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BOCA RATON – Florida Atlantic is getting Willie Taggart at a relative bargain.
Taggart’s memorandum of understanding with FAU, obtained via public records requests, agrees upon a five year contract with an annual salary of $750,000. That’s significantly less than the $1 million base salary FAU paid former coach Lane Kiffin.
Based on USA Today’s annual survey of coaches’ salaries, Taggart’s compensation ranks in the lower half of Conference USA coaches. Factoring in the home loan forgiveness into Kiffin’s compensation. USA Today listed the Owls’ previous head coach as being $1.4 million – third highest in C-USA.
Florida St. still owes Taggart approximately $17 million as a buyout from his previous contract. The $750,000 from FAU offsets part of that FSU buyout. Taggart signed a six year, $30 million contract in December of 2017 to coach the Seminoles.
The memorandum calls for a base salary increase of $25,000 per year. It doesn’t include memorandum doesn’t include, and sources tell OwlAccess.com that FAU didn’t offer, a home loan, like it did for Kiffin.
As for bonuses, Taggart will receive $20,000 for leading the Owls to the Conference USA title game and an additional $20,000 for winning that game. The $30,000 he’ll receive for leading the Owls to a bowl game increases to $100,000 if he can get FAU in a New Year’s Six bowl game.
Taggart gets $250,000 for guiding FAU to a berth in the college football playoff, $350,000 for a championship game appearance and half a million for winning the national title.
A Top 25 finish nets Taggart $50,000, while a Top 10 finish gets him $100,000.
Earning Conference USA Coach of the Year honors is worth $15,000. National Coach of the Year honors bumps that total to $50,000.
Should Taggart leave for another school prior to Dec. 1, 2022, he’ll need to pay FAU $3 million. The buyout drops to $1 million if he leaves the following year, and to $500,000 should he exit before the completing the final year of his contract.
If FAU fires Taggart without cause it will owe him no more than $2.25 million, depending on the timing of the dismissal.
Florida Atlantic officials and Taggart reached an agreement in principle earlier on Wednesday. He will be introduced at a media event on Thursday afternoon.
Taggart spent most of the last two seasons at Florida State, fired during the 2019 only 21 games into his tenure there. He’s also been the head coach at Oregon, South Florida and Western Kentucky.
FAU faces SMU in the Dec. 21 Boca Raton Bowl. It is unclear at this point whether Taggart will be on the sidelines for that game.
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