“My first year here was Tyler’s sophomore year,” Kiefer said. “He played JV as a freshman. In North Carolina, there is an 8-quarter rule. You can play a kid from the JV on varsity for up to eight quarters. If you go above that, then they have to stay on varsity. He did decent. His sophomore year, he did a great job and matured a lot. The knock on him when I got here was that he had a strong arm but not good feet. I’ve been a former college strength coach and we run our off-season program like a college program, so we work hard on footwork. He worked hard and, consequently, his footwork got better. He’ll never be a blazer, but he is very adequate and mobile in the pocket. He can avoid the rush. He is not Pat White and I made sure all the college coaches knew that, but he is adequate with his feet. And he has the ability to make any throw in the arsenal.”

The 6-3 3/4, 239-pound signal caller improved his footwork but also improved in the mental aspect of playing quarterback. He passed for 2,347 yards with 27 touchdowns and 10 interceptions last season and is primed for a big-time senior year.

“It was a learning process for him in the beginning,” Kiefer said. “We brought in a new system, but learning how to win was a big part of it. I’d give him a solid B in his sophomore year. He did a good job leading the team. What he struggled with a bit was reading coverage, predetermining pre-snap reads and things like that. As the year went on he got better and last year he ripped people apart. He anticipated what the secondary would do based on alignment. He understood checkouts. I’d give him an A-plus for his performance last year.”