Lockett Up with Kurtz 7/26: Tyler Lockett talks K-State and NFL career

[Music] hello and welcome to the first edition of the lock it up podcast i'm john kurtz i am joined by aaron lockett who will be the regular co-host here on this podcast and we are very proud to be a part of kcsn and our first guest is tyler lockett so we're going lock it squared right out of the chute starting this podcast with a bang we're going to talk with current seattle seahawk and obviously k-state legend tyler lockett here in just a second the podcast is brought to you by 360 vodka it's the world's first eco-friendly vodka crafted to be as good for the planet as it is to drink american-made and american-owned this premium vodka is made with locally sourced midwestern corn and is naturally gluten free six times distilled and six times filtered 360 vodka smooth clean and green certainly appreciate their support as we get this going but uh aaron i'm fired up about this i have worked with uh kevin lockett on a radio show in the past so now it's just completing the holy trinity here as we start with tyler we have we have you as well but uh welcome to the podcast uh why don't you update everybody k-state fans that have not been in touch with you on what it is that you're up to these days uh i'm doing big things so i'm enjoying myself it's been a while since i've had opportunity to play for kansas state but obviously through tyler had a chance to watch k-state from 2011 to 2015 but i'm actually in the process of getting ready to launch my own sports agency so excited cause next paid sports he's got a marketing arm is representing football and basketball players along with the coaching division so excited to jump into the new world well we're excited to have you and i'm sure that uh your your number one client here is excited to talk with you as well in tyler locket tyler uh appreciate the time in joining us here on the podcast first of all i think that has to be the first question right what's it like working with uh with your uncle in this capacity well i think it's a really cool experience obviously uh you know we got the family legacy going on but being able to kind of get into the family type of business era i think that's something that's really cool uh my uncle wanted to be able to just branch out and kind of figure out what he was passionate about energetic about what was his purpose and for me to be in a position and for him to be able to launch something that's going to be truly special i thought it was a great opportunity that he wanted to even have me as his first client you know sometimes people don't want to start that way they want to go get it their own way and it's the fact that he wanted to start off with me i mean what better way up than that i didn't want to pass on me so tyler you're coming up on year seven in the nfl so tell me what it's been like to transition uh from a receiver that started off as a third fourth guy return guide and now being one of the main guys for the offense how does that feel and what are some of the things you're using to stay successful yeah well i mean it's been great obviously um i don't think it's what i always wanted you always want to go in and just be the person right off the bat and sometimes like you know even with me and you talk you start to realize that a lot of it is based off of time and as well as opportunity so all you can really do is just prepare yourself for the time that you do get the chance to be able to be whatever it is that you desire to be or you see yourself being so for me i think like the transition was something that i had to learn how to adjust to because um i i pulled out different aspects of my game that may have looked different than it was at kansas state a lot of things that we want to see i don't look different than what i was used to at kansas state and so some of the things that i do really good i had to put on the back burner in order to be able to be a girl i could be in the office that we had and so i had to learn how to adjust i had to learn how to be good in a lot of different areas that maybe i didn't focus on as much at kansas city and i developed different techniques and different tools that allowed me to be successful and so now having the chance to go into this year we got a different offensive coordinator we're changing a lot of stuff up and a lot of stuff is going to look different and so now i feel like i have a lot more freedom to be the player that i always knew that i could be and sometimes i put on back burner because i knew that i had i couldn't be the person that i knew i could be based off of how we designed things to work during a couple of my years being there how motivated were you by i can remember like just talking to a guy who covered the seahawks when you were drafted and was asking him about like what the impact would be and he's talking about special teams right hey this guy can come in and help us on special teams like how motivated were you by some of that talk when you came in like hey this will be a return guy as opposed to now one of the best receivers in the league well i know i wasn't ever going to be considered one of the top receivers just through conversations especially coming out of the draft i just knew that i always do best when i see an opportunity at hand in front of me and just based off how the nfl works that you're not one of the top receivers and if you're not number one or number two you gotta be able to find a way to suit up as the top five receivers on special teams so if that was just a way for me to get my foot in the door that's all i really needed in order to be able to showcase my true skills and my true ability so when i went to seattle and they see me as a receiver they might have been more shocked than ever to see what they was getting but for me like i said i always knew what it was that i could do the only thing was you know everybody has different type of offense you have a spread offense you have west coast you have run done like you got different types of offenses that teams like to utilize which causes receivers to run routes a little more different and a little more technique sound but the way that we ran spread all about getting to a spot and so when you talk about releases when you talk about being able to put a little more creativity in your routes we couldn't really do that you know and so that's what i mean when you run the spread it's all about getting to a position as fast as you can because everything is based off of timing but you know based off of the type of offense we right now it's pretty cool because you give your receiver a little more freedom to be able to be creative in their route running to be able to get themselves open to be able to see schemes get you open it's just a whole different type of office that allows you to be versatile on um so many different levels and we've had that since i've been there but this is the more freedom the most freedom i've probably ever had to be able to have a chance to to really be the tyler that i that i did at kansas state and you know high school and all that type of stuff yeah i'll say here you know as we as we think about kansas state i remember your first touchdown against miami i remember your last touchdown against ucla and all the times in between and so it's just amazing to see the growth right i've seen it day in and day out and so talk a little bit about what it what it meant for for me and your dad kevin to play at kansas state and how you felt about following uh some of the seasons we put together yeah well i mean i never really um stressed or was worried about it until you know you finally get there and you see how much people love you and you haven't even anything again or how everybody was comparing the two and there's like he's in the middle of this he's in the middle of that so i mean sometimes when you come in with high expectations off off rip it's very very difficult to try to live up to that and stuff like that but i think you know um my dad and you too uncle aaron did a great job at being able to help me try to find a whole path and navigate through that you know my mom had a big um a big part of that as well and so i think for me like i held on to my faith a lot more than um i might have before like i that was the one thing that got me through that allowed me to have peace to go out there and be able to play and just be able to get the opportunities like i said it was about time man you had a lot of great guys that was on the team when i came in you had broderick you had chris harper you had tremaine thompson you had sheldon smith um and a lot of them they were all up there playing you know before i even came up there so not only did i kind of have to fit in and wait my turn but special teams is what also got me in there when it came to being able to showcase what i can truly do as a receiver as well and so i got better throughout the years i mastered my craft perfected my craft and i learned how to make everything work based off of the toolbelt that i was given at kansas state yeah what point along those lines did you feel like you really took over as your own man so to speak like i'm tyler lockett i'm not aaron lockett's nephew i'm not kevin lockett's son uh well i mean i never really looked at it like that um i mean i think sometimes you get lost in waves because um my grandpa would always call me kevin or erin so i mean that was always something that i think just kind of happened i don't i wouldn't say i really got out the shadows or created my own my own when it came to the perception that people saw me i just think when people i think if anything for me it changed when i kind of got word from god to where i knew i was supposed to be there so for me everything changed at that moment um going into the third game against miami for a lot of fans i can't speak for them but i feel like everything changed when maybe in their head they considered that i surpassed my uncle and my dad and maybe for them that's when they finally gave me my own path but until then if i if i wasn't going to be able to surpass them then it would have always been comparisons and always been questions and stuff like that but now it doesn't matter if my uncle was best to best lock it in special teams you know what i mean now it doesn't matter if my dad was one of the best receivers when he came to kansas state university like now when i come in it's not like uh well how was he based off of his dad how was he based off his uncle it's like now when they talk about me it's like he he created his own ass and what do you remember uh in part i asked this about the 2012 season because just recently kellis robinette with the kansas city star wichita eagle he did this oral history piece where he was talking to is basically all the wichita guys on that 2012 team right like arthur and bryce brown um chris harper who you mentioned there he was involved in that too and they were just telling like what it is that they remembered most about that run that you guys had where you wind up ranked number one in the bcs the baylor game happens you do go to the the fiesta bowl and finish one of the best seasons in k-state history with a big 12 championship what what sticks with you the most about that year uh i think the biggest thing that stuck to me was just the fact that we played tcu they threw me a bubble no it wasn't even a bubble we played tcu and now all the plays that i could have got hurt on it was me trying to block and i got rolled up on and it just sucked because my foot was hurting so bad that it was hard for me to put myself to even play the next game and so like i tried so hard to get myself back but even going into the game i remember chris was like bro if you can't play just don't play because i could barely run and like i still went out there and played because that's the type of player that i am but i just wish even if the circumstance wouldn't have changed i just wish that i would have got to be out there playing as a healthy toddler like it than a person that was injured and maybe that could have changed the game maybe it wouldn't have changed the game but you know i always end up remembering that game as they ended up beating us and i really couldn't do anything physically to change the outcome because i i was hobbling around the whole time and that was kind of the deal with the whole team right like you guys as a as a team were just so beat up by that point of the year yeah i mean the crazy thing was we knew that all we had to do was beat baylor like and that was just our mindset we knew that we was going to beat baylor and not to talk bad about texas but like we knew that we were going to beat texas because the whole conversation about texas was they don't like to play in the cold so we had them we were playing them i think in december at kansas state and we knew that they were so focused on bringing warmer jackets and warmer benches and stuff like that and we just said we just got to get past baylor and we're going to play notre dame in the national championship and it just so happened that out of all the games baylor wanted to get going it was the game that played against us that really you know made us have to go to the fiesta ball yeah you know i you know one thing i'll say tyler when i think about the fiesta bowl he played michigan and uh i remember three touchdowns and i remember i was not at the game but i was sitting at home and every time i was jumping and cheering for