The Baltimore Ravens are dipping back into the college ranks to fill out their coaching staff with a fascinating hire.
A week after hiring Georgia’s Todd Monken as their offensive coordinator, the Ravens are expected to add Willie Taggart -- a five-time college football head coach -- as their running backs coach, NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported Wednesday, per a source.
Taggart now also has a connection to three branches of the Harbaugh coaching tree, first playing quarterback at Western Kentucky for father Jack Harbaugh in the 1990s, later serving as Jim Harbaugh’s running backs coach at Stanford from 2007 to 2009 and now joining John Harbaugh’s staff in Baltimore.
Taggart’s first head-coaching job in college was at Western Kentucky in 2010, engineering a massive program overhaul there. He was then a head coach at South Florida (2013-16), Oregon (2017), Florida State (2018-19) and Florida Atlantic (2020-22). His overall record as a head coach was a combined 71-80 at the five stops.
Since being fired at FAU and prior to accepting the Ravens job, Taggart had served as an analyst for Colorado on Deion Sanders’ staff. Craig Ver Steeg, who has been on the Ravens’ staff for 15 years, had been Baltimore’s running backs coach since the start of the 2019 season.