Spring injury still leads to improvement for Penn State's Tyler Elsdon

STATE COLLEGE — The closer Penn State gets to playing a football game, the nearer to being himself Tyler Elsdon feels.

Often, it’s that way for linebackers who grow up on the football field. The routine becomes part of them. The contact wakes them up. A third-down stop short of the sticks drives them.

Take it away, though, and everything feels different. That’s why, after missing spring camp as he recuperated from an injury that hovered during the 2022 season, Elsdon feels so rejuvenated as the Nittany Lions ready for their season opener against West Virginia on Sept. 2.

“I feel great now. I’m super excited for the season,” Elsdon said Penn State’s media day. “(The spring) was definitely different for me. Just getting that different perspective, though, I feel will be very important for me. I was able to really be a student of the game, still be involved, still build leadership, build confidence within the team. Obviously, it was just kind of poor circumstances for myself, but I used it to get better.”

Preseason camp represents a return to business as usual for Elsdon, who recorded 44 tackles in 13 starts at middle linebacker last season. The junior still is trying to fight off sophomore Kobe King for the starting role while also looking to help a unit that ranked 17th in the nation in total defense make a championship-level jump in 2023.

Some of the skills the 6-foot-2, 235-pounder gained from not playing might be part of the key to unlocking that goal.

Instead of participating in practices as he recovered from the undisclosed injury, Elsdon tried his hand at coaching. He passed some of his experience in defensive coordinator Manny Diaz’s system off to newcomers such as Ta’Mere Robinson, Tony Rojas and Kaveion Keys, incoming freshmen whose skills the coaching staff have raved about since their signing in December.

A player doesn’t truly know a defensive system unless he can teach it, Elsdon said. And in attempting to teach this one, he realized there were a few areas in which he could improve in his pursuit of maximizing his own potential.

“Playing ‘Mike’ linebacker, there’s a lot of communication,” Elsdon said. “I felt like I was a good communicator last year, and there’s always room for improvement, obviously. But I just realized, maybe I wasn’t making checks as fast as I should have been or maybe seeing things as fast as I should have been or just (recognizing) the keys before the ball is even snapped to kind of show you where the ball is going to go.”

Working on those types of improvements have Elsdon hungry for his return and for his own role in getting the promising Penn State defense to a level of effectiveness that will make the team a contender in the Big Ten East.

“Coach Diaz says it all the time: Last year, yeah, we had a decent season. But now we’re back at ground zero,” Elsdon said. “We’re a brand new team. So it’s just working back up, climbing that mountain again.

“We’re not really focused on last year. We’re not focused on this season right now. It’s just getting better each practice, learning our assignments, playing physical, playing as one and just developing into a team come week one.”