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Analyst believes Auburn made ‘big swing’ QB offer in transfer portal

By Andrew Hughes

FanSided's Cody Williams believes Auburn football tried to make a "big swing" offer to a top QB in the transfer portal this offseason Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
FanSided's Cody Williams believes Auburn football tried to make a "big swing" offer to a top QB in the transfer portal this offseason Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /
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Auburn football landed Payton Thorne in the transfer portal to address the Tigers’ quarterback situation, but one analyst believes Hugh Freeze and Co. attempted in vain to land Maryland QB Taulia Tagovailoa. According to FanSided’s Cody Williams, AU “probably” offered Tagovailoa crazy money to transfer to the Plains.

“When you then look at the productivity and the upgrade in efficiency in the passing game that Tagovialoa could’ve provided, it’s not hard to connect these hypothetical dots to Auburn,” Williams prefaced before saying, “We know that the Tigers have been investing big time in NIL once Freeze arrived to revive the program from the disaster that Brian Harsin left, so it only stands to reason that they would’ve tried to take a big swing to upgrade the quarterback spot in the transfer portal.” Tagovailoa revealed that’d it be a tough decision in his situation to leave Maryland for somewhere he isn’t sure will feel like home in the same way.

“It would be hard for me to go to another place and not be happy but have all the money in the world,” Tagovailoa prefaced before saying, “(I’d rather) be at a place where maybe I don’t have as much, but I’m happy and I’m here to work. It can be eye-opening, but I think for my situation — if I was in a different situation where maybe I didn’t have a brother in the NFL or maybe my parents, it’d be a different situation.”

Taulia Tagovailoa would’ve been unquestioned Auburn football QB1 had Hugh Freeze landed him

There’s no way around the truth: Tagovailoa is undoubtedly a superior option to anyone in the Auburn football QB room at current. While Thorne’s 2021 season with Michigan State was superior to any of Tagovailoa’s two seasons starting in College Park, his 2022 season resulted in his QB1 status in East Lansing being called into question.

There’s technically no QB1 as we speak, but had Tagovailoa made his way to the Plains, that wouldn’t have been the case less than a month out from the 2023 season’s opening kickoff.

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