Tathan Martell grew up in the San Diego area, where he began playing Pop Warner football at the age of 7. He drew attention due to the fact that he was a throwing quarterback, when most kids at that age were running quarterbacks. He even drew attention of the coach of Washington at the time, Steve Sarkisian, who managed to get Martell to commit at the age of 14.
High school career
Martell attended Poway High School, the local high school where he grew up, but was only able to lead them to a 4-7 season. He then transferred to Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. He attended Bishop Gorman for his sophomore, junior and senior seasons, but graduated from Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas because Bishop Gorman would not allow Martell to graduate early in order to start the spring semester at Ohio State University. As a senior, he was the Gatorade Football Player of the Year after leading the team to a 15–0 record, while passing for 2,362 yards and 41 touchdowns, and rushing for 1,253 yards and 21 touchdowns. For his career, after transferring to Bishop Gorman, Martell went 45–0 as a starter and finished second in Nevada history with 7,510 passing yards and 113 touchdowns. Martell and quarterbacks Jake Fromm and Tayvon Bowers were documented in the Netflix series .
Recruiting
Martell was rated by Scout.com as a five-star recruit and was ranked as the second best dual-threat quarterback, fifth best quarterback of any type, and 56th best player overall in his class. He originally committed to the University of Washington when he was 14. In 2015, he changed his commitment to Texas A&M University. In May 2016 he decommitted from A&M and a month later committed to Ohio State University. Martell transferred to Desert Pines High School after his senior season, so that he could graduate and enroll at Ohio State early.
College career
Ohio State
Martell redshirted his true freshman season at Ohio State in 2017. As a redshirt freshman in 2018, Martell battled for the starting role in spring camp but ultimately served as the backup to Dwayne Haskins. In Ohio State's opener against Oregon State, Martell completed three passes for 33 yards on four attempts. The next week against Rutgers, Martell secured his first career touchdown via a 51-yard pass to Terry McLaurin, as well as a 47-yard touchdown run. Martell appeared in six games for the Buckeyes in 2018, finishing with 269 passing yards, one passing touchdown, 128 rushing yards, and two rushing touchdowns. In January, 2019, Georgia quarterback Justin Fields announced his intention to transfer to Ohio State. No sooner had Fields made his announcement, than Martell tweeted, "Word of advice: don't swing and miss...especially not your second time." Even prior to this, on December 30, 2018, upon word that Fields was giving thought to transferring to Ohio State, Martell made it clear that he had no plans to depart, stating, "Why would I leave for someone who hasn’t put in a single second into this program? To just run away from somebody who hasn’t put a single second into workouts anything like that and doesn’t know what the program is all about, there’s not a chance. I will . I am 100 percent sure on that. I am not just going towalk away from something that I have put so much time into and there is not a chance that I won’t go out there and compete for that." Less than two weeks later, on January 10, Martell chose to enter the NCAA transfer portal.
Miami
On January 15, 2019, Martell announced on social media that he would be transferring from Ohio State to Miami. Martell, who would normally have to sit out one year due to NCAA transfer rules, sought a hardship waiver in order to be immediately eligible, citing Ohio State's coaching change from Urban Meyer to Ryan Day. On March 19, 2019, Martell was granted a waiver by the NCAA and is eligible to play for Miami in 2019. On August 12, 2019, it was announced via the Miami Football Twitter account that redshirt freshman QB Jarren Williams had beaten out Martell for the starting quarterback job. He then switched to wide receiver, then switched back to quarterback.
