FSU's Willie Taggart Says Hydration Comments Were 'Insinuated'

Florida State Seminoles head coach Willie Taggart said Wednesday his comments Monday about hydration were in reference to Saturday's game against the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks, not an excuse for the Noles' Week 1 upset loss to the Boise State Broncos.

Curt Weiler of the Tallahassee Democrat provided a prepared statement Taggart read to reporters, which included a transcript from his radio show he used to suggest his remarks were "insinuated" improperly:

"That was the conversation. Nowhere in there did it talk about Boise, about that being an excuse of losing to Boise or anything. It talked about how we were preparing for Louisiana-Monroe. And how nowhere in there did it talk about calling our great medical conditioning, medical staff out or anything. We have a great medical staff, people do a great job with our players and talked about how we're all working together, planning together for our players and nothing in that said anything negative."

Although FSU's head coach did accurately read back his Monday comments, saying the staff would "live and learn" (via ESPN's Adam Rittenberg) without context led most to believe he was talking about mistakes made against the Broncos that could be fixed in future games.

"They need to start hydrating early in the week and take care of their bodies," Taggart said. "We can't leave it up to our players just to do it. We've got to force them to hydrate and take care of themselves. I don't know if we did a good job of that last weekend. One of those situations where you live and learn, and we'll make sure that we help our guys when it comes to that."

Regardless, Taggart said Wednesday the viral story is part of the downside when a team doesn't live up to expectations, per Weiler:

"Hopefully, people take it exactly for what I said and not what they think I said. That's pretty much it. That's part of it," he said. "That's part of what happens when you're not winning so you've got to win some ball games and people will say good things about us."

The Seminoles led 21-6 after the first quarter and extended their advantage to 31-13 with four minutes, seven seconds left in the second quarter. Boise scored 23 unanswered points to complete the comeback victory.

Florida State allowed the Broncos to accumulate 621 total yards and 38 first downs, which allowed the visitors to maintain possession for over 40 minutes.

Getting those defensive issues fixed is the Noles' biggest concern moving forward.