 On November 18th in a game against Mercer, he threw for three passing touchdowns in the 56-0 victory. On January 8th, he replaced Hertz in the second half of the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship due to ineffective play by Hertz. He threw the game-winning 41-yard touchdown pass in overtime to another true freshman way to receive Devontae Smith as the Crimson Tide defeated the Georgia Bulldogs 26-23. What? All right, my friends. We're gonna have to shut that. I hope you're ready. I hope you are ready for yet another rugby player reacts to American Football video. Today, we're looking at the fifth pick from the 2020 NFL Draft, the star quarterback from Alabama, Tua Tangavaloa. The first time I saw Tua was in October of 2018 when I was doing some reactions to the 2018 College Football season. In fact, I'm gonna splice that clip in just a little bit. I'm gonna put in the time when I first heard his name or when I first tried to pronounce his name. All right, you guys. What is going on? Welcome back to another video. Today's video, you know, could go down in history. Who knows? I'm gonna look at Tua Tangavaloa. Something Polynesian. It sounds he is a star quarterback that's making a name for himself this season. I'm not sure if it's his first season or what, but I've got to look at him. We all know I did a video on Tangavaloa. So I know who he is now. So we've come a hell of a long way. It's been over a year and a half since that point. And Tua Tangavaloa has now been picked up as the fifth overall pick in the first round of the 2020 draft by none other than the Miami Dolphins. Now, Miami Dolphins, I've always loved their colors, but I haven't really. And also, who's that guy? Ricky Williams. I love Ricky Williams, too. But apart from that, I honestly don't know a hell of a lot about them. And we're probably not gonna learn too much about them today either. But what we are gonna do today is have a look at Tua's story. And then following that, we're gonna look at his college football highlights. I have looked at Tua once before, but I haven't seen a lot. In fact, you know, I've seen Tua. I've seen him since that point. But I haven't, I haven't really known exactly what makes him such a good quarterback. You know, everyone was saying, well, he's gonna be, he's gonna be the first pick, you know, he's the best quarterback in the league. He's better than Joe Burrow, that's for sure, except he had an injury, a season ending injury to his hip, which probably forced his stock down a little bit. Or maybe, maybe he was always going to go pick number five. That I don't know. So we're definitely going to find out more about his injury. But like I said, you know, what I really want to know is, is what makes this player tick? What kind of a player is he? What kind of attributes does he have? Is he six two? Or is he six foot? Am I getting confused with, am I getting Tua confused with Jalen Hertz? All that and more guys will be revealed when we come back to you to have a look at Tua tanga vai laua. See you soon. All right, let's get the angle going. Now I realize guys that the videos in this particular video series, me looking at, you know, Dalvin Deave into the stories of my top picks from the 2020 draft, I realized that these videos have been real monsters. They're absolutely huge. The Andrew Thomas one, I apologize, man. I just couldn't, I couldn't stop. Couldn't help it. Sometimes, you know, that's what happens on YouTube. You go down rabbit holes. Usually you'll do it without a camera on you, except I decided to do it with a camera on me and call it rugby player reacts. So with that being said guys, let's type Tua tanga vai laua into Google. Okay. Yeah, I can see why they call them Tua. Tua, hang on. Just give us a sec. Tuan, Tuan, Manu, Lopola. Tuinga. Okay, so that's Tuinga. Tuinga Manu, Tuinga Manu, Olaipola. Tuinga Manu, Olaipola. Tuinga Manu, Olaipola. Tuinga Manu, Olaipola. Tuinga Manu, Olaipola. How does that sound, Zach? Is that a good effort? I think that was pretty good effort really. Tua, Tuinga Manu, Lopola. Tuinga Manu, Lopola. I got it. Tuinga Manu, Lopola. Tuinga Manu, Lopola. Tuinga Manu, Lopola. Tuinga Manu, Lopola. Tunga Vai, Loa. It's an American football quarterback for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League. That he is. He is of Samoan descent. Well, I could have told you that. And was born and raised in Hawaii, where he attended St. Louis School in Hololulu. This rings a bell. I have looked at something to