Adapted from The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos by Armen Keteyian and John Talty to be published by Harper Books, August 27, 2024. The Price is an in-depth look at an inflection point in college football where name, image and likeness, the transfer portal and conference realignment have turned the sport upside down.
Written by six-time New York Times best-selling author Keteyian and award-winning national college football reporter Talty, The Price features sweeping coast-to-coast reporting that includes more than two hundred wide-ranging interviews with head coaches, athletic directors, conference commissioners, politicians, power brokers, thought leaders, agents and media executives at a time of tumultuous change in big-time college football. Those interviews revealed never-before-reported details on major players such as Nick Saban, Jim Harbaugh, Jimbo Fisher, Lane Kiffin and many more.
You can order a copy of The Price here. Signed copies of the book are also available for order here.
MARYLAND FINALLY FOUND WHAT IT believed to be the quarterback who could elevate the program to the next level, but the vultures were circling. A program that had produced NFL star receivers like Stefon Diggs and D. J. Moore could never quite find the right guy to lead the offense. It had been more than twenty years since a Maryland quarterback (Scott Zolak) had been drafted.
But Taulia Tagovailoa was different.
The younger brother of Miami Dolphins starting quarterback Tua, Taulia didn't have quite the talent of his older brother, but he was significantly better than anything Terrapins fans had seen under center in a long time. With a capable quarterback, Maryland fans were dreaming of bowl game trips after mostly hitting midtier bowls, if any at all, since a 2001 Orange Bowl appearance.
Taulia started his career at Alabama, part of a quarterback room that included three future starting NFL quarterbacks in his older brother Tua, Jalen Hurts, and Mac Jones. He spent a single season in Tuscaloosa before realizing if he wanted to see the field more often than just in mop-up duty at the end of a blowout win, he'd have to seek out greener pastures. He needed to get away from the long shadow Tua cast over him too. Lia was quieter and shyer than his big brother, and seemed so used to being in his shadow at Alabama that he had gotten used to it. He had the talent to be more than just Tua's younger brother though.
For a kid born in Hawaii, Maryland might not have been the most natural fit, but the connection to head coach Mike Locksley was undeniable. Locksley played a big role in the development of older brother Tua, to the point that the family felt comfortable entrusting him with Lia. He also had a clear path to the starting job at a program desperate for consistency at the quarterback position.
Taulia led Maryland to a 2-2 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season in his first year as a starter, and followed it up with a 7-6 2021 year that included Maryland's first bowl trip in five years. Maryland entered the 2022 season with loftier expectations and started the season 6-2, including a one-score loss to No. 4 Michigan. As Maryland's on-field play improved, so too did Galu Tagovailoa's influence over his son.
Galu Tagovailoa was the epitome of the quarterback dad. He was an okay athlete himself but seemed to live vicariously through his two sons. When Tua was Alabama's starting quarterback, Galu was a frequent visitor to the Tide's practices, unafraid to let coaches know if he believed they were handling his son incorrectly. He even went toe-to-toe with Nick Saban during Tua's final season in Tuscaloosa, a feat few have achieved and lived to talk about. Galu was so hands-on with Tua that he turned the naturally right-handed boy into a left-handed-throwing quarterback just because he wanted another left-hander in the family.
Taulia was allowed to stay right-handed, but Galu was just as involved in his career. The Maryland starting quarterback wasn't shy about needing more NIL money, pushing the coaching staff to find more opportunities for him to make some. Those around the program believe that though Lia might have been making the ask, the source of the question was Galu. "His dad is a menace," one source around the program said. Before Maryland's Mayo Bowl game appearance against North Carolina State, Tagovailoa and two other players went to Locksley and said they'd need $50,000 each to play in the game, according to sources familiar with the situation. Tagovailoa then threw one touchdown pass in a 16–12 Maryland win over NC State that might be best remembered for Locksley getting a vat of Duke's mayo dumped on his head afterward.
There was a belief that Lia could declare for the NFL Draft after the 2022 season, but after working out an NIL deal, he agreed to return for his final season. The school announced the news in a social media post featuring a goat, a not-so-subtle nod to Tagovailoa's quarterback status for the school.
"My goal when coming to Maryland was to help Coach Locksley turn this program around," Taulia said in a statement. "After winning back-to- back bowl games, I believe we have things going in the right direction. But we're not done yet. I'm not done yet. After careful deliberation, I have decided to return for my senior season."
That statement was intended to put an end to any rumors of Taulia leaving, but it didn't take long before they started cranking up again. Just a month later, the in-demand quarterback met with his head coach and asked him what he could do to keep him at Maryland.
"He's begging me, 'Coach what can you do? I don't want to leave, there's no place I'd rather be than here, but what is it you can do?'" Locksley said. "I'm like 'I'll do the best I can.'"
It turned out that as much as Maryland fans appreciated Taulia's potential, so, too, did fans of quarterback-needy programs across the country. No position was more valuable than quarterback, where starters willing to shop their services in the transfer portal could command upwards of $1 million annually.
That big offer came his way: $1.5 million from an SEC school for a single season, according to the quarterback. Taulia didn't name the school, but according to sources familiar with the situation, Auburn was after Maryland's quarterback. That created a complicated situation for Taulia, who started his career at Alabama and whose brother won a national championship at the school. Could Tagovailoa really leave Maryland to play at Alabama's biggest rival?
At times, the answer looked like yes. Taulia hadn't entered the transfer portal yet, but that hadn't stopped a message from making its way to him and his family that there was a lot of outside interest in his abilities.
He had a chance to make life-changing money and return to the Southeastern Conference if only he jumped in the portal. As enticing as it all was, it was equally stressful for a college student who had a chance to be Maryland's greatest quarterback if he returned to College Park.
