A twist from what college football has become: The player who stayed

DANIA BEACH, Fla. — When Penn State moved sophomore linebacker to what had been Tyler Elsdon’s starting spot, Elsdon made a choice that doesn’t really fit the narrative college football is selling these days.

He stayed where he was.

In an era where money is tight, more playing time and the promise of a transfer portal just a click or phone call away, Penn State’s fifth-year senior is something of a rarity for a top program — a player who isn’t driven by cash, but who sticks around because he loves football, feels loyal to his teammates and loves his school.

Payoff: Elsdon plays in the national semifinals against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, just two wins away from bringing its third championship back to Happy Valley.

“My decision to stay here was challenging, and of course I thought” about leaving, Elsdon said. “But I knew that the guys around me still supported me and I still loved them. Like, I should have been 100% loyal to the guys that I had sacrificed for years up to that point.”

A promising start, but another player was waiting

Elsdon started all 13 games at middle linebacker in 2022, his sophomore year, which ended with a Rose Bowl win. That was good enough to start next season on the Senior Bowl watch list, where some of college’s top players appear in a season-ending scouting combine of sorts.

But Kobe King – a highly ranked Michigan recruit who was a year behind Elsdon – lurked and took over the starting spot.

Elsdon, who grew up about 100 miles from State College, was being recruited by Virginia, West Virginia, a slew of Ivy League schools and several others, but when the Nittany Lions made a late move, he immediately said yes.

Seismic changes have hit the sport in just five years

College football has been through a lot since arriving at Penn State.

“The NIL is challenging and very tempting,” he said. “I was in college before NIL. I was here during COVID with no fans, so I saw Beaver Stadium deserted. Then I saw it with 110,000. Then I saw it with 110,000 and the money is being thrown around. I never got into football for the money. I never played football for myself.”

Coach James Franklin said he can’t put into words “the impact Tyler Elsdon has had on our locker room. He earned everyone’s respect, and he did it the right way.”

The coach said he hopes there’s still room for players like Elsdon in a changing landscape that, under provisions of the House deal formalizing schools’ ability to pay players, will limit football rosters to 105 players. That could ultimately limit chances for pass rushers and high-character backups like his fifth-year running back.

“Are there less of those stories now because of 105?” Franklin said. “I sure hope not, because I think those are the stories that make college football so special.”

Retention benefits

Staying at Penn State instead of chasing playing time elsewhere, Elsdon completed a major in health policy administration and a minor in kinesiology last summer. He is in a graduate program that teaches how to use technology to facilitate change in the rapidly changing business world.

“I should be able to get it into the masters shortly after I’m done here,” he said. “School is very important to me.”

He has no problem with players making money – in fact, he thinks his teammates deserve every penny they get.

But his motivation comes from other places.

Elsdon was placed in a foster home as a child and then adopted by his parents in central Pennsylvania. He kept the last name of his biological parents as a reminder of where he came from. He got into football (as a water boy) at the age of 4 because his dad was a coach. He stayed in it, mostly because “I had a bunch of mates who played”.

That story might help explain his approach to football.

“It was, how am I going to get to a championship so the guys around me can feel the joy of winning a championship?” he said of his experience at North Schuylkill High School, where he earned small-school honors in four years as a letterman. “When I got to college, it was the same thing. Materialistic things, they come and go. But these memories, the joy you feel, being in the locker room with these guys, that’s what it’s all about.”

He’ll be in that locker room once or maybe twice more this season.

Championship or not, he could be a sign of the past: a player who spent five years at the same school, never left, and didn’t spend much time wondering if the grass was greener or the money was bigger elsewhere.

“I’m very grateful for what I got,” he said. “Sometimes I think people chase after small things. But there is something super special about being a man among men, loving each other, being sure of each other and playing football for the right reasons.”