DEFENSIVE END TOOK SMALL-TOWN ROUTE TO NFL
Tuszka’s route to Broncos fueled by work ethic, family support
The area surrounding the Tuszka home in Warner, S.D., was the first athletic stage for Jarrod and his younger brother, Derrek. Name a competition, football or basketball, hunting or fishing, and the connected-at-the-hip duo would play to win.
Their mom, Stacy, has a first memory. Nearly two decades ago, Jarrod was 5 and Derrek was 3, and when it was time to play football in the backyard, they called for a passer.
“I would be the all-team quarterback,” Stacy said with a laugh. “Not a very good (thrower), but they were little. I didn’t have to throw it that far. We would make the play up and the other would be on defense.”
Derrek has never stopped playing, competing and winning.
He was a star in nine-man football, a five-year starter in high school basketball, and a part of four FCS national championship teams at North Dakota State. Along the way, a work ethic, on and off the field, was established and never compromised. The Tuszkas work.
Period.
Derrek combined the want-to with natural talent to attract the Broncos, who made him their final draft pick (seventh round/No. 254) last month.
“One of the most fun guys I’ve had the privilege of being around and coaching,” NDSU defensive ends coach Buddha Williams said. “Effort was never a question and his motor carried over to everybody else in the room and on the team.”
That mentality helped Tuszka transition from small-town high school football to the FCS’ premier program, and it will provide a foundation with the Broncos.
Late selections need everything to fall right — chiefly the opportunity to show up on tape during offseason/training camp practices and preseason games — to make the opening-week roster. But the coronavirus pandemic has kept the NFL’s doors shuttered since mid-March.
Tuszka, who had 29½ sacks in 53 games for the Bison, trained in Centennial at Broncos strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow’s center before the scouting combine and returned to the Denver area last week. When the Broncos eventually put on pads and helmets,
Tuszka will have multiple objectives: Defend the run at a listed 251 pounds, quickly transition from defensive end in a 4-3 scheme to outside linebacker in a 3-4 front while maintaining his pass-rushing prowess, and become a core special teams player.
Check all three boxes and he could challenge Malik Reed and Justin Hollins for the No. 4 spot behind Von Miller, Bradley Chubb and Jeremiah Attaochu.
The last three weeks, Tuszka, his Broncos-issued iPad in hand, was putting in hours of study while staying at his brother’s house in Fargo.
“He’s so detailed in his work — that’s where he has set himself up for great success,” said Jarrod, who was also a defensive end at NDSU. “Once he was able to get into the Denver playbook, he never put that thing down. It was like his Bible. He would light up when he would look up and say, ‘This stuff is making sense.’ He’s a quick learner.”
Jarrod paused and added: “He’s a special dude.”
And the dude has a special story.
Benefits of nine-man football
When Derrek was eight months old, the Tuszkas moved from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to Warner, Stacy’s hometown. The 2010 census lists 457 residents and Stacy estimated Derrek’s high school graduating class was about 19-21 kids.
Warner is less than 15 minutes south of Aberdeen, S.D. The Missouri River is 110 miles west and Derrek and Jarrod visit there to scuba dive and spear-fish for walleye. When their sons attended NDSU, Stacy and her husband, Mark, would make the 185-mile drive to Fargo, taking left turns onto Route 12 east and Interstate 29 north.
Mark works for an Ohio-based packaging company and Stacy for her family’s agriculture business. The Tuszka boys grew up just outside of town, close enough to walk to school, but with plenty of space, Derrek said, “that we were able to shoot our guns in the backyard.”
Keeping up with Jarrod, two years ahead of him in school, was always Derrek’s goal.
Jarrod learned how to ride a bike at age 5? Derrek wanted to at 3 ½ . Jarrod started lifting weights as a teenager? Derrek began training at the same time. Jarrod earned a black belt in taekwondo?
Derrek quickly followed.
And when Mark and Stacy, who often volunteered to coach Jarrod’s teams, needed an extra player? They promoted young Derrek.
“They’re not twins, but pretty close based on how they grew up together,” said Mark, who played defensive end and kicker at Minn.-Duluth in the late 1970s.
“Anything Derrek was engaged in, he excelled. He applied himself, he focused and he competed.”
Derrek was a dominant nineman football player. A normal defense fields four linemen, three linebackers and two defensive backs, and the game is played on a field that is 80 yards long and 40 yards wide.
Derrek saw playing time at eight positions (everything but quarterback, defensive end and offensive line). For Jarrod’s final two years of high school and Derrek’s first two, they lined up together at linebacker with a simple objective.
“It was a competition for who could get to the football the fastest,” Jarrod said.
Said Derrek: “I think playing (different positions) helped me tremendously with my athleticism and just learning how to read the game from those spots.”
Derrek finished his high school career with 342 tackles and 1,460 rushing yards but wasn’t heavily recruited. Two Division II programs, Northern State in nearby Aberdeen and Minn.-Duluth, his father’s alma mater, offered, but NDSU was enamored with adding another Tuszka.
Jarrod joined the NDSU program in 2013 and Derrek followed two years later, choosing the Bison over a late push from Wyoming, whose new coach, Craig Bohl, had just left NDSU.
“Driven” to succeed in NFL
NDSU listed 109 players on last year’s championship-winning roster. Fifty-four were from North Dakota and Minnesota, but only three from South Dakota. Not from a high school football hotbed, Derrek had to learn a higher level of play … while dealing with two additional players and a bigger field.
“It took a little time,” Derrek said. “Practice was huge for me. That (redshirt) year, it was good to learn from some of the older guys and take a whole bunch of reps in practice.”
Derrek debuted as a rotational defensive end in 2016 (four tackles). The next season, he often lined up at defensive end opposite Jarrod, who saw NFL ability in his younger brother.
“People would say, ‘You have a biased opinion,’” Jarrod said. “He’s my brother, but there had been so many great athletes from (NDSU) that played in the NFL and you get an eye for it. I knew at the end of the 2017 season that he would get a shot. He just got better every year.”
Two seasons of 7½ sacks set Derrek up for a terrific senior year — 13½ sacks to be named first-team All-America and Missouri Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Year.
The Bison’s depth allowed coaches to use a two-platoon line, keeping Tuszka fresh for the end of games and select third-down situations.
“Remarkable (consistency),” said Williams, who joined NDSU’s staff in 2017. “Every time he stepped on the field, you can bet you were going to get his all and he would be one of the best players in the league week in and week out.”
Tuszka’s daily commitment to football took time away from his other passion: Flying.
On his 18th birthday, his parents gifted him an airplane ride with Mike Harmon, who sprayed the Tuszka’s fields. Derrek earned his pilot’s license and has around 300 hours of flight time. He and his father co-own a 7GC Champ — a one-engine, two-seat craft.
“He’s pursued flying just like he has his education and football,” Mark Tuszka said.
And now the pursuit is sticking in the NFL. According to Pro Football Reference, 11 South Dakota natives have played at least 100 games in the league, led by kicker Adam Vinatieri (Yankton) and including tight end Dallas Clark (Sioux Falls), offensive tackle Riley Reiff (Parkston) and linebackers Chad Greenway (Mount Vernon) and Ben Leber (Vermillion).
“(The NFL) was something we never really talked about — it seemed so far away and such a huge accomplishment knowing that doesn’t happen to people where we live,” Stacy Tuszka said. “But when they started talking about it, I thought if anybody can do it, it’s Derrek because he’s so driven.”