This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Considering how Mark Helfrich beat Utah in his second-to-last game as Oregon's football coach, the Utes probably should have hoped the Ducks hired a worse coach to replace him. But it looks to me like they got a better one.  South Florida coach Willie Taggart is a program builder, judging by his work at Western Kentucky and USF. And he has Pac-12 experience as a Stanford assistant under Jim Harbaugh, so he's familiar with West Coast recruiting and competing in this conference.  It would have been more interesting for all of us in Utah if Oregon had hired Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, because he presumably would have brought ex-Ute quarterback Brian Johnson and other former Ute assistants to Eugene. Just the same, Taggart's work at Oregon will be very interesting to watch over the next two years in particular, with Utah on the Ducks' schedule in the Pac-12 rotation.  Speaking of that rotation, here's a closing thought about Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, who announced Wednesday that he's entering the NFL draft after his junior season: I would love to have watched him play more.  Because the Utes play Stanford or California in two-year segments, they faced him only as a freshman in 2014. McCaffrey carried the ball eight times for 77 yards and caught three passes for 10 yards in he Utes' overtime victory. So I'm feeling cheated about getting only a glimpse of one of the Pac-12's best football players of this century.  – Kurt Kragthorpe