Tampa Bay Times USF beat reporter Greg Auman joined The Sports Page with Tom Jones and Rick Stroud earlier this morning, and said that the vacant head coaching position for the Bulls football team is desired heavily by one man.

“I talked to a lot of people around Willie Taggart (Western Kentucky Head Coach) and they say this is a job he’s wanted and looked to for a while” said Auman.  “It’s a job that he’s well aware of, and it’s kind of like it was with Jim Leavitt.   This is the best job in his old backyard.”

Auman also stated that Taggart will be in the running for the vacant head coaching positions at Purdue and Auburn.  The 36-year-old Taggart is a Palmetto native who played and coached against USF and has helped coach WKU to both a I-AA national title in 2002 and the school's first bowl this year. 

Auman also talked about what a possible candidate believes this position could be.

“People will look at it as either a step up if you’re kind of in the mid-majors right now, or as a potential first head coaching job if you’re an A-list coordinator but not quite ready yet to jump into an ACC or SEC job” said Auman.

Auman believes the new head coach of USF could be named by the end of next week.   

“If they don’t have a coach by the end of next week, I think that means something’s gone wrong” said Auman.  “Someone has turned them down or their looking at second and third options or something like that.  I think
they want to make sure they have three or four weekends in play (before signing day) like the full month of January.”