Tyler Page
	Height	6-0
	Weight	185
	40-yard Dash	4.41
	Bench Press	250
	Squat	405
	Vertical Leap	33 inches

ESPN: ***
247sports: ***
scout: **
ESPN: No. 35 athlete in country
247sports: No. 100 athlete in country
ESPN: No. 67 player in Texas
247sports: No. 201 player in Texas
ESPN: No. 81 player in Midland Region

Last Year Statistics

12 games
96 completions
173 attempts
.555 completion percentage
1609 passing yards
17 passing touchdowns
4 INTs
220 carries
2,095 rushing yards (long: 73)
9.5 yards per carry
8 games with 100 or more rushing yards
33 rushing touchdowns
3,721 total yards (310.1 per game)
0 fumbles
5 punts
42.6 yards per punt
5 kickoff returns
14.8 yards per return (long: 34)
8,234 combined yards in three seasons
74 career rushing touchdowns
30 career passing touchdowns
3 receiving touchdowns

Strengths as a Player

Tyler Page is an electric runner with exceptional speed and a knack for making people miss him in the open field, drawing comparisons to Johnny Manziel. A versatile athlete who played quarterback, slot receiver and returned both punts and kickoffs at different points during his high school career, Page will test that versatility again when he moves back to receiver at SMU after he fully recovers from a devastating ankle injury — he suffered torn ligaments and displaced fibia and tibia — that ended his high school career. His time at quarterback gives him an extra understanding of offenses and defenses, and should allow him to accelerate the process of learning the Mustangs’ offensive system. Before he can refine his route running and the nuances of playing the position, he has to regain full strength and confidence in his ankle. Page has been able to walk a little without his protective boot, and hopes to get rid of it entirely within a week or so of Signing Day.

Interviews

Friendswood head coach Robert Koopmann on Tyler Page:

His freshman year, we started Tyler at slot receiver and returning punts and kickoffs … and we don’t start freshmen. Then we started working him in as a Wildcat quarterback, and on his second play, he goes 60 yards for a touchdown. When he ran for about 160 yards in a playoff game while playing as a part-time backup quarterback, we started to question how intelligent we (coaches) were for not having him at quarterback the whole time.r
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I’ll describe Tyler this way: this is my 32nd year doing this, and I have never ben around a kid like him. He’s phenomenal, and he’s humble, but there’s a competitiveness about him — if you think you’re better than he is, he’s going to prove you wrong.r
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A handful of (colleges) recruited him as a quarterback, but most didn’t. Coach Morris wanted him at SMU, but said they just want to get him there and figure out a way to get him on the field and get him the ball in space, because when he does that … that’s when he’s really good.r
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He’s a 4.0 (GPA) kid, and he won a UIL accounting award. People — other coaches in the district — laugh at me, asking “how’d you live so well to get a kid like Tyler?” I’m telling you, he looks like Johnny Manziel on the football field, but then he says, “yes, sir … no sir” to you.r
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I think Tyler working with Coach Morris is going to be awesome. Tyler is a really loyal dude, and I think the loyalty SMU showed him is important to him. If it wasn’t SMU, I think he was going to maybe go to Air Force, because the idea of serving in the military was attractive to him, too.r
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I’ll say this: if SMU didn’t get the top football player in Texas, they got one of the top three. He’s that good.r
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Here’s my favorite Tyler Page story: I watched him play in seventh grade. His team was playing a team out of Corpus Christi for the championship. I’m sitting up there with his dad, and they’re trailing late. His dad says if they kick it to Tyler, he’s going to run it back. They kicked it to him, and he took it 80 yards for a touchdown. He has always done that. We go watch him in the eighth grade, thinking now that he’s playing up a level, he wouldn’t have the same success, but he did. I think that’s what some college recruiters did. I think some of them look at him and think he’s a great high school player, but he can’t do it at the next level. But there hasn’t been a level yet he hasn’t just dominated.

Tyler Page on why he chose SMU:

Some of the offers I had, the education wasn’t what I was looking for, so I took those off the table. Some others weren’t running an offense I was looking for, and some were all the way across the country, which meant my parents couldn’t come see me play, so I took those off the table, too.r
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In the end, it came down to SMU being a great education, and it’s a place that will allow me to surround myself with great networking opportunities for a career after college.r
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Coach McDaniel was the first one to contact me for SMU. He invied me to Junior Day at SMU, and that was my first recruiting trip ever. I kind of met all of the coaches on that weekend, and we just hit it off. Then, when I went around and met all these coaches across the country, I always kept in mind that the SMU coaches are real people, genuine guys.r
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I don’t think the offense is that different than what we ran at my high school. We (Friendswood) run the ball a lot, including a lot of quarterback runs, and SMU does run some read option. r
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If I can get on the field next year, I’ll really be blessed, because the other team has to focus on Courtland Sutton, so maybe that would mean getting a few balls thrown my way.r
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I learned a lot about (receivers) Coach (Justin) Stepp, not only from the players, but just from interacting with him. He’s a really good guy, and we have talked about his relationship with Coach Morris, how they’re all connected and they all care about each other. (Recruiting visit host) Trey (Quinn) was telling me about how the coaches balance their professional relationships and personal relationships with the players, and it seems like a pretty unique balance. Coach Morris and Coach Stepp tried to recruit Trey when he went to LSU, and when it didn’t work out there the way he wanted, he immediately went to SMU, because he wanted to play for them. That says a lot about them.