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Willie Taggart had a plan at Stanford, one that's bringing him back to face friend David Shaw

EUGENE -- It was late December in 2006 and Willie Taggart, 30 years old, hadn't even spent a single day in his new job coaching Stanford's running backs.

That didn't stop Taggart from thinking years down the road.

"You have to have a plan for things," he told his hometown Florida newspaper, shortly after arriving in California. "I have a plan to be a head football coach, and it's falling into place."

Yet in those early days at Stanford under Jim Harbaugh, such big-picture dreams were superseded by the hundreds of little tasks that come with taking over a college football program.