do with Tua going back to Hawaii with his teammates. But maybe that was an Alabama specific video. Anyway, let's continue. So first of all, let's read his Wikipedia profile. Now, Wikipedia can be edited by anybody, I believe. Tua Tunga Vai, Loa. Born March 2, 1998. He's 22 years old. He's a spring chicken. American football quarterback for Miami Dolphins. He is of Samoan descent and was born and raised in Hawaii. He then attended the University of Alabama to play college football, where he helped to lead the Crimson Tire to back-to-back national championship game appearances during the 2017 and 18 seasons, winning the former and being named its MVP. And then Clemson went on a run and won it in 2018 and 19. And at the moment, we don't even know if there's going to be a college football season for 2020. But fingers crossed there is. Tunga Vai Loa won several other awards and honors for the 2018 season, including the Maxwell and Walter Camp Awards, as well as being named a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. In 2019, he was probably expected to go all the way and win the Heisman Trophy, go first pick in the draft, etc. But he suffered a dislocated hip injury during a game that prematurely ended his season. Despite the severity of it, he was still drafted by the Dolphins with the fifth pick of the 2020 NFL Draft. He's notably a left-handed quarterback, despite being right-handed, which was taught to him as a child by his father. That is incredible. Does that mean he can throw the ball just as good with both hands? Tuunga Manu Lepoa, Tunga Vai Loa, was born on March 2nd, 1998, in Iwa Beach, Hawaii, to Galu and Dianne Tunga Vai Loa. The oldest of four children and a Samoan family, he was said to have grown up with an intense interest in football, with his parents noting that he would sleep with a football under his arm every night as a small child. During Pop Warner games, when he was eight years old, when his peers could typically throw a football a little more than 10 yards, he routinely threw passes more than 30 yards when he was eight. Now, you know, growing up in a Samoan family, he definitely would have known about the game of rugby. No doubt, Samoans have a massive rugby heritage. There's a lot of Samoans living in New Zealand and Australia. There's a lot of Samoans that have played for the All Blacks and for the Australian Wallabies, national rugby teams. So probably one of my favorite All Blacks of all time, Sonny Bill Williams, is of Samoan heritage. I mean the rocks from Samoa, I mean, it's, it's, well, it breeds great sportspeople. It produces, you know, some of the most gifted athletes in the world. Fantastic food, lovely beaches, absolutely amazing scenery, yet extremely poor. His main inspiration as a child was his grandfather, Siu, Sao, who was respected enough in the local Samoan community that he was regularly addressed as Chief Tonga Vai Loa. Sao believed that Tiwa would eventually grow into a football star and he requested that he visit him after every game to give him a report no matter the time of day. Tiwa briefly considered quitting football after Sao's death in mid-2014 until he and his father agreed that he could best honour him by continuing to play. When Tonga Vai Loa began varsity football in high school, he threw for 33 passing touchdowns during his first season with three interceptions and 2,500 passing yards. He set a big inspiration and motivation for his performance, was how his father disciplined him, saying he used a belt whenever Tonga Vai Loa threw an interception and now he's in the NFL. In 2016, Tonga Vai Loa played in the All-American Bowl, which is the All-American Bowl is a high school football All-Star game held annually at the Alam, Domen Santo, Texas. Ah yes, it's that game in San Antonio, Texas each year and in regular season he threw for 2,669 passing yards with 27 passing touchdowns and seven interceptions, seven belts. He was also chosen to be part of the elite 11 roster as one of the top high school quarterbacks in the nation where he was named MVP of that roster. So he was a prodigy coming through high school, he was definitely touted as one of the top quarterbacks and he went on to win a championship in his first year. Tonga Vai Loa was deemed a four star recruit during the 2017 recruiting cycle and was ranked the top high school prospect in the state of Hawaii. He attended St. Louis School in Honolulu, the same school as 2014 Heisman trophy winner Marcus Mariota. When Mariota served as a mentor