What if Tua Tagovailoa IS The Dolphins Best Quarterback?
People are scoffing at the benching of Ryan Fitzpatrick, but Tua Tagovailoa might be the best quarterback to get Miami to the postseason.
Before I talk about Tua Tagovailoa, I’d like to tell you about someone you’ve probably never heard of; his name is Ryder Kuhns.
Kuhns was a redshirt-senior first baseman for the University of Hawaii baseball team last season. He’d bounced between a pair of Division-I programs and junior colleges before landing at UH, but if you go back a little further, you might be able to learn something about the Miami Dolphins.
Before he was a college baseball player, Kuhns attended St. Louis School, one of Hawaii’s most prominent high school athletic powerhouses. He didn’t just star on the baseball diamond.
In the Fall of 2013, as a junior, Kuhns became the Crusaders starting quarterback. While he didn’t lead them to a deep postseason run, Kuhns led the conference in passing yards, touchdowns, and finished second in completion percentage. St. Louis finished the season with a 6–3 record.
On the year, including both in and out of conference games, Kuhns threw for 1,911 yards, 25 touchdowns, just six interceptions, with a 66.5% completion percentage, and was named first-team all-conference at quarterback.
Back in 2014, I was still a high school student in Hawaii occasionally broadcasting high school football games as part of the Aloha Stadium Stars program. The most isolated and one of the smallest states in the country, it’s easy to forget that Hawaii produces FBS and NFL football players at some of the country’s highest rates.
That season, it just so happened that one of my first assignments of the year was a St. Louis contest against California power St. John Bosco High School. John Bosco dominated the game from the start. Quarterbacked by future NFL first-round pick Josh Rosen, Bosco’s roster was just far too talented for the Crusaders to keep up.
Kuhns struggled to move the ball and finished the game 9–20 for just 50 yards with an interception. Already down three touchdowns in the second quarter, St. Louis moved him to the bench for a relatively unheralded sophomore named Tua Tagovailoa.
Tagovailoa played mostly against his opponent’s second string, and the game’s result was already decided, but it didn’t stop him from making an impression. The game ended in a 63–14 John Bosco blowout victory, but Tagovailoa went 10–15 for 137 passing yards and two touchdowns. He also 51 rushing yards on three carries.
Walking away from the game, a friend and I were perplexed. Rosen had already committed to UCLA and was considered one of the best prospects in the country. He looked solid and far superior to Kuhns, but in comparison to Tagovailoa, he failed to stand out. Looking back, it makes sense why.
Needless to say, a couple of weeks later, St. Louis coach Cal Lee decided to make Tagovailoa the starting quarterback. Kuhns was a good high school quarterback, but Tagovailoa was transcendent. Still, that didn’t stop fans from being skeptical. Below are a pair of comments on an article about Lee’s decision to move on from Kuhns:
Kekoa September 10, 2014 8:39 pm
Absolute JOKE. Lee has lost it.
SomethingFishy September 12, 2014 9:24 am
Something very fishy is going on. Are they saying Kuhns wouldn’t have put those kind of numbers up against Pac-Five? C’mon now. There’s more to this story than we are being told.
People believe in what they’ve seen, whether it’s in high school, college, or the NFL.
When Alabama chose to move on from Jalen Hurts in the second half of the national championship game, plenty were probably skeptical. Hurts had been the Crimson Tide starter for two seasons and led them to the NCAAF Playoff in both seasons as a starter. It didn’t matter. Tagovailoa delivered the pass that will cement him in Alabama lore and changed college football forever.
Tagovailoa has followed in the footsteps of good quarterbacks at every level of his career. He, however, has always been too talented for coaches to ignore. It’s hard not to see the parallels with Ryan Fitzpatrick.
While Fitzpatrick has garnered a significant cult following over his 16-year career, he’s far from an exceptional quarterback. The NFL’s franchise tag exists for one reason, to prevent star quarterbacks from changing teams. There’s a reason no team has ever considered using the tag on Fitzpatrick.
Over his career, Fitz has a mediocre 220–168 touchdown-to-interception ratio and an abysmal 58–86–1 record as a starter. While neither stat are perfect evaluators of a quarterback’s ability, it’s telling that Fitzpatrick has started at least six games in twelve seasons, he’s won more games than he’s lost just one time. In fact, his 3–3 record this season is only the fourth time he’s managed even a .500 record with at least four starts.
Set to turn 38 years old next month, discussing Fitzpatrick’s six games in 2020 as if they define him as a quarterback is an absurd assertion. The fact is, Fitzpatrick is a competent NFL quarterback, ranking among the best backup options in the league. That’s who the Dolphins signed Fitzpatrick to be.
It seems that once again, people have become invested in the competent option in front of Tagovailoa that they’ve forgotten the caliber of player he is capable of being.
Does the same transcendent stardom he found in high school and college await Tua Tagovailoa in the NFL? Only time will tell. But if you believe the Dolphins only benched Ryan Fitzpatrick because they are giving up on the season, you probably should consider the story of Ryder Kuhns.
