The most prolific non-Baker Mayfield quarterback in college football this season was UCF’s McKenzie Milton. The sophomore led the Knights to a 13-0 record by putting up 4,037 yards passing, 37 passing touchdowns, 613 yards rushing, eight touchdowns on the ground, and a 179.3 passer rating with just nine interceptions.
QBs from Hawaii staked 2 national title claims in 2017, 3 years after Marcus Mariota took Oregon to the championship game
The islands have produced some great passers.
Photo by Todd Kirkland/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The best quarterback in the College Football Playoff National Championship this year was Tua Tagovailoa, a true freshman backup, who replaced Jalen Hurts at halftime and led Bama to a comeback from a 13-0 deficit. The result is that Alabama is 2017’s national champion, though UCF declared itself a claim on that title.
Milton and Tagovailoa have Hawaii roots in common.
Milton was a three-star recruit in the class of 2016, ranked as the No. 9 player on the islands, per the 247Sports Composite. Milton committed to UCF and became the first Hawaii native to ever play football there after a sparkling high school career. He led his alma mater, Mililani, to the 2014 state title. The team went undefeated, three years before Milton’s team at UCF would do the same thing. He had 81 touchdown passes and 7,303 yards passing in 34 high school games, UCF says, which is wild.
Tagovailoa, from Honolulu, was a more-sought recruit. He rated five stars on the Composite and was consistently evaluated as one of the best quarterbacks in the country. Whereas Milton’s only other listed FBS offers were from Hawaii and Air Force, Tagovailoa had more than a dozen FBS scholarship offers.
Both also have connections to the first player from Hawaii to win a Heisman.
Another local quarterback, Marcus Mariota, led Oregon to the title game in the 2014 season. Mariota and Milton shared a coach in Scott Frost, who was Oregon’s offensive coordinator before becoming UCF’s head coach. Milton used to watch Mariota’s games and wanted to emulate his play.
And the Titans QB has a close relationship with Bama’s, who went to the same high school in Honolulu:
Mariota stayed up a little past his bedtime to see Tagovailoa, a friend he has kept in touch with since high school, take down Georgia after entering the game at halftime when coach Nick Saban decided to bench starter Jalen Hurts. Tagovailoa led the Crimson Tide from down 13-0 to force overtime. In OT, he bounced back from a sack that lost 16 yards on first down to orchestrate a game-winning, 41-yard touchdown one play later and deliver a 26-23 victory and an Alabama championship.
”Tua is a stud. He’s the next guy coming up. Proud of him,” Mariota said. “From where that kid’s come, how he’s grown and how he handled the situation last night. He’s very special. Hopefully he can continue his success. I’m sure you guys saw the interview after the game. That’s who he is.”
Recruiting in Hawaii is different than most states, and even the best players are sort of like diamonds in the rough.
The islands are a six-hour flight from Los Angeles. They’re expensive and time-consuming to travel to, which means college coaches aren’t going unless they’ve got a really specific objective — seeing players they a) want, and b) feel confident they can sign. That’s different than mainland trips, where coaches often visit with players they’re not expecting to get.
Hawaii’s also well out of the way of the camp and combine circuit, to which so many players go to get noticed, at events put on by Nike, Under Armour, Rivals, or some other big organization. The result is that even players who are known to be good, like Tagovailoa, don’t get really hyped until they’ve shown out at a camp.
Tagovailoa was long expected to go to USC or Oregon. He wound up seeing Alabama during a tour of Southern colleges with his family, and he fell hard for the Tide. He cited a shared sense of religious faith as a key reason for picking Alabama.
Milton wasn’t totally off the radar. He had a star rating, which meant some evaluators at least knew who he was. But it’s hard not to imagine that Milton would’ve gotten more offers if he lived in a place where more recruiters were milling about.
If a team can do it, Hawaii is a place worth recruiting hard.
There are at least one or two blue-chip talents in the state in most recruiting cycles. But there are plenty more three-star types who turn out to be great contributors, and probably even more who could play Division I football but don’t get found because of where they live. Mariota, Milton, and Tagovailoa are just the most visible recent stars from a place that punches well above its weight in four- and five-star talent.
One Hawaii native who won’t get missed? Class of 2019 quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa. Tua’s brother lives in Alabama now. The Tide are the favorites.
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