to him when they were growing up in Hawaii, that's pretty cool. He had 17 offers from colleges to play on a college football scholarship, including UCLA, Oregon and Colorado, eventually enrolling in the University of Alabama in January 2017. Now that rings a bell, he had 17 offers. A guy called Chase Young had 40, 40 top level full ride football scholarship offers and he ended up choosing a higher state. Tua had 17 and chose Alabama, I mean not an easy choice to make, or maybe it was. Oh what? As a true freshman Tonga Vai Loa was the backup to sophomore quarterback Jalen Hertz throughout the 2017 season, however he experienced significant playing time due to a couple of blowout victories for the Crimson Tire. On September 9th he made his college debut against Fresno State in a home game at Bryant Denny Stadium. Fresno State really? Believe it or not, they must be in the same conference as Alabama. You learn something new every day. So reading here, so Jalen Hertz was, so Tua signed with Alabama knowing that he was going to be back up to Jalen Hertz who was in his sophomore season which is his second season, and then Tua decided to forego his senior season so in the end they've actually got drafted in the same year. Debut against Fresno State in a home game in the 41-10 victory he finished six of nine for 64 yards, so he's obviously he didn't play the whole game, and his first career passing touchdown which was a 16-yard pass to wide receiver Henry Ruggs III. On September 23rd in a 59-0 victory against Vanderbilt he got more playing time and recorded 103 passing yards and two passing touchdowns. In the next game against ECC West rival Ole Miss he recorded his first collegiate rushing touchdown in a 66-3 victory, so it sounds as if he's come in and he's just bowled out in these three games and since then he was the starting quarterback. On November 18th in a game against Mercer he threw for three passing touchdowns in the 56-0 victory. On January 8th he replaced Hertz in the second half of the 2018 college football playoff national championship due to ineffective play by Hertz. He threw the game-winning 41-yard touchdown pass and overtime to another true freshman wide receiver Devonte Smith as the Crimson Tire defeated the Georgia Bulldogs 26-23. What? Tangvala was named offensive MVP of the game. Okay, yep. Holy shit. College football first season comes in as a backup but ends up winning the national championship game for the team. Holy fucking shit. Good on you two. We're gonna skip 2018. We're gonna move to 2019 which is the previous year, the year that he got injured and we will just try and read a few stats here as well. Okay, Tangvala began. Oh look at this. Let's look at the statistics first actually. The 2017 he came in, played eight games, didn't start one of them yet was the offensive MVP of the national championship game. That's just unbelievable. I need to watch that game. I simply have to watch the 2017 national championship game. 2016 so that was his first year, 17 the second year, 18 the third year. No, it must have been. Oh my god. Okay, 2018. Clemson won it, Alabama won it, then Clemson won it. Sorry, sorry. Clemson, Alabama, Clemson, LSU. That's where it, that's how it went, isn't it? So it's the 2018 national championship game, 26-23, Alabama versus Georgia. Okay, and what that means is that Andrew Thomas was on that team, wasn't he? So Tangvala began his junior season at the Chick-fil-A kickoff game with a victory against Duke. He finished 26 of 31 with 336 passing yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions, so no belts, before sitting out the fourth quarter. I'm just going to read through this and see if there's any information on this injury, which I'm sure there will be. Tangvala left the Tides sixth game against Tennessee early in the second quarter after suffering a high ankle sprain. He underwent surgery to repair the ankle the following day and did not play in the next game against Arkansas. Tangvala returned three weeks post-surgery to play in the 46-41 loss to top-ranked LSU. Despite some struggles in the first half of the game, he rebounded after half time to finish 21 of 40 with 413 passing yards, four touchdowns and one interception. In the Tides match up against Mississippi State, he led them to a 35-7 lead before leaving the game after a sack that saw his knee driven into the ground causing his hip to dislocate and fracturing the posterior wall, as well as suffering a broken nose and concussion. He was carted