Texas Football: Mike Yurcich has past ties to transfer QB Taulia Tagovailoa

A now highly sought after name is in the NCAA Transfer Portal with past ties to Texas football OC Mike Yurcich, with Alabama QB Taulia Tagovailoa.

The NCAA Transfer Portal has brought drama to the college football landscape at the quarterback position yet again. And the Texas football program is in a position to take advantage of that drama. Former four-star recruit and Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa put his name in the transfer portal and should immediately become one of the most highly sought after at his position on the open market.

Entering the 2020 season, Tagovailoa will be in just his redshirt freshman year so he’s still got a lot of eligibility remaining. This means that the Texas Longhorns football program could try and snag him out of the transfer portal to compete for a starting spot once the time for rising senior star quarterback Sam Ehlinger has his eligibility up in college.

The Longhorns do have a host of other quarterbacks that could be sitting and waiting for their opportunity to become the next starter post-Ehlinger. That list includes the likes of Hudson Card, Casey Thompson, and 2021 commit Jalen Milroe. But adding a Tagovailoa to the list could make the quarterback room that much more potent.

Head coach Tom Herman has become adept to adding roster pieces out of the transfer portal since taking over prior to the 2017 season with Texas. But he has yet to really add a long term transfer that has multiple years of eligibility remaining in college.

Tagovailoa could change all that if Herman and the Longhorns were willing to take the risk.

The first report that the little brother Tagovailoa was entering the transfer portal came from the Twitter timeline of Matt Zenitz of al.com. Zenitz added in a follow-up tweet that Tagovailoa had comparisons to former Penn State Nittany Lions star quarterback Trace McSorley.

Last season, Tagovailoa played in just three games to maintain his redshirt year. He had 12 passing attempts, completing nine of them, for 100 yards and one touchdown. He had no interceptions during his true freshman campaign.

Entering the 2020 offseason, there was set to be a potential brewing quarterback competition with the Crimson Tide between Tagovailoa and Mac Jones. Former Alabama star signal caller (and Taulia’s older brother) Tua Tagovailoa declared early for the 2020 NFL Draft. Tua was picked in the first round of the draft, fifth overall, by the Miami Dolphins.

If there were any chance that Jones was going to win the quarterback competition over Taulia, it’s understandable why he would enter the transfer portal. Younger quarterbacks have found success joining other Power Five programs around the country if they’ll have to face more time on the bench. Just look at former Georgia Bulldog Justin Fields transferring to Ohio State and former Texas Tech Red Raider Baker Mayfield transferring to Oklahoma.

The more often discussed landing spots for Tagovailoa after putting his name in the portal already includes the Tennessee Volunteers, Miami Hurricanes, and LSU Tigers. If Tagovailoa a spot where he had the confidence he could go and start right away (assuming he has to sit one year anyway), then the Longhorns might give him confidence that he could do that.

But the Longhorns do have a lot of talent left in the quarterback room beyond Ehlinger. This would have to be something of the works of recently hired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, since he has yet to get a quarterback commit/signee of his own doing since landing on the Forty Acres.

When he was the Oklahoma State Cowboys offensive coordinator under head coach Mike Gundy, Yurcich and that staff did send an offer to Tagovailoa. Oklahoma State offered Tagovailoa back in December 2017, and was one of the first six programs to do so.

Yurcich looks to have bought into what Tagovailoa’s promise brought to the table over the long haul at one point, and he might want to again.

Coming out of Thompson High School in Alabaster, AL, Tagovailoa ranked as the nation’s No. 180 2019 high school prospect, No. 5 pro-style quarterback, and No. 8 prospect out of Alabama (247Sports Composite). He also held offers from the Florida Gators, Michigan Wolverines, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oregon Ducks, Ole Miss Rebels, South Carolina Gamecocks, Utah Utes, LSU, and Tennessee.

Texas was not one of the more than one-dozen programs that offered Tagovailoa coming out of high school.

In terms of the long-term value that Tagovailoa brings to the table and any past ties with Yurcich and Oklahoma State, there is some sense to the Longhorns at least testing the waters with him. They have plenty of quarterback talent on the Forty Acres at the moment, so this isn’t a dire need by any means, but there is some merit to pursuing such a big name transfer prospect.