Fueled by Commitment

The Montana State University-Northern Lights have a bye this week, and with a bye comes a few days off. But for Northern senior Tyler Craig, there’s really no such thing.

In football, Craig doesn’t take time off. He doesn’t take plays off. In football, Craig never stops. That’s what he does. That’s the only way he knows how to approach the game.

And Craig’s approach to football, and his approach to his program, has certainly paid off.

Midway through Craig’s senior season, he’s already a two-time Frontier All-Conference performer and is sure to be an NAIA All-American when the 2016 season draws to a close. He’s been a Northern captain for the past two seasons, and he’s creeping up on several of MSU-N’s All-Time defensive records.

It’s a career that has been truly special, and one that has the attention of not only his teammates and coaches, but just about everyone else he crosses paths with on the football field.

“He’s a very good football player, first of all,” Northern head coach Aaron Christensen said. “His work ethic is second to no one. And it shows up on the field. He’s a guy teams definitely have to contend with going in. They know they’re going to have to contend with a pretty good defensive lineman.”

“I’ve just always been driven to be a better football player,” Craig said. “Whether it’s in the weight room, working out alone, or at practice, whatever it is, I think the only way to get better is to give it everything, to be committed. And I’ve just always wanted to keep getting better, and I guess, I was willing to put in the work to do that.”

A Fast Start

Like many young players, Craig, who came to Northern in 2012, didn’t expect much at 18 or 19 years old. Though he was a standout player for the CMR Rustlers, eventually earning Class AA All-State honors, he knew right away, playing college football was different.

He knew right away, he had to get better. So that’s what he did during his redshirt season with the Lights.

“I didn’t know how good I could be or anything like that,” he said. “But I did know I had the confidence to keep working towards becoming a good football player. I knew I had it in me to put in the work that was necessary.”

Little did Craig know at the time however, that he’d only get one year to prepare to be a starting defensive lineman in the Frontier Conference.

Early in his red-shirt freshman season, the head coach who recruited him to Northern, Mark Samson, saw something in Craig, teammate Jordan Brusio and several other younger Lights. And before they really even knew what they were doing, they were starting. It wasn’t something Craig planned on doing as a freshman, but he didn’t back away from it either.

“At the end of my redshirt year, there was going to be a lot of older guys on the D-Line coming back, so I didn’t think I was going to play a lot that next season,” Craig said. “But, a few of those guys didn’t come back, and pretty early in that fall camp, coach Samson came to me and basically told me he needed me to step up. He told me I needed to become a leader on the defense. It’s amazing to look back now because it all happened kind of fast. Five years later, that’s all kind of a blur.”

No, Craig has been a blur for opposing offensive linemen trying to block him, and a nightmare for opposing quarterbacks trying to get away from him.

In his first full season with the Lights, he played in nine games, started the last seven and racked up four sacks and eight tackles for loss. Those were two stats that would grow and grow as the years went on.

By the time Craig was a mere sophomore, he was already known as one of the fiercest defensive ends in the league, and his breakout party was nothing short of spectacular. In 11 games in 2014, Craig led the Frontier in sacks with 11, tallied 12.5 tackles for loss and had 51 total tackles, on his way to All-Conference honors.

And he just kept getting better. A year ago, Craig was everywhere, finishing with 82 stops to go along with nine sacks and a whopping 15.5 tackles for loss, again earning All-Conference accolades.

“Craig is a tremendous athlete,” fellow senior defensive end Jordan Brusio said. “There’s a reason why he gets so many double teams and why that opens things up for the rest of us on the D-Line. One-on-one, he’s pretty much unstoppable. He’s just an incredible talent.”

“Every single day in practice he does something big to disrupt our offense,” Christensen added. “He causes a lot of problems with all the things he can do defensively.”

For his career, Craig has tallied 43 tackles for loss and needs just one more to tie the great Will Andrews on the all-time MSU-N list. Craig is also closing in on Andrews’ school-record for the most sacks in a career. Andrews set the standard with 29, but Craig has 24 with six games left in his MSU-N career.

Committed

Everybody has seen the damage Craig can inflict on opposing offenses. The Northern offense sees it up close every day. And the records are coming to back it up.

But there’s much more to Tyler Craig than meets the eye.

In fact, the fact that he’s still playing football for Northern, the fact that his relentless motor is an engine that drives the Lights, those things say even more about Tyler Craig than any bone-crushing sack he’s registered in his brilliant career.

In his time at Northern, Craig has been through three different head coaches, has endured a multitude of difficult changes and, in all honesty, hasn’t been able to taste victory very often. Yet he and many of his senior teammates are the shining example of seeing something through, of honoring a commitment and giving everything they have to that commitment.

With a lot of turmoil at Northern through Craig’s five years, it would have been easy for him to transfer. By the time he was a sophomore, any other team in the Frontier would have been all too happy to have the 6-2, 230-pound monster on their team, instead of playing against them.

But that wouldn’t have been who Tyler Craig is. It’s not in his DNA to quit.

“There have been some ups and downs and some changes, and it wasn’t always easy or fun,” Craig said. “But I always looked at it as, I started it, I’m going to finish it. That drove me to keep going. And I didn’t want to let anyone down either. I didn’t want to let my teammates down by quitting or leaving, or the coaches who have seen this thing through, too. I didn’t want to let Northern or Havre down either. So that really drove me.

“So yeah, there have been ups and downs, but the ups make it all worth it,” he continued. “The special wins or just the bond you have with your teammates. That makes anything that’s hard worth it.

“He’s a leader on and off the field,” Christensen said about Craig back in the summer. “He’s one of those guys that the other guys look at, and they see somebody who does everything the right way. Whether it’s how hard he works, or his leadership in practice or in school. So you’re very fortunate when you have guys like that, especially on a young football team, and we have some guys like that, and he (Craig) is one of them.”

It’s All Worth It

These days, Tyler Craig isn’t doing anything different than he has done in his Northern career. He’s off to another great start, having already tallied 22 tackles and six TFLs this season.

But there are things around him that are different.

For one, Northern is a much-improved football team this season, and Craig’s defense has been strong and stout. That’s a big turnaround from where the Lights were a year ago.

“Overall, there’s just a different vibe with this team this season,” Craig said. “There’s a lot more heart, a lot more passion being put into it. There’s more commitment from a lot of guys. This team is putting in a lot of work, and I feel like this program is going in the right direction, not just this season, but into the future, too.”

Another thing that’s different for Craig is the future. He’s in his final season of college football, and he no longer has another season with the Lights to look forward to. No, there will come a day when the struggles are over, the hard work is over, and one of the greatest defensive linemen to ever play at Northern will move on to other things.

And for Craig, while the finish line is six games away still, he says, there’s nothing about his career that he regrets. When he allows himself to reflect, it’s all been worth it.

“When I look back on this, I can’t believe how fast five years have gone bye,” he said. “It’s went so fast. But it’s been an amazing ride. I’ve met my best friends who I’ll have for the rest of my life, through playing football here at Northern.

“That’s what I’m going to remember the most,” he continued. “All the guys I’ve played with. All the seniors this year, we stuck this out together, and finished what we started together. Those guys are by best friends, and I’m proud we’re finishing our career together.”

Tyler Craig is indeed finishing what he started. And when his best friends, all the guys whom he’s played with and became friends with over the last five years, when they look back on the journey, they’ll remember Craig, the man with a relentless motor, who has never once quit on the football field. The guy who has never once taken a play off.

But more than that, they’ll remember the guy who finished everything he started at Northern. They’ll remember that, because that’s who Tyler Craig is. That’s how he is made. In football, and in life, he doesn’t know any other way.