Things could not have started worse for Florida State coach Willie Taggart in 2019. Following a 5-7 debut season in which the Seminoles missed a bowl game for the first time since 1981, he saw his team blow a 31-13 lead to Boise State to begin this season. FSU ended up losing to Boise State in Tallahassee 36-31 in Week 1.

On his Monday radio show, Taggart seemed to blame the loss on the lack of hydrating his players did in the week leading up to the game. The clip of the coach went viral.

Prior to Wednesday’s practice, Taggart took time to clarify his comments and, in a written statement, claimed that what he said had been insinuated and that he was actually talking about the upcoming game against Louisiana-Monroe this Saturday.

Below is the transcript:

“I just want to clarify comments that I made Monday night on my radio show. It went viral. For some odd reason, some folks insinuated some words that I said. Took it a totally different way. What happened on Monday was, on my radio show, I got a call from one of our great fans. They asked me what was our team doing. But the question, from the great Gene Deckerhoff, is ‘How is the team preparing for the extreme heat expected for Saturday’s game. It’s going to be another scorcher this coming Saturday.’ That was the question. This coming game against Louisiana-Monroe. This game.

Willie Taggart, that would be me: ‘After going through last week and seeing our guys going down, cramping and things, one thing we all talked about as a staff, our medical staff, is our guys got to hydrate. That it can’t be on Friday, that it can’t be on Thursday.’ Hold up [sips water]. ‘We need to start hydrating earlier in the week, taking care of their bodies. Can’t leave it up to our players just to do it. We’ve all got to force them to hydrate, take care of themselves. Again, I don’t know if we did a good job of that last week. It’s one of those situations where you live and learn, and we’re going to help our guys when it comes to that.’

The great Gene Deckerhoff: Hydrate, drink a lot of liquid, Powerade, some water.’ He said Powerade, not Gatorade.

Willie Taggart: ‘Yes, absolutely.’

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. I don’t know where that came from, but that’s exactly what Coach Taggart said and what I meant. To think anything other than that, I can’t help you on that.”