The relationship between Maryland head football coach Michael Locksley and starting quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa is built on more than just wins and losses.
It’s also built on trust.
“If they trust you, they’ll play for you,” Locksley said. “I’m a big believer that for us to be the best football team we can be, it starts with trust, first and foremost, and understanding that I care for them more about the person than I do the football player.”
For Tagovailoa, family is everything. His family is built on trust, too. His parents, Diane and Galu, care more about him being taken care of as a person than a football player.
Tagovailoa believes he can talk to Locksley about anything ranging from football to life. The Hawaii native says this allows him to be more comfortable on the field.
“Having a coach like that, it just helps you to play more comfortable, more confident,” Tagovailoa said. “And for me, I think the biggest thing that helps me out is I can always talk to him anytime — anytime of the day, whether I have a question about a protection, or if I have a question about the nearest mall.”
Tagovailoa’s trust in Locksley has led him to the top of the program’s leaderboards in career passing yards (7,789), single-season passing yards (3,860), career passing touchdowns (51), career 300-yard passing games (12) and numerous other categories. The Terps are 15-11 since the beginning of the 2021 season with Tagovailoa leading the way.
Tagovailoa and Locksley’s relationship dates back to when the former was being recruited out of Thompson High School in Alabama. Tagovailoa, a consensus four-star recruit at the time, was dominant at Thompson, catching the attention of head coaches all over the country — including Nick Saban.
One of the coaches involved with recruiting Tagovailoa to Alabama was Locksley, who was on Saban’s staff from 2016-2018. Tagovailoa committed to the Crimson Tide in April 2018. Alabama had already recruited Tagovailoa’s brother, Tua, who played in Tuscaloosa from 2017-2019.
“Having coached and been a part of the Tua recruitment, I was very familiar with the family. The thing that I think jumps out is the family. This is a football family, a close-knit group,” Locksley said. “I think the thing that probably jumped out the most about Lia, when you watch how this process went, is here’s a guy that threw for over 14,000 yards as a high school quarterback.”
However, recruiting is not just about convincing the player to join the program. It’s about developing a level of trust with the family.
“In this recruiting process, the parents are giving you the most prized possession they have, which is their child,” Locksley said. “They’re giving them to you as a coach with the hopes of you being able to finish the process of them becoming men. You have to, obviously, win over the family. They have to trust you. They’ve got to know that you have the things in place that allows their son to become the best version of himself because of the time he spent with you. And there’s no doubt that we put a lot of time, energy and effort into developing really strong relationships.”
Locksley moved on to his current position as the head coach at Maryland following the 2018 season, and Tagovailoa didn’t play for Alabama until 2019, so the two never overlapped beyond the recruiting process. However, it was not long until they reunited on the East Coast.
Tagovailoa entered his name into transfer portal following the 2019 season, causing coaches all of the country to seek his services. Although Locksley had a relationship with Tagovailoa already, the coach was still unsure if his former recruit would commit to the Terrapins.
“You just never know,” Locksley said of convincing Tagovailoa to come to Maryland. “I had a great relationship with Jalen Hurts and I thought that we would have a chance to when he decided to transfer and he decided to go to Oklahoma. Depending on where the program was at the time, I thought we had the ability and evidence to show Lia that we had some things in place.”
“I never assumed that we would be able to close the deal and finish it with him being a Terp,” Locksley added. “But I did think because of the longstanding relationships I had with his family, with his brother that I would have some help in house that would at least give us a chance.”
Tagovailoa left Alabama not because he was unhappy but to “make a name” for himself and get out of his brother’s “shadow.” Locksley may have been unsure if he could convince Tagovailoa to become a Terp, but the biggest reason Tagovailoa joined Maryland was his relationship with Locksley.
“I think the biggest thing was Coach Locksley,” Tagovailoa said of joining Maryland. “My whole family is built on trust. My mom just wanted to make sure that I’m good with school, that I graduate, have a place to stay and that I’m safe. My dad trusts [Locksley], that he’s going to prepare me for every game and he’s going to continue to coach me and continue to train me to get better every year and to reach my ultimate goal, [which] is to make it to the NFL.”
Since then, Tagovailoa has broken numerous school records and has led the Terps to consecutive bowl game wins in 2021 (Pinstripe Bowl) and 2022 (Duke’s Mayo Bowl). To Tagovailoa, Maryland is “home.” The football program wouldn’t be where it is today without him, according to Locksley.
“I don’t think we are the program we are today if it wasn’t for Lia,” Locksley said. “The things he’s been able to do as a quarterback and as a leader of our program, he has carried a lot of the weight for us. He hasn’t done it alone. The best thing about football is that it is the ultimate team sport. He’s been surrounded by really good players.”
Sophomore running back Roman Hemby also knows how much Tagovailoa means to the team. To Hemby, Tagovailoa is like a “big brother.” He describes the relationship between Locksley and Tagovailoa as father and son.
“The relationship between him and Coach Locksley is definitely like a father figure type of relationship,” Hemby said. “I feel like Coach Locksley definitely keeps it real with all of us. But he keeps it real with [Tagovailoa], being the leader of our offense. … And I think Coach Locksley knows how important he is to us. And they kind of make sure that they’re on the same page with everything.”
One of the biggest things that Locksley has noticed about Tagovailoa is that the quarterback has gotten better at controlling his emotions as he has grown older. Locksley said Tagovailoa “came in as a really emotional quarterback” but has since become more even-keeled.
“The thing I’ve seen the most out of Lia is his ability to control his emotions,” Locksley said. “Because early on in his career, he’d make a big play and it was a huge celebration. Then when bad things happen they lingered on. To be a good player, you’ve got to stay in the now you’ve got to understand that you’re only as good as your next play.”
Tagovailoa says controlling his emotions is a work in progress.
“Getting to know myself more, learning to really train myself with my emotions,” Tagovailoa said. “That doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s a process. It’s something I’m still working on during fall camp and stuff like that. … Celebrating is always good. But when hard times come when you’re trying to fight through adversity as the quarterback of the team, people look at you. So you can’t show anyone that you’re feeling down or you’re not confident. I think that’s something I’m trying to work on.”
Tagovailoa revealed this summer that he turned down $1.5 million to transfer to an SEC team. Instead, the quarterback returned to College Park because of “unfinished business.” A Big Ten championship is the ultimate goal for the team after two winning seasons.
Tagovailoa is joined by new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis this upcoming season. Gattis was previously the offensive coordinator at Miami (2022), Michigan (2019-2021) and Alabama (2018). Gattis was the co-offensive coordinator with the Crimson Tide with Locksley.
“A player like that having the opportunity to leave and potentially go to the NFL, for him to come back it shows his commitment to this program and his commitment to Coach Locksley speaks a lot,” Gattis said of Tagovailoa. “I think it talks about the character of the young man that leads this team and it also talks about the relationships he also has because he enjoys being a Maryland football player.”
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics