MURFREESBORO – The confidence around MTSU football this preseason feels real. Which is baffling, given the state of things only two seasons into former Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason’s tenure.
His Blue Raiders were bad in 2024, and they weren’t better in 2025. Back-to-back records of 3-9 have set this up to be do-or-die third season for Mason, and standing here on the precipice, the outlook could be better. Athlon picked MTSU to finish ninth (of 10 teams) in Conference USA. A vote last month of the league’s media also ranked MTSU next to last.
“Listen, let’s be honest: This thing started slow,” Mason said to me this past summer, pausing to set up the inevitable “but” to follow.
“But I’ve got a quarterback. This young kid, Roman Gagliano, can play.”
The counterpoint to the mountain of bad mojo from Mason’s first two MTSU seasons is a 6-foot-3, 226-pound redshirt sophomore quarterback who, oddly enough, has been on the sideline for nearly all of it.
Yes, Gagliano is the hope. He’s the renewed optimism. He’s believable, too, as anyone who was still watching the end of MTSU’s 2025 season (and bless your heart if you were) could attest:
Mason isn’t wrong. Gagliano can play.
After veteran starter Nick Vattiato was hurt, Gagliano stepped in for the season’s final three games and crushed it. He threw for 911 yards and six touchdowns (with no interceptions). He also ran for 182 yards and two more touchdowns. He led MTSU to wins its final two games of the season after scaring heavily favored rival Western Kentucky during his first start in place of Vattiato.
There would be quarterback uncertainty for the Blue Raiders in 2026. Clearly, they already had their guy.
“The biggest (difference) is the pressure,” Gagliano said of being MTSU’s starter for an entire offseason, “but I don’t see it as pressure. I asked to be in this position. I think just knowing that everybody is counting on me just makes me work a little harder. … We’re just tired of losing and tired of having that narrative.”
When I asked Mason this summer about his own motivation to the program turned around, he immediately started talking about his quarterback. Then he kept talking about Gagliano for more than five minutes, raving about his leadership skills, even comparing him to former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia because of the impact Gagliano’s personality is making on the program.
If there’s a glaring similarity to Pavia, it has been in Gagliano being overlooked. Even Mason wasn’t always so enamored with Gagliano as his starting quarterback, and he’ll say so.
He’ll tell you that leading up to that WKU game, Gagliano threw six interceptions during one practice, and “everybody was scared to death.”
As Gagliano explained at the time, however, he likes to use practices to try things he wouldn’t otherwise, just to figure out what he can get away when it counts. When Gagliano backed that up by playing cleanly in the games, the coach was sold.
For Derek Mason’s tenure with MTSU football, it has gotten late very quickly | Estes
“Sometimes it’s not what you’re willing to do. It’s what you’re forced to do,” Mason said. “Because I didn’t play (Gagliano) earlier. Should I have? Yeah. … But now, why am I excited about where we sit? Because I think it’s all in front of us. The energy of this team is different.”
As a high schooler in Opelika, Alabama, Gagliano was a three-star recruit and played for a well-known program only a few minutes from Auburn University. The nearby Tigers of the SEC didn’t recruit Gagliano, but he did go to camps on campus and developed a relationship with Mason, who spent the 2021 season as Auburn’s defensive coordinator.
Growing up, Gagliano fancied himself a fan of Florida, not Auburn (he said he was born in Gainesville, Florida), and while he entertained aspirations of playing for a Power Four conference school, he remains grateful to Mason for the opportunity at MTSU.
That loyalty is why, Gagliano said, he didn’t even consider a glance at the transfer portal after last season’s impressive finish could’ve opened a few doors for him.
“Coach Mason bringing me here freshman year,” Gagliano said, “I think I owe it to him and this community to bring them wins and bring them a season other than 3-9. I’m all-in here. All I’m focused on is the Blue Raiders.”
Good thing for the Blue Raiders.
And, certainty, for Mason.
In this season that’s setting up to be a struggle for survival, MTSU’s quarterback looks like a lifeline.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Quarterback Roman Gagliano is the lifeline that Derek Mason needs at MTSU | Estes
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