For the third straight season under head coach Mike Locksley, the Maryland Terrapins are heading to a bowl game.
Maryland, who finished the regular season 7-5, will face the Auburn Tigers in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30.
One player who won’t be joining the Terps, however, is starting quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, who opted out of the game, Locksley said Tuesday.
Mike Locksley says that QB Taulia Tagovailoa has opted out vs. Auburn in the Music City Bowl
— Ahmed Ghafir (@ghafirtheturtle) December 19, 2023
As is the case with the majority of bowl opt-outs, it seems likely that Tagovailoa will be declaring for the 2024 NFL Draft and wants to shift his focus to that instead of to the bowl game.
Generally, players make that determination shortly after the bowl game is announced instead of midway through December, but Tagovailoa must have wanted to be sure he didn’t do something he would go on to regret and instead think it over for quite some time.
Tagovailoa finishes his career as the Big Ten’s all-time career passing leader, amassing 11,256 yards, narrowly edging out former Purdue Boilermaker Curtis Painter’s 11,163 career yards. His 76 career passing touchdowns are the most in Maryland history by far (Scott Milanovich’s 49 is a distant second place), and he’s one of just seven Big Ten quarterbacks to cross the 75 career passing touchdown threshold.
It wasn’t made immediately clear who would replace Tagovailoa under center for Maryland against Auburn. Of the Terrapins’451 pass attempts in the 2023 season, Tagovailoa attempted 437. Billy Edwards Jr. attempted ten passes this season, so logic states he would be the next man up for Maryland.
