Sports Spotlight on Tyler Ryan | Video

Scott Westerberg | 9/5/2012

Tyler Ryan had perhaps the best game of his career at U-Mary this past Saturday as the Marauders opened the season with a win over Concordia-St. Paul. And the team is fortunate Ryan decided to return for his junior season.

It was a career day for Ryan this past Saturday and his efforts didn`t go unnoticed. The junior punter and kicker was named the conference`s special teams player of the week and even appeared in an article in USA Today about impressive college football performances over the weekend.

"One of those things where you get really excited about it, but I`m also trying to stay humble as well cause, one game, anyone can have a good one but just trying to keep producing throughout the whole season."

Ryan`s numbers against Concordia-St. Paul were gaudy. Six punts, all of them ended up inside the Golden Bears` 20, including a 70 yard bomb that flipped field position in U-Mary`s favor for most of the first quarter. Ryan also hit his only field goal try and was a perfect 3 for 3 on extra points.

"As a defense, starting field position is huge. The farther back you can get them to start the least likely chance they have to score, and Ty had a huge game for us and it was good to see," said U-Mary linebacker Mikey Ingemansen.

"We have charts up that if they`re within the 20 they got a 30 percent chance of scoring. So it helps our team`s odds out a lot," Ryan said.

Even though Ryan is only in his junior season, he didn`t need to return to U-Mary this fall. He already had the requirements to be accepted into an engineering program at another school.

"I took all my pre-requisites already, so now I`m just doing the business aspect and trying to minor in that before I go off to engineering school once my football career here is done. I gotta have football in my life. I`m not ready to give it up yet. I`m still a kid at heart."

Like many other kickers, Ryan first started using his feet in soccer before translating those skills to the football field.

"Freshman year of high school is when I started kicking. My sophomore year the coach at the high school I attended called and said our JV team needs a kicker and he`s like, `You can come and try out and if you`re good you can play, if not, thanks for coming out.` It all started when they gave me a call."

Now the University of Mary is reaping the benefits of this soccer player turned kicker. Ryan`s six punts inside-the-20 on Saturday are two more than he had in in 41-attempts in all of last season.

The Marauders host Augie Saturday afternoon.

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