When Willie Taggart first visited Oregon before taking over as the Ducks' head coach last December, there was a giant cutout version of himself waiting in the lobby of the school's lavish football facility.
Taggart, who had just performed a magic act by turning a forgotten South Florida program into a 10-win team in 2016, giggled to himself as his car pulled into the Oregon complex. For a second, the 40-year-old coach felt like a kid on a recruiting visit.
"I thought, ‘Ah, that’s pretty cool right there,'" Taggart would later tell ESPN when talking about his journey to Oregon.