Mark Taurisani is in his fifth season on the Fighting Illini football staff in 2025, overseeing the administrative aspects of the football program and head coach Bret Bielema. He was promoted to Associate Athletics Director/Chief of Staff in 2024 after previously serving as Assistant Athletics Director/Chief of Staff since January 2021.

Taurisani has helped elevate Illinois to new expectations in his first four seasons. The Illini have 28 wins and 18 Big Ten victories over Taurisani's first four seasons in Champaign, highlighted by a 10-win season in 2024 that tied Illinois' single-season record for wins. In 2024, Illinois was ranked by the CFP selection committee for a program-record four straight weeks, appeared in 12 AP Top 25 polls, and tied the program record for ranked wins with four. The Fighting Illini capped one of the best seasons in program history by beating #14 South Carolina in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl, 21-17, in one of the top bowl game victories in Illinois history. Illinois finished ranked #16 in the AP Top 25 poll.

Taurisani has helped bring the Fighting Illini program back to national relevance with continued appearances in the AP Top 25 and College Football Playoff rankings, two New Year’s Bowls, three national award finalists, and 11 NFL Draft picks since 2021. Illinois has had three national award finalists and seven top-100 draft picks since Taurisani's arrival. Jer'Zhan Newton (2023, Nagurski), Chase Brown (2022, Doak), and Devon Witherspoon (2022, Thorpe) gave Illinois three finalists in National College Football Awards Association awards over a two-year span for the first time since 1994-95, while Illinois is one of five schools with three or more players drafted in the first three rounds in the 2023 and 2024 NFL Drafts, along with Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, and Penn State. 

In 2022, the Fighting Illini finished with an 8-5 record and reached a January bowl game for the first time in 15 years. The Illini were ranked in the AP Top 25 for five straight weeks, reaching as high as No. 14, and were ranked in the College Football Playoff rankings for the first time in school history. Illinois led the nation in scoring defense (12.8) for the first time in program history, led the nation and set a school record in interceptions (24), and ranked third in total defense (273.5).

Taurisani has worked with Bielema in all of his 16 years as a head coach - helping Bielema-coached teams to 12 bowl games - and came to Illinois after three seasons as the Director of Operations for the Michigan football program. He spent five seasons with Bielema at Arkansas, where he worked as Director of Football Operations, including the last four as Assistant Athletics Director. Prior to his stop in Fayetteville, Taurisani spent seven seasons at Wisconsin, including the final four as Director of Football Operations. He had been the football operations coordinator in 2008-09, following two seasons as an operations assistant in 2006-07. 

In total, Taurisani has coordinated 14 bowl trips and two Big Ten Championship Game trips throughout his career, and has served as a member of the Rose Bowl Advisory Committee since 2010. At Wisconsin, he was part of three Big Ten Championship-winning teams and seven bowl trips, including the 2010, 2011, and 2012 Rose Bowls.

A native of Utica, New York, Taurisani graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in sports and exercise, earning all-conference first team honors as captain of the baseball team. He spent the summer of 2005 as a training camp assistant with the Seattle Seahawks, which went on to win the NFC and appear in Super Bowl XL. Taurisani earned a master’s degree in sport administration from Louisville in 2005.

Taurisani and his wife, Tara, have three daughters, Rose, Avery, and Matea.