With football in a nebulous position and the recruiting process in a relative holding pattern, we at Golden Bear Report are looking to do interviews wherever we can. This week, we got Cal tight ends coach Marques Tuiasosopo on the phone, talking about his process of getting to the NFL and creating an edge with his tight end room.
Previous Installments: Justin Wilcox, Part One | Justin Wilcox, Part Two | Charlie Ragle, Part One | Charlie Ragle, Part Two | Peter Sirmon, Part One | Peter Sirmon, Part Two | Aristotle Thompson, Part One | Aristotle Thompson, Part Two | Angus McClure, Part One | Angus McClure, Part Two | Tim DeRuyter, Part One | Tim DeRuyter, Part Two | Andrew Browning, Part One | Andrew Browning, Part Two | Burl Toler, Part One | Burl Toler, Part Two | Bill Musgrave
TT: What sports did you play growing up?
MT: I played football, basketball, and baseball.
TT: How do you think playing multiple sports molded you growing up?
MT: I think playing multiple sports was a great thing for myself, it kept me busy and kept me competing. It put me in different situations athletically to continue to learn and challenge myself, and also it put me around different guys socially. I think, from a well rounded aspect, it helped me in my continued maturation.
TT: How did you get into playing quarterback?
MT: I don’t know what the right answer there is, but I know this, when I started watching the game on TV, my father played it so it was a natural transition for me to be involved in the game, but when I watched it as a fan and watched it as ‘I want to be like that person,’ it was Joe Montana, it was John Elway, it was Jim Kelly. Those were the guys I aspired to be, shoot I enjoyed watching the other guys, I enjoyed watching Ronnie Lott hit, I loved Roger Craig, Steve Largent, those guys, but the position that resonated with me was quarterback, that’s what I wanted to do, I wanted to be like them, I wanted to have the ball in my hand.
TT: When did you know you were going to be able to play quarterback at the college/pro level?
MT: I think you strive for your dream, my dream was to play quarterback, and you’re trying to get on people’s radar to show them that you’re able to lead their program and that you’re good enough to play the position. I went through the recruiting process out of high school and there were a lot of people that wanted me to play defense, safety or linebacker, just a handful of people were willing to evaluate me as a quarterback and take a chance on me there. I wasn’t sure, but I was going to fight for it and it came down to two schools, I was able to get to the college level, and the process started over again.
My whole goal was to win the national championship, but before you do that, you have to win the Pac-12, go to the Rose Bowl, those were the things on my mind. I wasn’t thinking NFL, it was a dream of mine, and so I figured if I wanted to get there, I had to prove that I could be successful on the collegiate level. After having my (college) career, even training for the NFL combine, you’re not sure (if you’re going to make it). I had won a Rose Bowl, was the MVP, so you’re on that path, but you don’t really know until you get that call from that team.
That’s how I knew, a continual process to prove that you were ready and able to do it.
TT: You also have the unique experience on the staff of playing against Wilcox and Sirmon, do you have any memories of playing against them?
MT: Yes, well my first memory of playing against them was my true freshman year against Oregon in Seattle. I was the first true freshman quarterback to start a game in the history of the University of Washington. We went ahead late, I threw a touchdown pass to Je’Warren Hooker, they went down and scored, and we had a chance at a two minute drill to try to win the game at the end, we had a fourth down and I remember Peter Sirmon busting through the line and tackling me to seal that game. That’s obviously the bad memory.
The good memory is two years later, I got to start against them again and we beat them in a night game up in Seattle. That one, I almost got Justin on a post, we were attacking him, he was playing corner at the time, he was on our best receiver, I threw it outside and he almost made a spectacular one-handed interception, but thankfully he didn’t. I played pretty well that game and we were able to beat them, at the time that was a huge rivalry. It was a very heated game, but those guys were tough.
TT: You also had the 300-200 game against Stanford that’s infamous for the UW student paper headline of “Bad Ass,” what led to that?
MT: It was the first series, I was sprinting out to the left, it was a rollout pass and one of their players hit me. When I landed on the turf, I ended up sustaining a deep hip bruise, almost a hip pointer and a quad contusion. I got up limping, I thought it would be okay, but it kept getting stiffer and stiffer, it was one of those deals where after that happened, I never sat down for the rest of the game. Me and my quarterbacks coach Steve Axman, we kept walking up and down the sideline or getting on the bike to stay warm. If I sat down, it would get too stiff, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to play the way I was capable of.
I stayed in the game, I threw for over 300, rush for over 200, we were able to win the game, which at the time put us in first place in the Pac-10. Shoot, the next day I woke up, my whole leg was black and blue, it was crazy, but that’s how competitive I was, I wanted to stay on the field with my guys, with my teammates, I didn’t want to let them down. I even told coach (Rick) Neuheisel, he would ask me if I’m okay, I said ‘I’m gonna go, it’s your job to take me out if I can’t play at a high level because I’m going to give it my all,’ that was my mindset.
