Published Dec 19, 2020
Amir Tyler wants his journey to continue at Temple
Sam Neumann  •  OwlScoop
Staff

Not many people know Amir Tyler’s story.

But to understand Tyler and his journey, it’s imperative to know he didn’t become a single-digit player and team leader overnight in the Temple football program.

Tyler, the veteran safety from New Jersey's Lakewood High School, will be back in 2021, taking advantage of the NCAA's rule granting every player an extra season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic that brought havoc to the 2020 campaign.

While several of his teammates are opting for the transfer portal and using their extra season to expand their horizons, Tyler is returning for one last go-around with the program that has stuck by him.

info icon
Embed content not availableManage privacy settings

For the 6-foot, 205-pound safety, loyalty means everything. It’s a part of his morals and who he is as a person.

“Absolutely," Tyler responded when he was asked Thursday by OwlScoop.com on The Scoop if he was returning to play at Temple in 2021. "I’m not going nowhere."

“Temple’s just home to me,” Tyler added. “Last year would’ve been my last year if it wasn’t for COVID, so [I] had the blessing of me being able to play another year of college football. I wouldn’t think of going nowhere else.”

Temple has become one of the few permanent residences for Tyler, who spent time between five or six foster homes with his brothers. While it’s something that not a lot of people, including many of his teammates, know about him, it’s what shaped him as the person he is today.

"It molded me into the person I am today," Tyler said. "... I don't know a lot of my family, but the people I do know in my family, they look up to me and they think of me highly. They don't know me as Amir Tyler, the single-digit. They just know me as Amir Tyler, their older brother. I just try to set the standard, to let them know that there's more to life. ... You could be anything you want to be. You just gotta give it 100%. ... I want them to understand that I'm doing this for us, I'm trying to make it out."

Tyler, along with one of his younger brothers, were taken in by Sean and Stacy Barksdale, who are the parents of his high school teammate, Sean. Tyler was separated from his other three younger siblings, who went to another foster home.

"It's kind of just been fighting with me, trying to make it to the NFL," Tyler said. "If I could just get my family back together, just make sure my whole family is straight, regardless of the situation."

Tyler wants to have his family back together again, and he sees the NFL as the opportunity to make that happen.

In keeping an eye on that goal, Tyler has lived vicariously through his former roommates in linebackers Shaun Bradley and Chapelle Russell, who were selected in the 2020 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the sixth and seventh rounds, respectively. Tyler said he’s as close with Bradley and Russell as he was when they were rooming together in North Philadelphia. He calls both of them every day.

“To see Chapelle get his name called in that draft, it meant everything to me,” Tyler said. “It felt like I got called in the draft, to be honest. That’s a life-changing thing right there. ... Even though you work this hard all your life for it, it’s something that you still don’t expect.”

Russell and Tyler were teammates at Lakewood High School. For Russell to get drafted, Tyler felt it was a wake-up call for a school district and community that has struggled in Ocean County.

“It let them understand that even if we come from here, even if our life was this bad, and we had to go through this trial or this tribulation, everything is still possible,” Tyler said.

Tyler wasn’t an unknown recruit. The 3-star athlete held offers from programs like Pitt and Syracuse, while also receiving interest from North Carolina. Ultimately, he wound up at Temple, but he came in and didn’t play right away.

He stuck around through four different head coaches. And he's sticking around now a time when some of his teammates are leaving via the transfer portal.

Going into next season, he stands as one of the best players on Temple’s defense. Some of the younger players like freshmen safeties Alex Odom, Trey Blair and M.J. Griffin have started to gravitate toward Tyler.

"He's a very straight forward guy, doesn't sugarcoat nothing at all," Odom said of Tyler on The Scoop, OwlScoop.com's weekly podcast. "He was definitely someone I noticed as soon as I got there, like that's the person I got to be around. If I want to be good in any type of way in this position, that's the guy I have to be around. He worked, he knew the playbook like the back of his hand, he knew both positions. ... He's definitely someone I look up to a lot."

Tyler always thought about not getting into games when he redshirted in 2016 and played sparingly in 2017 and 2018. But his patience persisted.

He saw guys like Bradley and Russell getting snaps, playing and playing well. It ate at him, but it also motivated him to get where he is today.

Tyler’s Temple journey, which he describes as “crazy,” started with not being able to play his freshman season because he said his SAT scores were flagged. He was forced to redshirt but didn’t see the field because of multiple meniscus tears. Coming into his redshirt junior season, Tyler tore his MCL, in addition to re-tearing his meniscus. After multiple injuries to his knee, Tyler underwent a knee scope to help him get back on the field, but his troubles weren’t beyond him.

He also had to deal with the coaching carousel that saw four different head coaches in a span of four years. While battling back from an injury, Tyler said former Temple head coach Geoff Collins and his staff didn’t necessarily believe he was fully recovered from his injury, but they also didn’t believe that he understood the playbook well enough to be in the mix at safety.

All of that added fuel to the fire for Tyler. He did anything he could to get on the field, playing on all four special teams during Collins’ tenure.

Still, it wasn’t until Temple head coach Rod Carey arrived on campus that Tyler started getting consistent playing time. Something between Tyler and the new staff clicked.

"Coach Carey, he's a player-led coach," Tyler said, "so I feel I can learn a lot from Coach Carey and he can learn a lot from me. I just kind of have that connection with him. I feel like I don't want to just leave him out to dry for the last year, and I wouldn't want to go nowhere anyway."

More importantly, Tyler has carved out a unique relationship with Temple’s safeties coach Tyler Yelk.

“Out of all the position coaches I’ve had since I’ve been at Temple, Coach Yelk has been by far one of the best coaches that I’ve had,” Tyler said. “His technique, his attention to detail, him just making me become an NFL safety. I feel like me getting to the next level, he would be the perfect guy to get me there by following his instructions and just do what I gotta do."

Tyler views Yelk as a player more than anything, who demonstrates concepts at different levels. It’s one of the better relationships with a coach Tyler has forged at Temple and a reason why he’s sticking around for another season.

Leading up to a rather forgettable 1-6 season this past fall, Tyler earned a single-digit No. 3 after wearing No. 25. While he’d seen both Bradley and Russell earn theirs, it never seemed attainable from an outsider’s perspective. But for Tyler, it was just another notch on the belt for someone who’s looked adversity in the eyes through every step of his journey.

Playing in six games this fall, Tyler recorded 33 total tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, one forced fumble, two fumble recoveries and two pass breakups. His biggest play of the abbreviated season and one of the more notable ones of his career came in the Owls' only win. Tyler made the game-winning stop on a USF 2-point conversion attempt in Temple’s 39-37 win over the Bulls.

Front page photo by Don Otto