Central Michigan University Athletics
Everything Falls In To Place For Standout Tight End
12/11/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -- Tyler Conklin was the man. Then he wasn't.
Now, he is a man -- older, more mature, more focused, perhaps even a little humbled. And he has a vision.
The 6-foot-4, 240-pound tight end will play his final football game for Central Michigan in 10 days when the Chippewas take on Wyoming in the Idaho Potato Bowl.
It most likely will not be Conklin's last football game. He enters the bowl game with 28 catches for 406 yards and five touchdowns in a season that began with him rehabilitating a foot injury. He missed the Chippewas' first five games.
Conklin's impact on the CMU offense is extraordinary. His story may be even better.
"It's been a really unique journey," CMU associate head coach/tight ends coach Sherrone Moore said. "A kid who was a walk-on that's going to be a Sunday player and has worked himself into one of the top guys at the position, going to the Senior Bowl, and the (NFL) draft. The ceiling's as high as he wants it to be, he can be as good as he wants to be."
Conklin has accepted an invitation to the Senior Bowl, the premier all-star game for college seniors, and his name will most assuredly be on the radar in April during the NFL draft.
Not bad for a kid who, upon graduating from L'Anse Creuse North High School in suburban Detroit in 2012, saw his future on the basketball court and not the football field.
As a high school junior, Conklin had made a visit to Mount Pleasant to watch a football practice, one of thousands high school recruits who visit campuses across the country annually to get acquainted with the coaching staff, tour the facilities and the campus.
But when Northwood made a basketball scholarship offer in November of that year -- the beginning of his senior basketball season at L'Anse Creuse North -- Conklin bit.
"I was the first person in my family to have a chance at free school -- I jumped at it," Conklin said, adding that CMU, and a few other Division I schools, were making overtures, but had made no concrete offers. "I decided to go DII where I was a No. 1 recruit and (planned) have a great career and go overseas to play basketball. That was always my goal."
Northwood is a business school and Conklin, just a few months out of high school and now in college, began to wonder. There was more to it, he discovered, than just athletics. He wasn't disillusioned, but, like most people do as they leave home and begin taking the hard steps to adulthood, finding himself.
"You know how college is, you switch your major and figure out what you want to be in," Conklin said in a familiar refrain. "Maybe I was burnt out of basketball a little bit."
He said he recalled returning to the family home Chesterfield Township, northeast of Detroit, during the fall of his freshman year at Northwood and watching college football on TV.
"I'd see a tight end make a catch and think, `I can do that,'" he said. "So I started thinking about my future and thought it would be a good decision to switch up and play college football."
He enrolled at CMU and began classes in January, 2014. No promises, no athletic scholarship. He was told only that he would be given a chance to make the roster in spring practice, but there was no guarantee that there would be a spot for him later in the fall.
Conklin had gone from Northwood's No. 1 recruit/signee to eager walk-on. And he had taken a major step in growing up.
"Being a walk on teaches you a lot," Conklin said. "Having to go through those different trials and tribulations helped me become the player I am today. I think it's something that is really going to help me in the future. I wouldn't want to do it any other way."
Conklin made it through that first year of spring practice and landed a roster spot for the 2014 season. He was moved from wide receiver to defensive end to, finally, tight end by the time the 2015 season came along. He played sparingly that year as a backup and on special teams.
Last season, he burst on to the scene, making 42 catches for 560 yards and six touchdowns. It wasn't just the number of catches that Conklin made that was impactful. It was how and when they came that really made observers take note.
Timing, they say, is everything.
Among his highlights -- readily available on YouTube -- in 2016 was his two-TD performance in the Chippewas' upset at Oklahoma State; his game-winning TD catch in a triple-overtime victory at Northern Illinois; and his falling one-handed grab in a win over Ohio.
As prep for the 2017 got underway, Conklin was clearly one of the top tight ends in the Mid-American Conference if not all of college football. He was named to the John Mackey Award Preseason Watch List.
And then, in early August, came the foot injury which required surgery.
"It was either sit there and sulk and feel bad for myself, or do research and get after it and try to figure out how to get back on the field as quick as I can," Conklin said.
Conklin made his 2017 debut in the sixth game of the season at Ohio. The Chippewas went in with a 2-3 record and had lost their previous three games. They emerged with a 26-23 victory, and Conklin made 10 catches for 136 yards and two touchdowns.
The Chippewas are 6-1 this season with Conklin in the lineup. And though he has not always put up the kind of numbers that he did in his season debut, his mere presence on the field has unquestionably opened things up for the Chippewas' other offensive weapons.
And the entire experience -- eschewing basketball, changing schools, walking on, changing positions, and his emergence as a force have all made Conklin better.
And not just on the football field.
"I think everything worked out how it was supposed to with the injury," Conklin said. "Coming to Central and switching to football worked out how it was supposed to. It's all coming full circle. It all happens for a reason, and I'm sure it will make me a better person."
