Tyler Van Dyke addresses being benched, retaining starting job
Tyler Van Dyke shed some light into how he reacted when he found out he would be benched, and then later reinserted into the starting lineup for Miami.
The 2023 season hasn’t been a straight line for Van Dyke. In nine games, Van Dyke has amassed 2,086 yards, 16 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a 66.7% completion percentage.
Ahead of the 6-4 Hurricanes hosting the No. 10-ranked Louisville Cardinals on Saturday, the Miami quarterback pulled the curtain back.
“It’s really tough. All the guys in the quarterback room want to play. That’s just the nature of college football, NFL football,” Van Dyke started. “Took the news. Obviously, I want to be the guy out there. But at the end of the day, that’s what they had to do. Best for the team. I supported Emory [Williams] the whole way.
“Right after they made the decision, I told him, ‘I’m here to support you, whatever way I can do that. Ask me questions. I’ll be watching the game. Best as I can, watching their defense. I’ll help you the best that I can.’ That’s what I did. You know, just tried to have a positive mindset towards it, and I feel I’m in a really good head-space right now, after you know, talking to people.”
Moreover, Van Dyke delineated the fact that confidence was never his issue, but he has a new lease on the starting job moving forward.
“I don’t want to say confidence was really the issue. I feel like I was just doing too much at certain times, and you know, making dumb mistakes in certain situations,” the Miami quarterback added. “But yeah, in tough times I always have my family to lean on, and they’ve always been great with situations like this.
“I mean I’ve experienced a lot of ups and downs since I’ve came here. A lot of highs and lows.”
Alas, what’s helped Van Dyke is putting everything into perspective, which he did while looking ahead to the Cardinals.
“I love playing football and I want to accomplish my dreams of playing college football and playing in the NFL, so I’m gonna do my best and I love the game,” Van Dyke elaborated. “But at the end of the day, I’m not gonna let that consume my happiness, you know, and I don’t want to be upset the rest of my life because football didn’t go my way.
“I just kind of learned that throughout the process of the last few weeks and maybe that was the life lesson that God was trying to teach me. There’s things that you can be grateful for when things go badly and then because of lessons you learn from it.”
Tyler Van Dyke has been looking better since returning to the Miami starting lineup. Will it be enough to get the win over Louisville? We’ll see what happens in Week 12.