"Taulia had so much going on that at one point he just needed a full day to decompress and get his mind together," said Maryland offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. "Because of the nature of college football and the quarterback market, you think no one should talk to your kids, but this word 'tampering' is not enforced. There's all different ways that people get in contact with players."
Maryland didn't have anywhere near the powder keg of finances available that an SEC blue blood did, but all the key power players knew the program couldn't afford to lose the player who represented the biggest source of preseason hope for a famously fickle fan base. It was as much about the message it would send that Maryland wasn't serious about competing with the big boys as it was about Tagovailoa's impact on the team.
When (athletic director Damon) Evans heard the rumors about Tagovailoa leaving were real, his instruction to Locksley was simple: We can't let him leave. On the verge of what everyone expected to be a breakout season for Maryland football, the loss of Taulia could be devastating.
"You lose your starting quarterback? You lose your starting quarterback? For a school like us that's trying to build, that's harder to overcome," Evans said. "Michigan State lost their starting quarterback Payton Thorne, but Michigan State is a much more established program. Some programs can overcome that, but it would have knocked us back a couple steps and we don't need that right now."
Complicating matters was a belief that Taulia's father, Galu, was pushing him to secure the biggest possible offer. It got serious enough that Tua, now with the Miami Dolphins, got involved. Tua, who won Locksley his first national championship in 2017, couldn't stand to let his younger brother go to Alabama's biggest rival.
"We're an Alabama family," Tua told his younger brother. "You're not going to Auburn."
Still, a day before Maryland's spring game on April 29, Taulia was still contemplating entering the transfer portal. Locksley had to work the phones of loyal Maryland football supporters to raise as much money as he could to keep what he thought was one of the nation's best quarterbacks in his program. Ultimately, Tagovailoa got a significant deal in six figures to stay at Maryland, but nowhere near the $1.5 million he publicly claimed to have turned down.
"I got a homeboy discount because we ain't paying him one point five [million]," Locksley said. "Now, down the road, would we? Who knows how this thing's gonna shake out."
When it was all said and done, even Taulia had to stop and acknowledge how wild the entire scenario was. "It was crazy," Tagovailoa said. "I think the people I talked to, telling me like, 'Bro, that's crazy,' but I feel like it's bigger than the money, bigger than anything like that. I'm locked in with Maryland and now I'm going to finish out over here."
THE MUSIC CITY BOWL PAIRED Maryland up against Auburn, the school that months earlier was extremely interested in the Terrapins' top quarterback. It could have been a full circle moment for Taulia Tagovailoa, except he opted out of the bowl game.
Despite already using up his five years of eligibility, Taulia wanted to keep playing at the college level. Except he didn't want to do it at Maryland. Instead, he wanted Maryland and Alabama to sign off on a waiver appeal so he could pick a third school. The belief around college football was that the likely destination was Miami, a Galu Tagovailoa–influenced move to put his two quarterback sons back in the same city.
The Tagovailoa camp called on ESPN's Pete Thamel to advance their argument for the waiver publicly. Lia had played in five games in 2019, one more than was allowed to a redshirt, but in two games, he only played a few snaps. The rules were clear that he had no remaining eligibility, but with everyone suing the NCAA these days, Tagovailoa opted to test the rules.
College administrators and coaches watched the situation closely. It could open a Pandora's box if a player who had used all his eligibility could keep playing college football. What was stopping a player without any legitimate excuses, like injury-influenced waivers, from playing six, seven, eight, maybe even nine years of college football? The NCAA granting Taulia's appeal could open those doors.
Instead, the NCAA denied the appeal and let Taulia know right before the deadline to enter the NFL Draft. He would have no choice but to start preparing for the NFL if he wanted to keep playing football.
It ended Tagovailoa's tenure at Maryland on a bittersweet note. In his four years in College Park, Tagovailoa became the Big Ten's all-time leading passer, surpassing players like Drew Brees. He guided Maryland to three consecutive bowl games, a rare feat for a school that thrashed around. But rather than one last hurrah in a bowl game, he had wanted to head elsewhere, only to get shut down.
Locksley, who signed off on Taulia's waiver, tried to be reasonable about it all, taking the emotion out of it and acknowledging this was the world he lived in now.
"As the head coach here, my job is to do what's best for Maryland," he said. "We have to do what's best for Maryland, he has to do what's best for Lia. We're starting to see this is the business side of college football. This is what NIL has created, the portal has created. I can't be mad at Lia for making a decision like that, but he can't call me selfish, either, if I decided, why would I write a waiver?
"One of the things that I have always tried to do and anybody who knows me will say this: I can be Petty Pendergrass sometimes, but I always try to reverse engineer at least and look at it from that perspective. He took a pay cut this year and stayed here at Maryland. He had better offers to go to other places, but he chose to stay here. That's huge on his part, and it helped us, it helped me, it helped our program. So, when I reverse engineered, I saw that it was kind of selfish, but I also knew that I probably wouldn't be able to afford what he was going to be offered by somebody else. And so, how can I be mad at the kid? It's business."
There was an upside to it too: Locksley could see what he had at the quarterback position heading into the following season. Maryland had already grabbed M. J. Morris, who started five games for North Carolina State that season, and had Billy Edwards and Cameron Edge returning.
Maryland looked fantastic against Auburn, racing out to a 21–0 first-quarter lead that showed the country what the Terrapins could do against an SEC opponent that should have beaten Alabama in the Iron Bowl. It was a youth movement, with Maryland players fired up and flying around the field. "Maryland has put an infomercial for 2024 on ABC," play-by-play announcer Taylor Zarzour exclaimed.
Maryland finished strong and beat Auburn, 31–13. After the game, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze claimed he was too busy with recruiting to be involved much in the game planning ahead of the loss. It was another sign of the times.
