Francois gets the message from Taggart

TALLAHASSEE – New FSU coach Willie Taggart has one team motto that instructs his players to “Do Something” and another that encourages them to “Embrace the Suck.”

What these mantras mean is open to interpretation, but quarterback Deondre Francois seems to be the poster boy for both. He has learned to embrace his sucky situation during the past year and has finally decided to do

something about overcoming his bad breaks and bad decisions.

Taggart says “Embrace the Suck” refers to the dog days of preseason camp when “it sucks” to be out in the stifling heat, but he wants his players to psychologically convince themselves to love it, learn from it and “rather than looking at it as a negative, trying to make it a positive.”

And when Taggart tells his players to “Do Something” — the message on the front of the team’s media guide — he is imploring them to stop making excuses and stop blaming others for a lack of success. “You have to go to out and do

something,” Taggart explained at FSU’s Media Day on Sunday. “You have to work at it and make it happen if you want it.”

It’s a good sign — an amazingly good good sign — that Francois seems to be taking Taggart’s tenets to heart. After dealing with physical, legal and relationship issues during the past year, Francois, a junior from Olympia High School, is adamant that he is ready to