Transfer RB Tiyon Evans Having a 'Pretty Good Transition' to Louisville
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Since head coach Scott Satterfield took over the Louisville football program ahead of the 2019 season, the Cardinals have established a repertoire as one of the best offenses in the ACC. They're had a top-25 offense in all three years under Satterfield, which has been anchored primarily by a prolific running attack, spearheaded by both running backs and quarterback.
As we head into the 2022 season, the Cardinals boast undoubtedly their deepest running back room they've ever had under Satterfield. Louisville's two leading rushers at that position from last season, Jalen Mitchell and Trevion Cooley, are back for another year, but there's a third back who will almost certainly crack the main rotation - Tiyon Evans.
Related: Louisville Entering Fall Camp With Healthy Competition at Running Back
Evans is the greenhorn of the room, transferring in from Tennessee earlier this offseason. He arrived on campus back in the spring just in time for spring ball, and as the program gets fall camp underway, he believes he's had a smooth adjustment to his new squad.
"I've had a pretty good transition, if you ask me," Evans said Friday after practice. "When I first got here, it was pretty rough trying to get the signals and all that, and get the last playbook out of my head. But now we seem pretty good. I love it here. It's a family culture. We've just been grinding. We have big expectations, for sure."
The 5-foot-11, 220-pound running back joined the Vols from the JUCO ranks last offseason, and was Tennessee's leading rusher through most of the 2021 season. He rushed for over 100 yards in three of the first six games of the seasons, including a career-high 156 yards agains Missouri.
Evans has displayed other talents as well, such as the ability to catch the ball out of the backfield - as demonstrated by his three receptions for 71 yards and a touchdown against Florida. He's also adept at pass blocking, making himself a true Swiss Army Knife for the Louisville offense.
"First and foremost, I take pride in the blocking game," he said. "At running back, I feel like we should know how to catch out of the backfield. We should know how to break one-on-one tackles, and all of those things. I try to focus on the things that don't make us a running back, like blocking. That's what I tried to focus on."
But he's certainly had to overcome some obstacles in his playing career. He suffered an ankle injury in game six against South Carolina, a game where he still logged 119 rushing yards, but then had just 39 combined yards against Alabama and Kentucky before being forced to shut down for the final three games of the year.
The Hartsville, S.C. native, just like a lot of other players in football, had a hot start to their collegiate career impacted by COVID. He spent the first two years of college in the JUCO ranks with Hutchinson Community College, and burst onto the scene as a freshman in 2019, running for 538 yards and nine touchdowns on 61 carries.
Then COVID struck, which delayed his sophomore season to the spring of 2021, but by then he was already at Tennessee. Despite running into some roadblocks early in his playing career, he's determined to not let them define him.
"I try not to let none of that get to me," he said. "I've had had a lot of obstacles in my life, and I came back from those obstacles. I just look at it like, don't let the highs be too high or the lows be too low. Everything happens for a reason. We just put that in the back, and use that as motivation."
Heading into his first season at Louisville, he'll have to fight Mitchell and Cooley for reps, as well as Jawhar Jordan or even potentially true freshman Maurice Turner. But with the help of running backs coach De'Rail Sims, who he says "pushes me to my limits" and "holds me accountable," he and his running back brother all share the same mentality: just compete.
"The mindset that we have right now is that we all feed off each other," he said. "We all know that we all can play. So we're not really worried about that right now. All we're worried about is everybody making sure that we handle our job, Just stay on the course. We're not trying to think too much of it. At the end of the day, it's just football."
Louisville is set to begin the 2022 season when they travel to upstate New York to face Syracuse on Saturday, Sept. 3.
(Photo of Tiyon Evans: Alton Strupp - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)
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