Michigan's T.J. Weist to be South Florida wide receivers coach
Michigan senior offensive analyst T.J. Weist will be the new wide receivers coach for South Florida coach Willie Taggart, according to a source.
It’s a reunion for Weist and Taggart, who worked together at Western Kentucky from 2002–06, including on the Hilltoppers’ Division I-AA national championship squad in ’02.
The 50-year-old Weist arrived at Michigan in 2015 and helped the Wolverines make a five-win improvement to go 10–3 this season. He was Connecticut’s interim head coach in 2013 after the firing of Paul Pasqualoni, going 3–5 in his interim stint. He began the year as offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach.
Prior to UConn, Weist coached wide receivers at Cincinnati for three seasons after working at Western Kentucky for eight seasons. He began as the Hilltoppers’ wide receivers and running backs coach in 2002 while Taggart was co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Weist added offensive coordinator duties from ’03–06 when Taggart was assistant head coach, a role Weist took on from ’07–09 after Taggart left to become Stanford’s running backs coach.
Weist coached Indiana’s wide receivers from 1997–2001 after a year in the same role at Tulsa. He served as Southern Illinois’s wide receivers and tight ends coach from 1994–95 after an earlier four-year stint with Michigan as a grad assistant wide receivers coach. During that time with the Wolverines, Weist worked with 1991 Heisman Trophy-winning receiver Desmond Howard.
He got his start in coaching at his alma mater, Alabama, as a graduate assistant wide receivers coach from 1988–89. Weist played wide receiver for the Crimson Tide from ’85–87.
He now joins up with Taggart after South Florida went 8–5 in 2015 and earned a berth in the Miami Beach Bowl. That was the best season in Taggart’s three-year tenure with the Bulls, which has been marked by steady improvement. South Florida won two games in 2013 before doubling that to four in ’14 before doubling that again to eight this season. The Bulls reached a bowl game for the first time since ’10.
