The 2023 college football season is steadily approaching, and as teams roundup their conference media days, the next stop is fall camp in preparation of September’s season openers. One program that has gotten better each of the last few seasons is Maryland Terrapins under head coach Mike Locksley and quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa.
In fact, Tagovailoa has broken numerous records since his arrival in College Park in 2020, while posting a (16-13) record as a starter.
When you play as well as Tagovailoa has, the offseason will always bring suitors looking to convince him to transfer in this new era of the portal. During Big Ten media days, Tagovailoa mentioned how the suitors came offering some pretty big bags to get him to transfer, but he stayed true to the Terps.
Lia Offered $1.5M To Vacate College Park
Tagovailoa called the offer of $1.5M from an SEC program, “crazy money.” In most cases players would’ve jettisoned with that type of life-changing money on the table, but Lia didn’t, and he explained why he stayed.
“It can be eye-opening, but I think for my situation — if I was in a different situation where maybe I didn’t have a brother in the NFL, or maybe my parents, It’d be a different situation,” he said of walking away from the offer.”
Taulia’s older brother is Miami Dolphins starting quarterback and 2020 No. 5 overall pick Tua Tagovailoa.
Possibility Of Taulia Leaving Worried Locksley
Terps head coach Mike Locksley, who’s entering his fifth season in College Park told reporters at the media days that he was definitely afraid he’d lose his star QB.
“I knocked on wood before the spring game and many of y’all didn’t understand what I was saying,” Locksley said. “You hear the rumors, you know some of the things are going on out there behind the scenes.
“No, I was not comfortable until I saw him run out after the transfer portal window closed up. But even then, a guy that’s a graduate can still leave and go play somewhere. I haven’t had a lot of nights of great sleep.”
Locks had every right to be nervous about losing Taulia, who owns the school record in passing yards, touchdowns, completion percentage, passing efficiency, 300-yard passing games, and most completions.
That’s including last season’s, 3,008 yards passing, 18 touchdowns and 67 percent completion percentage.
The Terps are predicted to finish fourth in the supremely tough Big Ten East behind the usual suspects, Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State.