Tyler Brought Winning Attitude To Starkville
July 27, 2022 | Football, Athletics, Joel Coleman
New Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer was a motivator and winner for the Bulldogs.
STARKVILLE – When Bob Tyler took over as the head football coach at Mississippi State ahead of the 1973 football season, the Bulldogs were in need of a spark.
MSU had just one winning campaign in the preceding nine years. Enter Tyler to try and turn things around.
On a late September day in Tyler's first season, he sent a loud and clear message. MSU upset then-No. 16 Florida by a score of 33-12. The bite was back in the Bulldogs.
"Our players beat them pretty good," Tyler said, recalling the victory. "That still, after all the years of coaching and winning some good ones, that Florida victory in '73 was one of my most exciting and important wins."
The triumph set the stage for an incredibly successful Bulldog tenure for Tyler. It's a big piece of a legendary career that has now landed Tyler in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame with his induction set for Saturday night (July 30)Â in Jackson.
"He did a lot for Mississippi State," Tyler's former quarterback at MSU, Rockey Felker, said. "He brought a winning attitude to Starkville and was a big factor in some of the best teams that we ever had up to that point and really in our lifetime. You think about how we hadn't won nine games in [over 30] years when we won nine games in 1974, then we come back in 1976 and win nine again…He was just a lot of fun to play for."
Felker saw results both for his team and individually to back up his assessment. Along with being the quarterback who guided the historic '74 season that featured an MSU Sun Bowl win – State's first postseason game in more than a decade – Felker led the Southeastern Conference in total offense and won a Nashville Banner SEC Player of the Year award as well. Tyler was instrumental in helping Felker notch the honor the former signal caller says.
"He was a big factor in it," Felker said. "[Tyler] had the wisdom for us to go to the veer offense. He'd been around a lot of good quarterbacks. He had the wisdom to put us in a position to be successful and go out and have the kind of year that we all had. He brought an attitude to Mississippi State that hadn't been there in a long time. I give him all the credit in the world for the success we had during that time that he was here and after."
Felker credits Tyler's ability to push his players as one of the coach's key characteristics.
"He was a motivator," Felker said. "He wasn't necessarily a fiery coach like some would think of, but he gave you confidence that you could go out and be successful. If you got behind or if you had to go 98 yards in the last two minutes of the game, you could do it. Everything from our offseason program – we never really had an offseason program until he came here. He started the offseason program and had his weight program along with all the wisdom he had as a coach to put us in the best position to be successful. He had it all. He came to Mississippi State at a perfect time, and not only that, but he left the program in really good shape. You think about the teams with John Bond and Tyrone Keys and Johnie Cooks. Many of those players, he was a big factor in why they came to Mississippi State."
Though Tyler got MSU back to winning in the 70s, he'd been winning plenty himself long before he arrived in Starkville. Tyler's Magnolia State coaching career started in 1955 at Water Valley High. He'd later have stints at Okolona, Senatobia, Meridian and Corinth. Tyler posted an incredibly impressive 94-19-6 record as a prep coach. He rode that to assistant jobs at Ole Miss, Alabama and MSU before he finally got the chance to be the leader of the Bulldogs.
Ahead of two later head coaching stops – one at North Texas and one at Millsaps – Tyler also served as Mississippi State's athletic director from 1976 through 1979, firmly establishing himself as a renowned figure in Bulldog history. He was inducted into the MSU M-Club Hall of Fame last year.
"Before I even went there as coach, I had a great view of Mississippi State University and its people," Tyler said of his feelings toward MSU. "I knew so many of the people. Then I got there and it was a great place. The people are wonderful all through the Bulldog nation. People helped and the faculty, they were such help in attracting student-athletes to the university. It was a great place. It was just outstanding. Over the years, I've felt blessed to be a part of the Bulldog nation and I do love the university."
Tyler joins former MSU basketball player and coach Kermit Davis, Sr. and former Bulldog football wide receiver Eric Moulds as individuals with Mississippi State ties being inducted as part of this year's Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame class.
