If FSU players really want Haggins, beat UF
If FSU players truly want Odell Haggins to be their next head coach, there’s only one surefire method to prove it to the world:
Find a way.
Find a way to orchestrate a holiday miracle.
Find a way to show they will overcome all odds, play harder and better than they have in years and give ‘em hell for Odell
Find a way to somehow defeat their heavily favored rivals, the Florida Gators on national TV Saturday night at romping, chomping, Swamping Florida Field.
Ever since Willie Taggart was fired three weeks ago, many Florida State players have been lobbying for Haggins to get the permanent head-coaching job. They’ve been conducting a seemingly orchestrated social media campaign with hashtags such as #HireOdell and #OdellForHC.
This is all well and good, but right now the only hashtag that really matters is this one: #BeatTheGators Let’s be honest, shall we? The Seminoles have only beaten Boston College and Alabama State since Haggins took over as interim coach, and they could have beaten those two lackluster teams even if Taggart were still the head coach. But if Haggins could somehow find a way to beat the No. 8-ranked Gators, it would be FSU’s most significant victory since Jameis Winston’s final season in Tallahassee.
Beating Florida is the best chance and perhaps the only chance of winning the job for Haggins — FSU’s popular interim coach and former player who would like nothing better than to be named the permanent head coach of his adored alma mater. However, I still believe Memphis coach Mike Norvell is the frontrunner for the job — unless, of course,the Seminoles can convince James Franklin to leave a plum job at Penn State for a precarious one at Florida State.
Granted, it’s probably not the best idea for the Seminoles to hire Haggins based on the crest of emotion following one huge victory over the arch-rival Gators, but there’s no question momentum has seemingly been building for Haggins in recent weeks. A victory over UF on Saturday would not only make FSU more attractive to bowl scouts and recruits, it would put a serious damper on Gator coach Dan Mullen’s momentum toward becoming the State of Florida’s new king of college football.
There’s no question that the FSU fan base and administration adore Haggins, the loyal Seminole soldier who was an AllAmerica defensive tackle for Bobby Bowden in the late 1980s and has been an assistant coach at FSU for 26 years under three different head coaches — Bowden, Fisher and Taggart. As I’ve written before, Odell knows how to recruit the State of Florida, and his hiring would allow FSU to maintain some semblance of stability and retain some of Taggart’s better assistant coaches and recruiters.
And, yes, he also has two other qualities that the other top candidates don’t have: He’s cheap and available. For an in-debt FSU athletics department that is begging boosters to help fund Taggart’s $18 million buyout, Haggins would take the job for half the salary of most other candidates.
There was a false narrative right after Taggart was fired that Haggins really wasn’t interested in being the permanent head coach, but he’s made it quite clear that FSU is his dream job and he’s going after it with everything he has in his arsenal.
Deep down, Haggins must know he’s a longshot whose best chance of getting hired is going into the Swamp and pulling off a monumental upset over a UF team that is a massive 17-point favorite.
This is why Haggins fired recruiting coordinator David Kelly so he could hire another on-field coach
— Mario Edwards Sr. — to help him prepare for the Florida game. By firing the recruiting coordinator, it sure appears as if Haggins (with the blessing of FSU’s athletic administration) have signed off on perhaps taking a hit on the upcoming recruiting class if it means maximizing the Seminoles’ chances of beating the Gators. Question: By allowing Haggins to fire Kelly with only one game left in the season and hire an on-field assistant, does this mean FSU’s administration is doing everything in its power to help Haggins win the permanent head-coaching job?
Obviously, we are just speculating at this point because FSU AD David Coburn — ever since his ill-advised public acknowledgement early in the process that Bob Stoops was indeed on FSU’s wish list — has been prudently silent on the coaching search. Which is how it should be. Since Coburn first mentioned Stoops’ name, Seminole Nation has monomaniacally focused its hopes and dreams on FSU landing Big-Name Bob.
It’s why I wrote right after Coburn publicly mentioned Stoops that he needed to just shush and go about the business of clandestinely hiring a coach. If you talk about Stoops and then hire a lesser name (and, let’s face it, every name is a lesser name) then the person you hire is going to be considered a fallback candidate.
Which brings us back to Haggins, who will almost certainly be considered a fallback candidate no matter what.
Unless, of course, he can somehow, someway beat the mighty Gators on Saturday in the Swamp.
Then he goes from belittled candidate to beloved candidate.
It’s a longshot, but it’s the only shot Odell Haggins will ever have of being the real head coach of his cherished and treasured alma mater.