off the field and flown to a Birmingham hospital before undergoing surgery in Houston two days later. In January 2020, Tangvala announced that he would forego his senior season, senior year, and enter the 2020 draft. Holy shit man, that is once again the world of top-level sport hangs in the balance of one injury or it can do. Looks as if both times he had injuries. He's clearly meeting with the right people, getting surgeries done as soon as possible and just working their way back to the field. Because I mean these guys, these experts that he's working with throughout his injuries, they've seen it before. Of course they've seen it before. And I think half the battle is mental. So if the tour to have come through something like this in college before he even gets the NFL, I think that if anything was to happen in the future, I feel like he's probably going to be mentally able to deal with that. But fingers crossed, that doesn't happen. Touch wood. Touch wood. I want to see him play man. I want to see him light up Miami, don't you? So he played a total of 32 games over three years, starting 24 of them for a passing percentage overall of 69.3 percent. Total passing yards of 7,442. 87 passing touchdowns against 11 interceptions, which is a ratio of about eight to one. Attempts at rushing from the pocket, I assume. 348 total yards for an average of 3.3. And nine rushing touchdowns. Did he? He scored nine touchdowns. I'm always confused as to what the rushing statistics actually means for a quarterback. Is that their rushing with the ball or is that them handing the ball off to the running back? No, that's got to be his rushing, surely. Surely he would have given more than nine rushing touchdowns. That's got to be his statistics. So he scored nine touchdowns in total as a quarterback over three years. He was one of 58 players, 58 top ranked players, invited to the draft, which was held virtually due to social distancing. Where he was drafted by the Miami Dolphins with the fifth overall pick, as his college number 13 is retired by the Dolphins in honor of Dan Marino. Tonga Velao switched to number one to begin his NFL career. On May 11th, 2020, he agreed to a four-year deal with the Dolphins worth $30.28 million, featuring a $19,578,500 signing bonus and a fifth year option. So Tila, drinks on you, mate. So this video is coming to an end. I am going to go to the Alabama College Football website and have a look at his profile. But I did read something really interesting here. Despite being right-handed, and this is what we heard before, he was trained to throw the ball with his left hand by his father at a young age, making him one of the statistically rare left-handed quarterbacks. So that's, now they are rare, but they're at an advantage, because usually you're blinded to your left being a right-hander. You're relying on your left tackle big time. And usually they're going to line up the best defensive end on the right. But as a left-hander, that means that your left hand is completely open and you're blinded to your right side. So you'd be relying on your right tackle. What that also means is when you're doing a play action and you roll out, then as a left-hander, you're going to want to be rolling out to your left, which then opens up, you know, cross routes from the right to the left. And I guess the opposite's on the other side. I'm just trying to imagine this on Madden. Oh, I miss Madden, man. My PlayStation is not here yet, but I cannot wait. My PlayStation is not here right now, but I am going to buy a PS5 as soon as they come out so you can expect that. PS5 and Madden 21 is going to be a purchase I make. It's probably going to be around my birthday too, which is 27th November this year. Now, the second thing I read was that his younger brother, Talia, is a quarterback for the Maryland Terrapins. He transferred there in 2020 after spending a year at Alabama as to his backup in 2019. Tangvalawa's cousins also play football with Myron, Tangvalawa Amosa playing defensive line at Notre Dame, and Adam Amosa Tangvalawa playing offensive line at Navy. Tangvalawa's younger brother, Talia, is a quarterback for the Maryland Terrapins, and he spent a year as to his backup. Did he play? Oh my God, it's a spitting image. I thought it was him. I literally thought it was him. Timeline. Look at this. Look at this. This is fantastic content. Did he play? Let me have a look. He must have. He must have played. We're watching it here. Oh, shit. Oh, nice work. Staying