Quarterback coach and trainer Vince Passas, who now lives in Las Vegas, was supposed to have a session on Sunday at 7 a.m. He's in the process of moving that to the evening.
Passas, a 1974 Saint Louis graduate, got his start in coaching in 1976. During his decades as the quarterbacks coach of Saint Louis' varsity team, he mentored some of the most iconic names in Hawai‘i prep football history: Timmy Chang, Jason Gesser, Darnell Arceneaux, Marcus Mariota, Tua Tagovailoa, the list goes on.
Each Saint Louis quarterback seemed to surpass the next one at the collegiate level. Chang set the NCAA passing yardage record as a senior at the University of Hawai‘i in 2004. Mariota won the Heisman Trophy, college football's top individual honor, as a junior at the University of Oregon in 2014. Tagovailoa guided Alabama to a national championship win as a true freshman and then was the Heisman runner-up in 2018. Mariota and Tagovailoa each invited Passas to their Heisman ceremonies in New York.
On Sunday, Mariota's Washington Commanders and Tagovailoa's Miami Dolphins will go head-to-head in the NFL's Madrid Game, which kicks off at 4:30 p.m. HST on NFL Network, marking the first time the two will start in a game against each other.
"I'm going to enjoy the game and cheer for both guys, hoping that they score on every possession and that the game ends in a tie," Passas told Aloha State Daily.
Mariota was the second overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft by the Tennessee Titans, while the Miami Dolphins made Tagovailoa the fifth pick in 2020. Sunday's game will be the second time Mariota's team and Tagovailoa's team will play against each other, though Mariota did not play in the first matchup. In Tagovailoa's rookie year, the Dolphins played against the Las Vegas Raiders on Dec. 26, 2020. Tagovailoa started the game, while Mariota never entered, as Las Vegas starter Derek Carr played the entire way. Tagovailoa was then pulled in favor of backup quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. The Dolphins went on to win 26-25.
Sunday's matchup between the Dolphins and Commanders will feature a pair of 3-7 teams. Mariota is starting in place of Washington sophomore Jayden Daniels, who suffered a gruesome injury to his non-throwing elbow on Nov. 2. Tagovailoa has been the full-time starter in Miami since Week 1. The Dolphins have struggled with injuries and consistency as a team but are coming off a 30-13 win over the Buffalo Bills, which snapped a seven-game losing streak to the reigning AFC East champions.
"[The NFL] is not for everyone," Passas said. "It was made for special people, and they're really special individuals. Not just as a human beings and genuine personalities, but you have to be intelligent enough to lead a team. I mean, if you ever heard what one play call sounds like, it's like a whole paragraph."
Chang was helping out at a camp the first time he met Tagovailoa. He had heard the elementary schooler, nephew of current Hawai‘i offensive line coach Derek Faavi, could sling it. Tagovailoa then walked up to Chang and told him he was going to break his high school and college passing records one day.
"I was like, 'Derek, your nephew just said he's gonna come break my records,'" Chang, now the head coach at Hawai‘i, recalled following a recent practice. "I shook [Tagovailoa's] hand and I laughed and I said, 'Let's go get it then.'"
Tagovailoa went on to surpass Chang's Hawai‘i high school passing yardage record, but not his college yards record. Dillon Gabriel went on to surpass both at each level.
"He just had a mindset that he was going to be the best," Chang recalled of Tagovailoa. "I just appreciated watching his growth from a youth from when he said that, and he just kept grinding. All these guys that are playing the NFL, they all have great families and great support systems that just helped guide them and sacrifice so much for them to be where they're at."
Another former Passas training pupil in Micah Alejado is currently Chang's starting quarterback at UH and the backbone behind the team's 7-3 start.
"I'm really happy with Micah," Passas said. "You just knew that Micah would be the guy there. He's got great anticipation, gets the ball out of his hands fast. Some guys sense it before it happens."
When Tagovailoa and Mariota take the field against each other on Sunday at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, it will be the first time an NFL game has kicked off in Spain.
"Very, very honored, and I don't take that very lightly," Mariota said in his weekly press conference on Wednesday. "Tua and myself, we grew up in the middle of the Pacific, far away from here. The fact of the matter is, we get a chance to be a part of this game and it's very special. I don't take that for granted at all. I do enjoy the experience, I do enjoy being away from the country. We're gonna do our best to put out a great product and a great show and I'm excited for the challenge on Sunday.
Tagovailoa was still in high school when Mariota was putting Saint Louis and Hawai‘i on the map during a stellar career at Oregon.
"Long story short, I think a lot of people know I looked up to Marcus when I was in high school and he was at Oregon and then when he transitioned, getting drafted to the Tennessee Titans. I was a big fan of him. Still am, just the person that he is outside of the player. Just happy for his success. I know he's been going through ebbs and flows with teams but if you get to know the kind of person he is, I think the playing and whatnot is second."
The matchup between Mariota and Tagovailoa will be the first time two quarterbacks from the same Hawai‘i high school have started a game against each other. On Oct. 19, Tagovailoa's Dolphins lost 31-6 to the Cleveland Browns, led by Mililani's Dillon Gabriel. The Oct. 19 contest was the first in which two starting quarterbacks from Hawai‘i went against each other in an NFL game.
Sunday's game is already being viewed as a massive victory for Saint Louis and the Hawai‘i football community at large.
"I'm proud to have graduated from Saint Louis and representing the school. We as locals are proud of where we went to high school, and that's just our thing here in Hawai‘i," Chang said. "Looking at those two guys, just very proud. I think we all get to adopt Marcus and Tua as a state, and I'm proud I was able to just watch them grow into who they were from a young age to where they are now and playing on the biggest stage.
"It's something that Hawai‘i has to enjoy and get behind and just really be proud of these guys. They inspire so much of the youth and the kids and everybody that came behind them, even the kids in college, to the high schoolers, to the middle schoolers, to the youth now. It's pretty remarkable that these guys are there, and Dillon too. For the last couple weeks, we've had three starting quarterbacks in the NFL from Hawai‘i, and that's pretty unbelievable."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