you and it's just one thing that always resonated with me with you is that we talked about it throughout your entire career as we talked about consistency and so people always ask about you know how do people make it to the league what's the biggest difference between college and professional sports and i always talk about consistency and so you you've showcased consistency since you've been an nfl what has made you more consistent than anything and what has kept you going on the straight and narrow since you've been in the professional football yeah i think what's helped me be consistent um when it comes to the nfl i think it was different than college in college i i was looking forward to all the match-ups that i was going against from my junior year all the way to my senior year my junior year i want to guess a lot of great dbs i'm the first one i want to say his name was marcus williams that came out of north dakota state then all of a sudden you know i was looking forward to going against jason verret that year who was projected to be a number one draft pick i was going against aaron colvin who was projected to be a number one draft pick you know before he ended up tearing acl later on throughout the season and so um um i think that's the same year that i was getting ready to go i was going after justin gilbert and so the more and more that you started looking at like the the db that i was going up again the more protected i was trying to make of myself to be and so it it made me have to be be like okay let me focus on the fundamentals andre coleman was there to help with the fundamentals and i really got to develop a different type of act in my game but the coaches also let me like be the quarterback on the field and also tell them what i also saw and what could work for a lot of us so that helped me there when i went to the nfl i would say the thing that helped me be more consistent with realizing that those first two or three years i played i wasn't gonna hit the ball like i did at kansas state where i got 12 14 targets stuff like that sometimes i'm lucky to get one target and depending on if the db was there or if it was a double team and the ball was in the air i had to learn how to how to take advantage of that one pass that i was going to be able to get and so it made me realize that okay even if it's a good throw if it's a bad throw if i'm double teamed if the ball is in the air or even if it's a throwaway i gotta try to make the best like i gotta find the best way possible to be able to catch this ball because this might be the only ball that's gonna be in my vicinity the whole entire game and so that taught me how to be consistent when it came to the ball coming away because there was games where you know if i got the ball once in the first quarter i was basically out there playing but watching the rest of the game and so i had to learn how to make those plays count and so i think that's what helped me to be more consistent was not ever knowing how many catches or how many passes i was going to be able to get so i had to focus on whatever came my i would imagine too playing in college for a guy like coach schneider has to reinforce some consistency because you're frankly not going to survive that program without being consistent what do you remember about about playing for coach schneider what resonates most with you from your experience there yeah um i mean i think playing under coach schneider you start to realize how how timely everything was everything was like time basis we were literally under a military type of schedule and when it came to became the school when it came to um football when it came to curfew or going out and all that type of stuff like everything was literally like based off of you got to do this you got to do this if you don't do this i will see you for p.i you're going to get in trouble and so i think what it really did was teach us a lot of people um which is not surprising but a lot of people don't live with their dads and so i feel like the system that he created was a father that a lot of people never had you know it taught them structure and taught them how to be disciplined and there was a lot of people that laughed out and you're gonna have that for whatever reason but they weeded out the people who they felt going to be able to be a part of what we had going as a team but it also brought people closer together and it made us understand that there's consequences in every part of our decision making and so with the little time that we had which was free time we learned how to make the best tattoo but now going to the nfl i realized that how not strict it is you know how but i also understand like if you're late a lot of teams you get fined and there's a lot of stuff with that like some people get for not having the right weight if they expect you to be 200 and you're 192 you get fined for every pound that you're wrong you said what i was one of those guys for not making weight i'm telling you it's hard it is luckily i haven't had to you know to be a part of that or deal with that but i think being being at kansas state and all the stuff we went through with the long practices the extra running after i made past kansas state my first practice at seattle was brookie miniham and once we hit an hour and 30 they were like practice over and i looked around and was like are we done and it's like yeah that was a good practice that's our break i said we're sitting down getting gatorades getting gator lights and we're about to go out there for another hour and a half yeah and they were sitting there talking about are we done so at that moment i knew like this is way easier yeah that's that's interesting you know chad i want to transition real quick and so let's talk about sterling so sterling is next up and and obviously you and i have had the opportunity to see sterling uh from elementary to middle school to high school but give the world your scouting report on what you see with sterling coming around with one more year to go in high school and then he transitioned to kansas state after that yeah well first off sterling will be taller than me and uncle barry that's the first thing when it comes to i think when it comes to footwork um since i've seen them i went to a 707 they've seen him has really really great footwork um especially from being able to watch him the last two years to now like footwork is really good when i watch a dinner 707 he was catching the ball like extremely well i know like one of the things he's working on is just being able to catch those um those tough passes 50 50 ball my balls up in the air and nobody knows who's gonna come down with it that's something he's already working on right now as he's stepping into his