alive. Okay, if we do look at this timeline, which is pretty sick, he enrolled at Alabama January 21st, 2019, May 8th, 2020, which is 16 months later. He entered the transfer portal and a week after that he transferred to the Maryland Terrapins. Good luck, mate. We'll probably see in the NFL before long. And with that being said, let's just have a quick read of what the fuck? A New Zealand news story is talking about Dolphin's quarterback to Tangvalawa. Isn't that funny? I wonder what they I wonder what they said. Dolphin's quarterback signs Rocky contract with almost $50 million guaranteed. So that's $50 million New Zealand dollars. Last month, that is the shortest news story I've ever fucking read. It's three lines. It was pretty bad. Essentially sports.com. We'll read that. And I want to look at his Alabama profile. We've got a new story here. Tua Tangvalawa reveals a personal tragedy after getting drafted. He became the fifth draft pick. He would turn out to Miami Dolphins after a selection. He recounted the tale of last month's tornado in Nashville, where he was for pre-draft training on the 3rd of March. It was about one o'clock in the morning. Sirens were going off and I was sleeping. I ended up waking up to the warnings on my phone. Right when I woke up, three or four minutes later, a tornado just swoops right over my complex, destroys my car and everything there. It was pretty bad. The 22-year-old said it's the hardest process for him to go through. He decided to forego his senior year and enter the NFL draft. I've gone through a lot with making this decision. I went to Nashville, went through that tornado that came through. My car got destroyed. I'm going through rehab during the process. There's a lot of uncertainty at the same time. It was just a lot of things piling up. This was probably the most difficult time for me in my life. This is incredible insight. That's why he did it. In addition to the tornado, the quarterback was dealing with speculations over his fitness. He suffered a major injury in November, as we know. As a result of this injury, he fell down the pecking order and saw eventual number one draft pick, Joe Burrow, become the most sought after quarterback. His selection would have taken a load off of his young shoulders. He will seek to recapture the form in his sophomore year where he finished runner up in the Highsman Trophy competition. Holy shit, look at this. Oh my god. I'm going to try and briefly run through all this, but honestly, there's too much. There's just far too much. Selected as the co-pollination player of the year, also earned the Bobby Bowden Award, an all-SCC second team honoree by both the lead coaches and associated press. Suffered a season-ending injury at Mississippi State. Finished his genius season as Crimson Tide's career touchdown responsibility leader with 96. Going to look at his statistics. Let's look at his 2018 statistics, because that was his breakout year. He played all year. Season Highs offensive. Rushing yards 33. Rushing touchdowns. Receiving touchdowns. Passing touchdowns. Rushing yards. Rushing touchdowns. 2018. Okay, so his High for the year of 2018 was 49 rushing yards. He had a 44-yard run against LSU. Top game against Texas A&M of 387 passing yards. A longest pass of 81 yards. He made one tackle against Mississippi State on the 10th of November 2018. I'd love to see that. 43 passing touchdowns. Five rushing touchdowns. 3,966 passing yards and 190 rushing yards. He had one game with 100% passer accuracy, but he only had eight passes in that game against Louisiana. I'm not sure why. But if we look here, in games that he attempted more than 20 passes in that game, he threw 73.3%, 54.5%, 65.5%, 59.5%, 66.7%, 81.8%, 78.1%, 40%, 88.9%, and 64.7%. That's only five games of the year that he didn't throw 20 passes. But I'd say it's probably an average of about 75%. All right, guys, that's that. That is my look at Tua Tunga Wailawa or should we say Tua Tunga Wailawa. Guys, I hope you enjoyed Tua. If you ever do see this or any of your family see this or anyone over in Hawaii or Samoa, American Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, New Way, Cook Islands, the list is endless. All those Pacific Island nations, incredible athletes, incredible family people. And well, maybe one day I'll get to Hawaii myself. So with that being said, guys, I hope you enjoyed that video. In the next one, we'll be looking at Tua's college football highlights. And I can't wait. So I'll see you then. Peace out.