having fun doing it. I'm big on quotes as you know. And Ralph Emerson said, 'Nothing great happens without enthusiasm.' I believe in that and I want our guys to be that way daily.
"And make sure we're getting the work in. We're not going to come out here and substitute fun over fundamentals and technique. We're going to do our work and do it, and coach hard and aggressive, but we want to have fun. When you make plays be excited about it. That's what Coach wants."
His practices are like a two-hour lightning round. Everything is sped up. The reps are flying every 10 or 12 seconds. First team. Second team. Third team. First team. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Coaches are running all over the field. There are high fives. Hugs. Laughs.
After it was over, the offensive players lined up and shook hands with the defensive players (picture a little league baseball field where the players say “good game” to each other). D.J. Matthews, who was really impressive during the practice by the way, seemed to have a special handshake with every single defender on the team.
Don’t get the wrong idea, though. It’s not a campfire singalong. There is plenty of coaching going on. But the soundtrack on the practice field is a lot different than the one we could hear standing outside the 10-foot, fortress brick wall over the last eight seasons.
Instead of screams we got Skynyrd. And Metallica. And DMX.
Instead of hat-whips we got the head coach chest-bumping one of his players after a great play.
It’s just a completely different vibe. A completely different feel.
The players were legitimately having fun for the two hours they were on the field.
Will that translate into more wins? Who can know right now?
But it’s certainly a refreshing change of pace from what this program was used to.
--------------------------------
Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans on The Tribal Council
