Report: Taulia Tagovailoa says he received $1.5 million offer from SEC program

At least one prominent college football quarterback is claiming he had a seven-figure offer on the table should he transfer to another Power 5 school, with Maryland‘s Taulia Tagovailoa providing some unique insight into the inner workings of college football’s fascinating game of musical chairs.

Tagovailoa described the offer, a reported $1.5 million from an unnamed SEC team, as “crazy money” in a story that appeared in The Athletic detailing the news.

“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,” Tagovailoa told The Athletic’s Audrey Snyder.

The younger brother of former Alabama star and current Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, Taulia has starred for Maryland for the past three seasons. He’s really hit his stride the last two.

In the last two years, Tagovailoa has accounted for 6,868 passing yards with 44 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. He has run for another six scores.

He’s been a huge part of the reason Maryland has won seven games and eight games over the last two seasons after combining for just five wins total the previous two seasons.

In short, Tagovailoa is indispensable.

“I knocked on wood before the spring game and many of ya’ll didn’t understand what I was saying,” Maryland coach Mike 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 that 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.”

It’s hard to blame Locksley for those sleepless nights given Tagovailoa’s importance to the team.

And Maryland is far from the only Power 5 program that had to deal with rumors of their quarterback potentially being offered a lot of money to transfer elsewhere. Similar buzz surrounded both Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke and North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye throughout the offseason.

Both of those players remained at their respective schools, like Taulia Tagovailoa.

But it’s clear until further restrictions are put on NIL and the transfer portal that programs will have to watch out for their top talent being poached. That’s just the reality of life right now in college football.