Oregon hires Mario Cristobal to replace Willie Taggart

Oregon didn’t go outside the program to find Willie Taggart’s replacement.

First reported by NBC Sports, The Ducks have selected assistant coach Mario Cristobal to take over permanently for Taggart. Cristobal was named the team’s interim head coach when Taggart left earlier this week to go to Florida State.

Cristobal has been an assistant with Oregon for one season and served as the team’s offensive coordinator. Before Cristobal was at Oregon he was the offensive line coach at Alabama for four seasons after he was the head coach at Florida International.

He had massive support to be the team’s next coach from players. According to left tackle Tyrell Crosby, over 70 players signed a petition for Cristobal to be the permanent coach.

Cristobal compiled a 27-47 record at FIU, though that’s a bit misleading. He was 20-26 in the Sun Belt and the team went from 1-11 in his first season in 2007 to 7-6 in 2010 and 8-5 in 2011. He was somewhat curiously fired after the team was 3-9 in 2012.

Taggart was the team’s coach for just one season. He came to Oregon from South Florida after the Ducks fired Mark Helfrich and was the team’s first outside hire in 40 years. After Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher left for Texas A&M, Taggart became the Seminoles’ top choice and left for Tallahassee.

The elevation of Cristobal means there are no more vacancies at Power Five conference schools — for now anyway. After Tennessee introduced Jeremy Pruitt as its coach on Thursday, Oregon was the last big school to be looking for a head coach.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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