If you don’t make it to a college with a top-level football program, it drastically cuts your odds of making it to the NFL. The University of Michigan had 13 draft picks in the NFL this year, and the University of Texas had 11. Given that only 257 players were drafted, in a country with 858 football-playing colleges, that’s no joke. Though Nate Adkins may not have ended up at one of the top programs, it seems like it worked out alright for him.

Adkins ended up at East Tennessee State University, where he started dating Taylor Tarquin. The East Tennessee State Buccaneers have had a total of 14 players ever make it to the NFL. And only 7 of them were draft picks. But Adkins gave it his all at ETSU, where he played from 2018 to 21. Then, he transferred to the University of South Carolina for 2022. Did the transfer change things for him and Tarquin? We can only speculate. Here’s more about her first.

Who is Taylor Tarquin?

Public information on Taylor Tarquin is a bit limited, but we do know a bit. She went to high school in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Bearden High School, which Adkins attended too. She appears to have a history with pageantry as well, and co-founded Queens Unite, which she describes as “an annual event to bring together those in the pageant community to raise awareness, supplies and funds for various non-profit organizations.” At Bearden, Tarquin was part of the celebrated dance team, which in 2018 won the state-level TSAA State championship, and competed at the UDA National Dance Competition in Orlando, Florida.

She used this experience to make her way to the University of Tennessee, where she was not only a gifted athlete, but a conscientious student. She made the Dean’s list twice over the course of her time there. And in her time with the Tennessee dance team, they were both 2020 UDA Pom National Champions and 2021 UDA Game Day National Champions. Somehow, with academics and athletics hanging over her head, she still managed to carve out time to teach dance part-time at Revolution Dance, which she did from 2019 to 24.

She’s since had a successful career after she graduated with a BSc in public relations and image management. Currently, Tarquin works with Red Ventures out of South Carolina as an account coordinator. She’s been working with them since last year and frequently goes on business trips to serve client needs. She’s only been there for a little over a year, but she already seems to be an adept PR manager. But what’s the story with Adkins in the middle of all this?

Are they still together?

Well, we don’t know anything definitively, we’re talking about the personal lives of not very public figures after all. But the last time a photograph of the two of them graced social media was in April of 2021. That’s not a surefire answer to the question, of course. But there are 2 other things that raise an eyebrow. For one, Tarquin was always a Tennessee Volunteers supporter, it’s a much bigger football college (4 draft picks this year). She was literally a cheerleader for them and remains cheering from the sidelines now she’s graduated. Could that have been a source of friction between her and Adkins? The last time the Volunteers played the ETSU Bucs, they crushed them 59-3. Plus, Adkins moving away to South Carolina can’t have been easy on them.

But even besides that, if you’ve been keeping an eye on Tarquin’s social media, you kinda know. She’s been showing up with a guy named Cole Poynter more and more frequently since July of this year. Moreover, if you scroll through the comments of the pictures she has shared with Poynter, she is seen liking comments like ‘launch.’ This leaves us little room to assume. On the other hand, though, Nate Adkins last posted a picture with Taylor Tarquin in 2021.

And we’re not pointing any fingers, but it looks like a done deal. It’s always sad when a relationship ends, but both parties have professional success to fall back on. Adkins might have gone undrafted, but he was signed to a 3-year $2.7 million contract with the Denver Broncos last year. He’s not started any games, but he does get time on the field. He even caught a touchdown this season against the Panthers.

Whichever way the penny’s dropped, we wish nothing but success for Taylor Tarquin and Nate Adkins.