Oregon has hired Willie Taggart of the University of South Florida as their next head coach.

Taggart replaces Mark Helfrich, who was fired by Oregon a week ago after going 4-8 overall and 2-7 in the Pac-12 this season.

Taggart also was an assistant at Stanford from 2007-09, and head coach at Western Kentucky from 2010-12. When Taggart was at Stanford, he helped recruit Andrew Luck.

"He knows the West Coast, having been at Stanford," Tony Dungy told ESPN last week. "He has all the elements Oregon is looking for. He's a bright, young coach, and it makes him easy to recommend.

"Oregon is a different situation [than USF]. You're not coming in taking something from the ground floor. You need a coach that can come in and get players going and coach well. It's a big challenge at Oregon, one that he would be successful at. You're not trying to become respectable, you're trying to win national championships -- it's a different kind of challenge."