With only five months until the start of the regular season, first year FAU head football coach Willie Taggart held a teleconference Monday morning with local media members to discuss how the players and coaching staff have been dealing with the challenges presented by the coronavirus.

“It’s been challenging, but it’s also been interesting finding different ways to get to our players and different ways to teach,” Taggart said. 

The players have gone home, and the coaches are working with the players remotely through Zoom, a video conference platform. The staff has also continued their daily meetings through it.  

“[We] try to do as much as we’ve done in the office, just do it by Zoom and try to keep it as much of a routine as possible,” Taggart said. 

The players have been working daily on Zoom with head strength coach Joey Guarascio who gives them a detailed plan for the workouts they will be doing that day. It is on the players to ensure they keep their body prepared for the upcoming season.

“They’ve done a great job leading up to the start [of spring football],” Taggart said. “Our guys have done a great job in the weight room, we had guys get stronger and gaining weight. We just can’t take a step back on that.”

With this being Taggart’s first season at FAU, the cancelation of spring football hits hard, but Taggart and his staff will be sure to do everything that is necessary for their players to succeed when football season rolls around this fall. 

Taggart had a feeling that spring football would end up being canceled.

“Once the NCAA canceled March Madness and the NBA suspended it’s season, you kind of had a good idea of where things were going there,” Taggart said. “[I] was really excited spring ball was coming back once we came back from spring break.”

With cases of COVID-19 continuing to rise across the country and especially in Palm Beach County, there’s a growing concern that football might not be back in the fall.

The thought of losing the football season has become more of a reality in the minds of college football fans across the country. Even Taggart admits he’s thought about the possibility of there being no football played this season.

“Never crossed my mind here until recently and even then, I can’t get a grasp on what this country would be like without football,” Taggart said. “That’s America’s sport, everybody gets excited when football season comes around, it’s like Christmas, the whole country changes.”

Taggart did have a message for the community as we all continue to fight the threat of the coronavirus.

“Keep faith, we’re going to get through this, we’re going to get through everything else and we’re going to get through it together,” Taggart said. “It’s tough, but we’ve just got to keep faith and protect our loved ones.”

Jensen Jennings is a staff writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @Jensen_Jennings.