To understand how Tyler Roehl, lifelong North Dakota State Bison, is now Tyler Roehl, new offensive coordinator for Eddie George at Tennessee State, there first must be an element of time travel.
It is days into 2022, and Roehl is walking inside an NSDU athletics facility because of course he is; outdoor cardio in Fargo, N.D., in the throes of winter is akin to challenging the ever-physical Bison football team in the trenches.
Hardly sound strategy.
Roehl is cruising laps when his phone rings, a number he doesn't recognize and inclination to ignore.
On a whim, he answers.
On the line? Eddie George.
“Come to find out, Coach George’s right-hand-man at Tennessee State, Dusty Bennett, had to track down my number; I still don’t really know how he did that,” Roehl tells FootballScoop. “I’m walking around a facility concourse, getting in some exercise and we ended up having a really good conversation.
“I’d always said it would take something really special for me and our family to leave Fargo, and at that time I wasn’t ready. It was an unexpected but awesome conversation. To figure out the person Eddie is, he’s as genuine and humble and passionate and dedicated and determined as anyone I’ve met and been able to talk to.”
Thereafter, the duo remain in touch. Occasional text messages. Periodic congratulations; George’s Tennessee squad piecing together the school’s first winning season since 2017; the Bison again plowing deep into the FCS Playoffs.
Then, last month, another phone call.
“After Hue Jackson left a couple years ago, I took a shot in the dark called up Tyler and said, ‘Hey man, would you be interested in interviewing to be the next offensive coordinator at Tennessee State?’,” George recalls. “I said I’m a big fan what guys have done, on and off the field, to create a culture that lasts and that mimics some teams and places I personally have been and respect. At that time, he was not interested.
“But two years later, in another transition, I called again.”
Conversations of greater depth reveal coaches and men of similar tact; sure, football discussions are as nuanced as the motions and shifts that apply the cosmetic brushstrokes to the punishing offense Roehl deploys and George seeks to ascertain.
Yet, this is an holistic merger.
George recounts talking to “16 or 17” candidates in this process, one the former Heisman Trophy-winning tailback and developing program-building coach sees as bedrock for growth that perpetuates forward for a program in Nashville, one of America’s current “It” cities, and charting its own facilities growth and upgrades.
“I talked to a mentor of mine, and I told him I was kind of torn about these three guys, I just don’t know, ” says George, his coaching approach as diametrically opposed to that of his playing style versus fellow former NFL star-turned-college-coach Deion Sanders yet also taking root. “He says, ‘If it was your guy, you would know and you wouldn’t be torn.’ He said don’t settle. I sat back and waited, got a text message on my phone two days before Christmas from Tyler Roehl that said, ‘What’s up?’.
“I asked would you be interested in having a conversation, and we talked ball for an hour, but then we talked life.”
Both men adept recruiters, this call instead carries no sales pitch from either party.
“It wasn’t so much Xs and Os or philosophy; I could already see the product,” says George, entering Year 4 atop the Tennessee State program with his deepest, most experienced roster to date. “It was the man. He understood where I was coming from, we spoke the same language, and I just loved his demeanor and could hear his passion. He’s been at one institution for 17 years, and that he’s willing to step on faith to a new situation told me a lot about who he is.”
Embarking on his 1,100-mile drive south to live this football life below the Mason-Dixon Line for the first time in his life, Roehl, a former member of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks franchise, points to the visuals from his talks with George.
Literally, the FaceTime calls between George and Roehl’s wife, Mary, as well as his new boss’s willingness to spend similar video time meeting digitally meeting Roehl’s children.
“I feel like I can do a really good job of communicating how I feel, what is being told to me, but for it to come from Coach George rather than me felt like was just real important in this process,” says Roehl, a seven-time FCS national champion from his time with the Bison. “We are both so heavily invested in the Fargo-Moorhead community, for us to move was going to have to take someone and something really special.
“My conversations with Eddie had really progressed, and I said we need to do this, get you on FaceTime or a phone call with my wife so we can communicate with my wife everything you’ve communicated with me. She loved that.”
Adds George, “A few days ago man, honestly, it all came together. Hell, I even got on the phone with his wife at some point, just to tell her about Nashville and my vision. And I said, ‘This is not about working for me. I’m looking for a partnership, something long-term that I can grow with it, evolve with it, that I can trust. But that’s the exciting part.”
Roehl’s imminent arrival at Tennessee State further burnishes the profile of the football program, yes, but also the school’s ascending athletics program under director Mikki Allen, a Nashville native and former Tennessee national champion defensive back.
TSU, with 15 losing seasons just this century, boasts arguably the Tennessee Titans’s all-time greatest player from the franchise’s Music City days and now is preparing for its offense to be guided by an seven-time FCS champion assistant coach.
“We are ecstatic that Tyler Roehl has joined our football program,” Allen tells FootballScoop. “Tyler is one of the brightest offensive minds in the college game and has championship DNA.
“This hire defines the trajectory of our program and reinforces Coach George’s commitment to excellence. The future of Tennessee State football is brighter than ever.”
Demanding a “championship mindset from the time you wake up at 5:30 a.m. until you go to sleep,” George envisions this union as another building block in Tennessee State’s development – an unfathomable reality just a couple years ago.
“I’m not so sure if I could’ve gotten this hire prior to some of this progress,” George says. “We had a great staff coming in, but I think this speaks to the work Mikki has done elevating the entire athletics program, holistically, taking a chance on me as a head coach, and now our first winning season since 2017, but we should’ve won more games than six.
“I think people are seeing the vision, the future and there’s new university leadership coming in as well in the next few months at president. There are big announcements coming on facilities; the energy is right.”
There is method to the intentionality; two years developing the relationship with one of college football’s brightest offensive minds merely part of the building process.
“You’re not winning first and then buying in; you’re buying in at ground level,” George says. “That’s what we’re doing and that’s what is next and that’s what will last 20 years.
“It’s not a spike I’m looking for, not looking for bunch of grad transfers. I’m trying to build a way of life and a lifestyle that they can build on in football and in life.”
Eddie George is willing to cold-call anyone who can help make that dream a reality. Tyler Roehl’s already answering the call.