TT: When you get the phone call from Jon Gruden when you’re getting drafted, what is that like?
MT: It’s realizing a dream, it’s a dream come true. You’re sitting there wondering if you’re going to be drafted, you have an agent, the draft prognosticators giving their two cents, then you get the phone call, every time it rings you think it’s going to be a team, and when it finally is, it’s a realization of achieving that dream, and you see in that moment how hard you’ve worked to put yourself in that position. It’s a great feeling, like opening a present when you’re a little kid on Christmas, you’re hoping it’s that toy you want.
For me, I really liked Jon, I liked his on-field presence, his demeanor. He was just coming on the scene there, coming over from Philly, was only the coach of the Raiders for a couple years (at that point), he kinda was the hot young coach, and I was really fired up to be coached up by him.
TT: Did you have caller-ID at the time so you knew who it was?
MT: The phone numbers would come up, it’d be 510 or come up ‘Unavailable’ with the privacy notice if they didn’t want the number to come up. Every time it rang, if it came up with that or another area code that wasn’t in your phone, your heart would skip a beat.
TT: Going to the Raiders in the early-2000s, what did you take away from playing with that group of guys, namely Jerry Rice, Tim Brown, and Rich Gannon among others?
MT: It was an amazing experience, I was like ‘man, I’ve got to bring my A-game every single day.’ There was a learning curve for me, just coming into that west-coast system and the verbiage, being around those guys and making sure I know my own, that I earned their respect. I was playing with hall of famers, Tim Brown, Jerry Rice, and Jerry Rice had played with my father his last year or two. I remember him as a little kid, he remembered me and now I’m throwing passes to him. There’s so many guys I looked up to, (like) Lincoln Kennedy, who I met when I was in college, now he’s blocking for me.
One thing I learned from those guys is that no matter how competitive it gets at those levels, the best, they’re great dudes. They brought me in, they took me under their wing, and they weren’t jerks. It was really good to be around that type of guy, the best at what they were doing at the time, here I am as a little rookie, and they were showing me the path, showing me the ropes, that was really great.
TT: How much in terms of work ethic did you take away from those guys that you have imprinted on your position group today?
MT: I think the fact that I was able to experience football at the highest level, and to see how the best at the time were working, to be able to maintain that level or get to that level, then play in a manner which gets you to the Super Bowl. It’s invaluable with how I talk to the guys I coach today. It really comes down to ‘what is your heart’s desire?’
If you want to be great at this game, you want to give yourself a chance to play at the highest level, then you’ve got to work and you’ve got to discipline yourself to make sure that you’re studying the game of football. You hear a lot of that term, student of the game, and it’s a cliché now but it’s so true. It has got to be a high priority in your life. It’s not just going out to practice and working hard, if we have to talk about that, we’re probably in trouble. It’s taking that same work ethic that you have on the field and taking it off the field, putting it into your playbook, you know what the terms mean and the responsibilities that we’re asking you to carry out, it’s watching the film, it’s studying your opponent. It’s watching yourself, ‘how do I get better in this technique, how do I get better in my footwork,’ that takes a lot of time, and you have to invest a lot of emotion, physically, to play this game at a high level.
We talk about it that way. If you love playing the game, if you love being a teammate, if you love contributing and being accountable, if we do those things, we can be successful, and I think it’s getting them to believe that and then experience in what we’re talking about, putting forth the work ethic and the film study and the playbook study. Once they’re able to achieve the certain steps, they gain that confidence, and once they gain that confidence, they can take that baton from you, they can take it and run. My goal is to have all my guys take that baton from me and take it to the next level, because once they do that, that’s when I think coaching becomes easy, now you can coach the little aspects more, the discipline aspects of our job, that’s how I take my experience in the NFL to the guys I coach, getting them to believe they can do it, they’re here for a reason, if you put forth the effort and believe in yourself and do what’s necessary, you can achieve.
TT: That speaks to a lot of the ‘do you love football’ ethos that Gruden represents…
MT: Absolutely, if you’re just doing on the bare minimum, you’re going to rely on your God-given talent and ability and there’s some people who can get away with it. There’s a lot of guys who can’t, and if you look at the guys doing their best at the collegiate level, some are very talented, some aren’t as talented, but the guys that aren’t as talented but are still playing at a high level, they’re doing those things and it comes down to that they love it and they want to be great. They enjoy being the guy that makes plays to win games or the guy that’s accountable, and to get to that point, you’ve got to love it.
We talk about creating an edge, and if you love to compete, love the game, you’ve got to create an edge over your opponent, those are the things that are necessary to create the edge, you’ve got to love it. If you love it, you’re going to spend another hour studying instead of going out, you’re going to get your sleep when other people are staying up. When it’s spring break or summer break, yeah you need free time, there’s a balance in life, and they take exactly what they need and they get back to their craft. The whole ‘do you love it?’ We say that a lot in our room, we have to challenge ourselves to make sure we’re accountable to our teammates, to be great, you’ve got to love it.
