TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — The decision to specialize in the special teams game of football is a big one and there's a lot of pressure and a lot of hard work to make sure you can handle it, but Lincoln's Tyler Riley is thriving.
"I got one snap," said Riley. "One opportunity."
"He trains hard," said John Spradlin with the Rocket to the Top Kicking Academy. "He works hard. I don't question anything about his work ethic."
For Lincoln long snapper Tyler Riley, his work ethic is what's shot him to the top.
"I placed tenth in my class in the finals," Riley said. "I made it to the finals."
At a national competition last month, Riley competed against 149 other long snappers from across the country, finishing tenth for the Class of 2022.
"That's kind of where he's gotten his moxie from," said Spradlin. "We put him in a competition and he goes down and destroys it."
"A lot of people just tell me you go out and snap right? I'm like no, I train almost every day," Riley said.
Training that's paying off for a position he kind of fell into.
"I was playing o-line and then wasn't big enough," said Riley. "They took me out. I started learning how to long snap and saw that was a way of getting into college."
That's all he wants.
"It's all I want to do," Riley said. "I want to respect my parents, they gave me a good home. I want to pay them back by getting into college for free."
Paying them back, one snap, at a time.
Riley said he hopes high school football gets to have a season this year.
