North Carolina State University Athletics
PACK PERSPECTIVE: Remorseful Tyler Helps Lead Turnaround
10/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- Quite dutifully, most major media outlets that attended the weekly Monday press conference prior to the Oct. 14 Wake Forest football game produced stories about senior defensive lineman DeMarcus “Tank” Tyler.
Stories about how he came back from the embarrassment of getting ejected from the Southern Mississippi game; about how he apologized profusely to his teammates and his coaches for the incident; about how it has inspired him to be a little quieter with his opponents and a lot more productive on the field.
But no one mentioned how Tyler’s fall-and-rise this season is a smaller version of what was going on with NC State coach Chuck Amato’s program. And, with sophomore quarterback Daniel Evans commanding much of the attention for his inspired play, few have noticed that the Wolfpack’s two-game turnaround perfectly mirrors what has happened with Tyler this season, when he fell into the depths of embarrassment and negative publicity and then rose back to the height of success.
Tyler should be credited for being a huge part of the Wolfpack’s two-game turnaround that netted home wins over nationally ranked Boston College and Florida State. Those back-to-back victories put the Wolfpack into the race for the Atlantic Division championship and quickly erased some of the bitter memories of the losses to Akron and Southern Mississippi.
Tyler would just as soon forget about the Southern Mississippi game. He was ejected from the contest for spitting at an opponent. He couldn’t have been more embarrassed about it.
Being ejected is about as bad as it gets for a college athlete. The NCAA, with its multiple rules and sometimes counter-intuitive disciplinary tactics, doesn’t have the ability to fine players. But officials on the field have the power to remove players from competition, a power that isn’t taken lightly.
In the ACC, players who are ejected for fighting can also miss all or part of the next game. That wasn’t the case with Tyler, since his ejection was because, in the opinion of the game official, he spat at an opposing player. That, in itself, could be considered an immature, vulgar way for Tyler to lose his temper, which he admits can sometimes get away from him.
However, Tyler wants everyone to know that is not what happened with him. He said his ejection came after a game official saw him jawing at a Southern Mississippi offensive lineman and spit flying from his mouth as he yelled.
But, because of the embarrassing 37-17 defeat to the Conference USA team that came on the heels of a last-second loss to Akron at home, Tyler’s ejection was just another reason for some to be up in arms about the Wolfpack’s season.
And here is where Tyler and his teammates should get some credit: they didn’t let all the outside negative energy that was surrounding the program at that point affect them in any way.
For Tyler, the week following the Southern Mississippi game was pure torture. He figured he would get an additional punishment from Amato, but the coach made him squirm until Thursday. That’s when he told him he would not be allowed to represent the team as one of four captains who went onto the field prior to the Boston College game and that he would be suspended for part of the contest. Amato didn’t say how long, letting Tyler squirm a little longer on the sidelines.
It would have been easy and typical for a suspended player who is stewing about missing playing time to pull a Terrell Owens and turn a bad situation into something worse. Think about it: Tyler, in his senior season, is trying to get noticed by NFL scouts and hoping to lead his team to something better than the 7-5 record it had last year. But the Wolfpack had a losing record and he was on the sidelines.
However, that scenario of making a bad situation worse is not what happened. Tyler apologized a couple more times to Amato. He made an emotional pregame speech to his teammates on the Friday night before the Boston College game. And he stood attentively on the sidelines, trying to study the Eagles offensive linemen for weaknesses.
Amato never told him how long the suspension would last, but after the first quarter the coach went over to Tyler and said that he could go into the game whenever defensive line coach Todd Stroud needed him. On Boston College’s first possession of the second quarter, Tyler went onto the field to offer up his apology to the rest of the NC State community by playing the best game of his career.
“Being on the sidelines had me down, but I took advantage of it,” Tyler said. “I sat on the sideline and studied the offensive linemen and how they were moving and how they were blocking. I didn’t sit over there and hold my head down. I used it to my advantage. I told myself I had to dominate. Missing one quarter kind of put me behind, so I had to catch back up when I got in there.”
The Wolfpack coaches credited Tyler with a career-high 13 tackles, along with two tackles for loss, a sack and a forced fumble. When the Eagles were trying to run out the clock and holding on to a 15-10 lead, Tyler bulled his way into the BC backfield on a couple of plays and forced the Eagles to turn the ball over on downs with 46 seconds remaining in the game.
“If I had known he would play like that, I would suspend him from the first quarter of every game,” Amato said afterwards.
Everybody knows what has happened since then. The Wolfpack followed its victory over the No. 20 Eagles with another win at home against No. 17 Florida State, a game in which Tyler had six tackles before being sidelined in the fourth quarter with back spasms.
Those wins put the Wolfpack in position, going into the game against Wake Forest, to have a chance for its first ACC championship since 1979.
For his part, Tyler has learned and taught a valuable lesson.
“Personally, I think Tank has been more assertive as a leader since that incident,” Amato said. “He was embarrassed about what happened. He must have apologized to me two or three times at least.
“I always talk about how you embarrass the university and embarrass your name. He has rectified it to some degree. I think he has been really more assertive in the leadership of this football team.”
That voice is important when it comes from a 6-2, 305-pound defensive lineman who can bench-press two small tailbacks and a placekicker.
“When one of those guys steps up and starts talking, it’s kind of like E.F. Hutton people listen,” Amato said.
And others take notice. Tyler’s performance against Boston College moved him into ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr.’s top 15 senior players.
Kiper already lists Tyler as the No. 2 prospect at defensive tackle among this year’s seniors, meaning he is likely to join Mario Williams, Manny Lawson and John McCargo as yet another NC State defensive lineman to go in the first round of the NFL Draft.
Give Tyler and his teammates some credit for not letting what seemed to be a horrible situation spiral downward after the Southern Mississippi game. Right now, the Wolfpack only seems to be heading up.
Tim Peeler is the managing editor of www.GoPack.com and a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker. He can be reached at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
Reprinted from "The Wolfpacker" with permission from Coman Publishing Co.
