Oregon hires Willie Taggart, Christian McCaffrey done with Stanford

Two significant bits of news that happened earlier this week from Cal’s Pac-12 North rivals.

Oregon has hired head coach Willie Taggart. Taggart started out his surge into the college coaching world with years of service at Western Kentucky, then upgraded as a running backs coach at Stanford under Jim Harbaugh. Taggart then became the head coach at Western Kentucky, made them a bowl-eligible squad, then graduated up to South Florida, which went from 2-10 to 10-2 in a four year span.

Taggart adopted a Baylor-style spread offense that fit in nicely in the AAC, and should be perfectly adaptable to the type of play Oregon is well-renowned for. Don’t expect many changes from Oregon on the offensive side of the ball. The big question is whether Taggart can find answers defensively.

Stanford meanwhile will be losing last year’s Heisman runner-up. Christian McCaffrey did not have the Heisman season everyone was expecting, as he got hurt early in the year and took about a month and a half to return to form. During that span the Cardinal offense was hopeless, among one of the worst in Power 5 football. This is good news for Cal fans hoping for an end to the Big Game losing streak next year, although the Cardinal will still be plenty well equipped defensively and are still recruiting at a high level on both sides.

Cal fans, your thoughts on both these moves?