'You can't just run by everybody': Tre Tucker, Tyler Scott not just track stars playing football
INDIANAPOLIS — The roots of the bond between Tyler Scott and Tre Tucker didn't start on the football field. It started on the track.
"We were running AAU track," Scott, the Norton High School-turned-University of Cincinnati receiver, said Friday at the NFL Combine. "Started at around 6 years old, (and) ran for West Akron Track Club. We had run every year. Denise Bryan, she was the head coach. We had Mike Young, who was at St. Edward High School, and he really put Tre and I under his shoulder and been running ever since. We ran high school as well."
On Saturday, the two Akron-area natives will be running again. Only this time, it will be on a football field, specifically the field inside Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium.
The events Scott and Tucker, the CVCA-turned-Cincinnati receiver, run in on Saturday won't be the ones they did in high school. Instead, it'll be in events in front of dozens of NFL executives, coaches and scouts that will impact their future entry in the world of pro football.
Not that it's the first time at least one of them has run in front of an NFL coach.
"(Pittsburgh Steelers) coach (Mike) Tomlin, actually I ran against his son, I'd say in high school or at the Opening," Tucker, who won two individual and one relay state championship in track at CVCA in 2018, said Friday. "I remember he was there. I remember he said something to me, and to see that kind of come full circle now, it's a blessing."
That speed is a critical piece of the puzzle for both Scott and Tucker on the football field. The former has used it to turn into a dangerous deep threat on the perimeter, while the latter as become one of the top return men in college football.
Speed, though, is something that everyone at the NFL level has, relatively speaking. University of Georgia defensive lineman — yes, defensive lineman — Nolan Smith ran a 4.39-second 40-yard dash on Thursday at the Combine.
"I think just understanding how to use it," Scott said. "I guess that's the biggest thing that people don't I guess really get. … So in football you've got to learn to get to the top speed fast. And so one thing I really focused on when I was in high school was indoor track. I got to run it finally my senior year. We got a new track coach and he got us into indoor track, and so my main focus was the 60 and just really learning how to get out. That's the biggest thing. Learn how to get out, get the top speed fast because in football that's the biggest thing."
Of course, speed doesn't translate always into a great, or even good, NFL player. The Browns' Anthony Schwartz may be the perfect example of that point.
Schwartz possesses the kind of speed that only a handful of NFL players truly can match. So you're talking about the elite of the elite when it comes to that.
However, since being taken in the third round of the 2021 draft out of Auburn, Schwartz has struggled as a receiver. Most of those struggles are in the finer points of being a receiver, not just being a fast guy in football gear.
The two Cincinnati receivers have taken points like that to heart.
"Obviously I have speed," Tucker said. "But my coach in college (Cincinnati receivers coach Mike Brown) basically is like, 'You can't just run by everyone. You're going to get to the next level. Everyone's fast, but the really good people who do it at the next level, they're really good route runners.' So I take it very serious. It's very important to me, and it's something that I've worked really, really hard on and all through college."
It's work they're banking on helping them make an NFL team not just because they're fast, but because they're fast football players.
Contact Chris at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com.
On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Tre Tucker, Tyler Scott more than just track stars in football gear
