When Willie Taggart was hired as the new head coach of the Oregon Ducks, it was easy to assume that a little bit of Florida would be coming with him.

Taggart had coached at South Florida for the last three seasons and several members of his coaching staff in the south had prior history with the 40-year-old.

So when Taggart filled out his new staff at Oregon, it came as no surprise that four members of his USF staff came with him to Eugene.

Here on signing day 2017, the next wave of Floridians made their migration north.

Of the 24 players that signed with Oregon by Wednesday afternoon, seven of them were from Florida, only trailing the 10 signees from California -- a traditional Oregon hotbed.

The Ducks got a three-star receiver in Darrian McNeal, a three-star safety in Billy Gibson, a three-star athlete in Demetri Burch, a four-star athlete in Bruce Judson, a three-star running back in Darrian Felix, another three-star wide receiver in Daewood Davis and a three-star defensive lineman Jordan Scott, who enrolled early at Oregon.

All together, the seven Floridians more than triple the amount of players from the state on Oregon's roster, joining veterans Charles Nelson and Tony Brooks-James in Eugene.

It's a trend that will likely continue in the future, based on Taggart's comments Wednesday.

"We have relationships there. We're always going to go there," Taggart said. "That's the right thing to do. A lot of those commits, we already had relationships with those young men. It would be very wise for us to continue to recruit where we have relationships and know folks."

That all falls in line with Taggart's recruiting philosophy of building relationships with players and families while pitching Oregon to them. Because of his hiring in December and the time it took to fill his coaching staff, Taggart said it made sense to hit Florida hard. He didn't have the complete time he needed to branch out to the West Coast and many of the Floridians were players he was familiar with and had built a rapport.

As he said, he plans on keeping a presence in Florida, but Taggart made it clear during his press conference that he and his staff won't be limited to any specific state going forward.

"We're going to try and get the best players around the country," Taggart said. "Whether it's Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Virginia, New York, North Dakota -- wherever they are at -- Samoa."

One of the ways that Taggart intends on doing that is expanding Oregon's recruiting reach to places and players that normally wouldn't hit on Oregon's radar. Take McNeal for example. The 5-foot-10, 175-pounder out of Armwood High School told The Oregonian/OregonLive.com when he committed that Oregon had always been a school he had interest in, it was just never reciprocated.

When Taggart was hired, that changed.

"I always loved Oregon," he said. "Since I was a kid, watching De'Anthony Thomas run up and down the Redwin field. It was hard knowing that Oregon wouldn't hit me back, knowing that they liked smaller guys like myself. It was hard. I didn't think this day was going to come."

Now it has for him and the six other Floridians who plan on spending the next several years in the complete opposite end of the country.

-- Tyson Alger
talger@oregonian.com
@tysonalger

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