Ty French could have been satisfied with being one of the best defensive players in the Football Championship Subdivision in years. He concluded his 2023 season at Gardner-Webb as the school’s career leader in sacks and tackles for loss. He was a two-time finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award, given to the FCS’ top defender.
Yet he felt he could do more. There were larger mountains to scale. The Football Bowl Subdivision was calling.
When French answered, he found a new home at West Virginia University. There have been plenty of changes for him to navigate as a spur linebacker for the Mountaineers, but French is motivated to make it work for several important reasons.
Among the biggest changes he initially had to deal with was the weather. A child of the South, French was born in Moultrie, Ga., and spent his collegiate career until now in Boiling Springs, N.C., just minutes from the North Carolina-South Carolina border.
Morgantown in January, however, was a much, much different atmosphere.
“When I came up in January, I drove through the snow,” he said. “When I woke up every morning, it was snowing outside. So, I had to adjust to that, but I love it here.”
The changes in college football atmosphere, though, took more to acclimate to that throwing on a warm coat. When French left Gardner-Webb, he had recorded a program-best 34½ sacks and 61 tackles for loss. At the FCS level, he said he could gather all those stats just by running around the tackles. He learned quickly that wouldn’t be enough in the Big 12.
French admitted the leap in competition at WVU wasn’t simple to get used to.
“Coming to something big like this, it’s not easy,” he said. “When I first got here, the plays were so hard. In the FCS, they were so simple. I didn’t have to do all the dropping, getting the hands on receivers or anything like that.
“But here, it’s the little things like getting your hands on receivers, reading your man on keys and all that stuff.”
As tough as the transition has been, French has made it work. He has appeared in every game his first season, recording 15 tackles, 1 1/2 for a loss and two quarterback hurries through his first six contests. He’s also made an impact on special teams with a pair of tackles.
It would have been easy for French to keep things easy in the FCS. He could have kept running around tackles, racking up record-breaking numbers and collecting honors. In four seasons with GWU, he was named to the all-Big South first team four times, named the Big South Defensive Player of the Year once, and topped several FCS All-America lists along with those two Buchanan Award finalist spots.
Yet his Gardner-Webb coaches understood when he told them he wanted to make a change. They knew his ceiling was higher.
“It was a staff meeting,” French said, “and I was telling them I wanted to better myself, whether I get exposed or not.”
The GWU coaches knew what was at stake, including the opportunity for a better scholarship situation and a better chance at name, image and likeness money that could help him care for his now-1-year-old daughter. French said that the decisions he was making weren’t just for his future.
“It made me open my eyes up to a lot of things,” he said. “Having a daughter, I had to put some of the football stuff aside, and really see it in the perspective that I have a kid, so I had to really balance both.”
That balance has been set so far, with French making an immediate contribution to WVU’s season. He has gone from watching Tavon Austin highlights from his West Virginia years to trying to record some highlights of his own in old gold and blue. He always had the belief that he could do it.
“You know, we actually came up here and we had a walkthrough up and down the practice field,” French said. “And just looking at the facility, I was like, this is it. I think I deserve to be in something like this.”
— Story by Derek Redd
