DANIA BEACH, Fla. – When Penn State moved another linebacker to what had been Tyler Elsdon’s starting spot, Elsdon made a choice that doesn’t really fit the storyline that college football sells these days.
He stayed exactly where he was.
In an era where NIL money, more playing time and the promise of the transfer portal are just a click or a phone call away, the fifth-year Penn State native is a rarity for a top program – a player who isn’t driven by money, but who stays because he loves football, feels loyal to his teammates and loves his school.
The payoff: Elsdon will play in a national semifinal against Notre Dame at the Orange Bowl, just two wins away from bringing a third national title back to Happy Valley.
“My decision to stay here was a challenge, and of course I had thoughts about leaving,” Elsdon said. “But I knew that the guys around me still supported me and that I still love them. For example, I would be 100% loyal to the guys I sacrificed for years up to that point.
A promising start, but there was another player waiting
Elsdon started all 13 games at middle linebacker in 2022, his second year, which ended with a victory in the Rose Bowl. That was good enough to start the following season on the watch list for the Senior Bowl, where some of the college’s best players appear in some sort of scouting combine at the end of the season.
But Kobe King – a highly ranked recruit from Michigan who was a year behind Elsdon – was lurking and took over the starting spot.
Elsdon, who grew up about 100 miles from State College, had been recruited by Virginia, West Virginia, a number of Ivy League schools and a few others, but when the Nittany Lions moved in late, he immediately said yes.
Seismic changes have hit the sport in just five years
College football has been through a lot since he arrived at Penn State.
“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 barren. Then I saw it at 110,000. Then I saw it at 110,000 and money was being thrown around. I never started playing football for money. I never played football for myself.”
Coach James Franklin said he couldn’t describe the impact Tyler Elsdon has had on our locker room. He’s earned everyone’s respect, and he’s done it the right way.”
The coach said he is hopeful there is still room for players like Elsdon in a changing landscape that, under terms of the House settlement formalizing schools’ ability to pay players, will limit football rosters to 105 players. That could ultimately limit the opportunities for walk-ons and high-character backups like his fifth-year linebacker.
“Are there fewer of those stories now because of the 105?” said Franklin. “I certainly hope not, because I think these are the stories that make college football so special.”
The benefits of staying put
By staying at Penn State instead of seeking playing time elsewhere, Elsdon completed a major in health care policy and a minor in kinesiology last summer. He is enrolled in a diploma program that teaches how to use technology to enable change in a rapidly changing business world.
“I should be able to work that into a master’s degree sometime after I’m done here,” he said. “School is very important to me.”
He has no problem with players making money; in fact, he believes his teammates deserve every cent they get.
But his motivation comes from other places.
Elsdon was placed in foster care as a toddler and then adopted by his parents in central Pennsylvania. He kept his birth parents’ last name as a reminder of where he came from. He started playing football (as a water boy) when he was four because his father was a coach. He stayed in it, largely because “I had some friends who played.”
That story could help explain his approach to football.
“It was, how am I going to get to a championship so that the guys around me can feel the joy of winning a championship?” he said of his experience at North Schuylkill High, where he earned small-school honors in four years as a letterman. “When I went to college it was the same. Materialistic things, they come and go. But these memories, the joy you feel when you’re in the locker room with these guys, that’s what it’s all about.”
This season he will be in the dressing room one or maybe two more times.
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 would be greener or if the money would be bigger elsewhere .
“I’m very grateful for what I got,” he said. “Sometimes I think people chase small things. But it is something very special to be a man among men, to love each other, to have confidence in each other and to play football for the right reasons.”
