With Taulia Tagovailoa at quarterback, the Massachusetts Pirates ended their 2025 season on Friday night with a 45-30 loss to the Bay Area Pirates.

Tagovailoa’s first start in the Indoor Football League came in the quarterback’s third league of 2025.

The former Thompson High School star and Alabama reserve played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2024, but the Canadian Football League team released Tagovailoa on May 11 during its preparations for the 2025 season.

Between the Tiger-Cats and the Pirates, Tagovailoa played for the Hamburg Sea Devils of the European League of Football.

At Thompson High School in Alabaster, Tagovailoa was the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s Class 7A Back of the Year for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Tagovailoa became the first player in Alabama high school history with at least four 400-yard passing games, with a high of 507 yards in a 35-21 victory over Oak Mountain in a 7A Region 3 game on Sept. 14, 2018.

As a senior, Tagovailoa passed for 3,728 yards and 35 touchdowns as the Warriors reached the AHSAA Class 7A Championship Game.

At Alabama, Tagovailoa was behind his brother, Tua Tagovailoa, and Mac Jones on the Crimson Tide’s depth chart in 2019. He completed 9-of-12 passes for 100 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions at Alabama.

After transferring to Maryland, Tagovailoa became the Big Ten’s career leader for passing yards. Tagovailoa completed 955-of-1,424 passes for 11,256 yards with 76 touchdowns and 37 interceptions in four seasons with the Terrapins.

After his application for another season of eligibility was turned down by the NCAA, Tagovailoa attended the rookie minicamps of the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals without attracting an NFL contract offer in 2024.

Tagovailoa joined Hamilton and played in eight games for the Tiger-Cats in the 2024 CFL season. He ran three times for 10 yards and one touchdown and completed his only pass for a 6-yard gain.

The Sea Devils signed Tagovailoa on May 22 after losing quarterback Micah Leon in their season-opening 13-12 defeat by the Madrid Bravos.

Hamburg lost its first game with Tagovailoa at quarterback to the Stuttgart Surge 53-14. But in Tagovailoa’s second start, the Sea Devils defeated the Berlin Thunder 31-14 as the quarterback completed 15-of-29 passes for 230 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.

But one week later on June 14, the ELF team posted on social media: “The Hamburg Sea Devils and quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa part ways as the 25-year-old Hawaiian returns to the United States for family reasons. We’re grateful for the time he spent with the team. Wishing you nothing but the best for your next chapter.”

Massachusetts signed Tagovailoa on June 25.

“I’m blessed to be in this position I’m at right now being with the Mass Pirates,” Tagovailoa told the Lowell Sun shortly after signing. “Great organization and an organization that has won championships in the past and stuff like that. I’m just looking forward to learning more, and any way I can help this team win another championship. That’s what I came here to do. …

“I think everything that I’ve been showing in college and even my little time in the CFL and Germany as well, I feel like me using my legs and with my arm talent and stuff like that, I think it could be a good benefit to this team.”

Over the next four games, Tagovailoa threw three passes in relief of starter Kenji Bahar.

On Friday night in his first start in the Pirates’ season finale at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Massachusetts, Tagovailoa completed 8-of-17 passes for 55 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions and ran nine times for 61 yards and two touchdowns against the Panthers.

He had a 1-yard touchdown pass on the final snap of the first half, ran 6 yards for a score with 6:30 left in the third quarter and scored on a 19-yard run with 4:11 left to play.

Massachusetts ended the season with a 7-9 record. Bay Area posted the IFL’s best regular-season mark at 13-3.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.