Maybe the Maryland Office of Tourism Development should contact Tyrrell Pigrome.
The veteran — and we mean veteran — seventh-year college quarterback now at Towson, has twice looked far and wide and chosen Maryland as his preferred place to live, eat lots of seafood, pursue his pigskin passion and continue his education in the classroom and on the gridiron.
“I do love it here,” he said. “I was always a big fan of seafood in Louisiana, but now I love crabs and sushi and there are so many great places [in and around Baltimore] and then all the other things that make it special here.”
The Tigers began the season 2-4, but Pigrome’s teammates believe in their well-traveled, veteran quarterback at the helm.
“He’s a leader on the field and has a tenacity to him that I love,” Towson graduate center Cole Cheripko said. “He’s never going to back down. He’s always going to go after it.”
Pigrome first began going “after it” in college in 2016, when he left his Birmingham, Ala., home and matriculated to College Park. He played four seasons for the Terrapins, though just one game in 2017, when he injured his knee. In 2020, it was off to Western Kentucky and a great season with the Hilltoppers. Degree in hand, Pigrome was free to roam about the country and go anywhere before the pandemic blew up the transfer rules and everyone jumped on the merry-go-round.
After one season at WKU, Pigrome wanted a return to the big-time and had suitors, including Mississippi, where former Maryland coach DJ Durkin had landed. Pigrome went to Oxford, too, but he never threw a pass at Ole Miss, ultimately landing back in the Old Line State this fall.
And that’s working out just fine.
“He has been a great teammate, walking in not knowing the offense, not knowing the people,” Towson head coach Rob Ambrose said. “He ingratiates himself into the culture of the team, just wants to help. I can’t say enough about what kind of teammate he is.”
For his part, Pigrome liked what he heard from Ambrose and his staff in the recruiting process. He didn’t commit until late July, and then started playing catch-up learning the offense, meeting teammates and trying to finish his extended college career on a high note.
His pedigree — playing at Maryland after being recruited by Auburn, Virginia Tech and Rutgers, among others — might have made some feel entitled. He doesn’t think that way.
“It’s just respect,” Pigrome said. “I don’t feel like ‘I’ve been here, I’ve been there, I’ve played here and there.’ Everyone is equal, we’re all even. My mom and dad brought me up to respect others, treat people like you want to be treated.”
Oh, and that respect goes deeper than just how Pigrome relates to teammates, coaches, classmates and everyone else. It extends to doing things the right way, following a process and a creed he believes will bear better results than had he ever received any special treatment.
“[Towson coaches] told me the QB job was open but that it wouldn’t be given to me,” Pigrome said of his recruitment this summer. “I loved that part. Nothing is given to you a day in your life. Why would you go somewhere where they’re telling you they’re giving you something, but you may not have earned it in practice? That’s not fair. I wouldn’t want to be on the field that way. I want to work for it.”
And he has. Pigrome didn’t start the first game of the 2022 season after a three-way battle for the job with fellow grad transfer Tyler Johnston III of Alabama-Birmingham and redshirt freshman Scott Smith III, a local product from Brooklandville. Smith got the opening game start, but Pigrome relieved him and went 21-of-36, passing for 195 yards and rushing for 31 yards in a 14-13 overtime victory at Bucknell.
Pigrome started in Week 2 in the “Battle of Baltimore,” going 14-for-25 for 157 yards and three touchdowns against Morgan State. He also rushed for 124 yards. Towson scratched out a hard-fought 29-21 victory but dropped four straight games after that. The Tigers hope to claw their way back into the thick of things and have three home games left — William & Mary Oct. 22, Villanova Nov. 5 and Hampton Nov. 19.
“I feel comfortable here and things have been going so well and smooth for me,” Pigrome said. “I’m enjoying my time here.”
Of course, Pigrome also enjoyed Maryland, where he played in 34 games (seven starts and a lot of spot duty). Pigrome threw for 1,777 yards while completing 56.7 percent of his throws and was responsible for 17 touchdowns. Memorably, he led a 2017 opening day upset of No. 23 Texas before he got hurt in the third quarter and missed the rest of the season.
He nearly pulled off another shocker the following season, when the Terrapins came within a whisker of a win against Ohio State in a 52-51 overtime thriller. Pigrome had Maryland two touchdowns ahead in the third quarter and with a 45-38 lead late in regulation. On a potential game-winning two-point play at the end, Pigrome’s pass to Jeshuan Jones fell incomplete.
“My second year when I got injured, I felt that was my year to show what I could do,” he recalled. “I came off the injury, but I wasn’t as comfortable as I was before [the injury].”
Quarterbacks were coming and going at Maryland as coaches changed. Pigrome joined the exodus with the chance to play at WKU, where he threw for a career-best 1,603 yards and nine touchdowns, running for 337 more yards and four more scores.
All along, the 5-foot-10, 200-pound dynamo kept his head down and kept improving. He got his degree in family science at Maryland and is a semester away from earning a master’s degree in business. He majored in sports management at WKU and business and marketing at Ole Miss. His true passion, beyond the gridiron, is fashion. Always a sharp dresser, he hopes to use football as a launching pad into that industry. Hence the business classes and some fashion courses at Towson.
He loves to help his friends put together outfits and stylish looks, breaking it down like he’s reading defensive tendencies and coverages.
“I want to go all over the world and learn more about it,” he said.
“He loves his clothes and shoes,” said his mother, Audrey Pigrome. “Since he was a little boy growing up, he loved to dress up. I started it, but he has kept it up ever since. I bought his clothes, but he kept them neat. He would come home from school and wipe his shoes off and put them up.”
Pigrome is still cleaning up, working hard to make this season a great one.
“I’ve just been trying to grow as a player and a person, learn more off the field and on the field,” he said of his journey. “I’ve learned so much. I’ve improved my mechanics and watched film so I can get to where I want to be.”
Pigrome wants his shot at the NFL and a chance to prove critics wrong again. Projections about his career have always seemed to lead with his size and not his production and results. Pigrome answers those questions with something current Florida head coach Billy Napier told him when Napier was an Alabama assistant at a 2015 Crimson Tide 7-on-7 camp Pigrome attended.
“He said, ‘Piggy, if anyone asks you how tall you are, tell them you’re tall enough,'” Pigrome said. “It’s gotten better, but early in my career if I threw a bad ball, it was like, ‘Oh Pigrome has a throwing problem.’ If another quarterback did it, they’d say it was on the wide receiver or the QB was off tonight. I’m changing that narrative and I just tell them if you want to see me throw the ball, come watch. I’ll work out for you any time.”
Pigrome is matter of fact in that explanation. He has done it before. He harbors no malice against the skeptics who literally sell him short. He just yearns for the chance to show what he can do. Seven years of college has brought a maturity, and after a fashion, another opportunity to shine.
Photo Credit: ENP Photography
Issue 277: October/November 2022
Originally published Oct. 19, 2022