senior year i'm really excited for him i think he's getting faster i think he understands how to be quick how to use his explosiveness i think he's really good at running routes early on than a lot of us were the biggest thing though is it's just understanding i don't know what type of his candidacy really has you know so luckily for us i mean we all played under the same coach uh michael smith was there when we were there at first and we threw the ball a really really good amount um right now you know they they run the ball you know and so they still throw ball but it's not it's not as much he threw the ball and so it's not so much i think he's going to be i honestly think he's going to be really really good i just think the the only question is is he gonna be able to truly be able to showcase it if we run the ball a lot if if we throw the ball a lot i think a lot of people are gonna be happy with what they see you know we have been able to come in with him being able to play but also um i do understand now with being in the league that you have to be able to run the ball for yourself if you want to be able to win a big 12 championship to go to the playoffs you got to be able to do both and so i think if kansas state can exercise the run in the past it makes him be in there a lot much more easier because he won't have to deal with double teams or triple teams because he knows that we have a great run game that can be able to allow him to get open as well well tyler i've got a couple of quick ones here these can be quicker hitters for you but the best catch of your college career what would you say was the best catch of your k-state career you said on my k-state career uh we can do both we'll go k-state and then nfl if you have that thought through well i think my the best one in my k-state career was probably the one i did in spring game yeah yeah probably remember that i definitely remember that yeah yeah nfl um [Music] i don't know i had one again i want to say the ravens i had caught a one-hander and then i got knocked out right after i caught it or you could say the rams went in the back of the end zone that that was going to be my guess and that that also brings me to i mean that pro football focus stat that came up you've never dropped a red zone target like how how crazy is it for you to hear that kind of a stat yeah i don't really know if that's true or not okay the publicity is good publicity i remember we played the game versus saints were rushed through the ball it was fourth down i don't know where i was at on the field but i dove and tried to get it with one hand because it was a little too far i almost caught it and reeled it in but when i hit the ground i didn't get it and so i don't know maybe i was on the one you know maybe i was in the end zone i don't know but when i seen that stat that first play that i thought about that's that's interesting well hey just don't send this podcast to pff i won't send it to him we'll make sure that that stays out there for you um hey appreciate the time again man and before i let you go i guess one other thing i had johnny down here and you rattled off some of the guys that you played with who who are you still closest with from your playing days at k-state like who are you still talking to most uh well i don't talk to a lot of people like i used to but um i still talked to curry here and there still talked to jake here and there i talked to ryan mueller a bit here and there he actually hit me up a couple days ago um he was at this burger place in in in topeka and so i forgot what it was called bobos i think so he was over there eating but um i still talked to deontay deontay lives in texas i talked to steven west here and there uh obviously dante was always my best friend there's people that i'll still be in conversation with or keep in touch with it might not be what used to be but sometimes we even play the game together it just kind of depends yeah well finally i mean the the hot topic in college athletics right now is conference realignment with texas and oklahoma bolting from the big 12. and i i will say i appreciated your energy that you were bringing on twitter poking some fun at texas because you know you guys destroyed texas when you were in school at k-state what's your reaction to all this ben let them go if they want to go let them go like at the end of the day i mean you know in my mess park conference and all that type of stuff but the big 12 was really good last year i don't think anybody lost in the playoffs last year the big 12. i think we were undefeated we well when you played texas did you like did you guys feel like you had their number every single time you went out there on the field with them like what do you remember about playing texas when you were in school yeah i mean we weren't i we were more excited playing against o.u you know like when we played texas we knew we were gonna have to play but i mean it wasn't the same texas that was like there when vince young was there you know when it was like they were like the top of the crop you know like we don't know what happened or what but when we were going to school it was oh you that was the top of the crop it was tcu that was the top of the crop it was oklahoma state that was top of the crop you know what i mean so even whenever i got there we became the top of the crop west virginia was the top of the crop you know better was the top of the crop they had 33 and they you know what i mean they had so many guys so i mean you know at that point in time when we were there texas wasn't at the top of the top and so i mean but if all you and texas want to go to the big to the sec that's fine let them go if they if they might get more recruits they might you know get more publicity whatever the case is but i mean that just makes our chances of going to the playoffs that much more better like if you ask me i'm with you yeah i agree i agree you know it's one of those things where you know if you look at the players that's come from the big 12 right you look at the patrick mahomes if you look at the title lockets if you look at the tyreek hills none of them went to ou none of them went to texas and so i think just alone the big 12 has produced enough talent that's been successful at the next level that i look forward to just looking at a conference uh you know whoever wants to come in is great but we'll continue to produce good football and from there like you said i'm looking forward to kansas state playing against the top teams they've always showed up well against the texas and the ou's of the world so just another opportunity for them to showcase their skills against whoever wants to join the conference yes sir well tyler if you want to take more shots on twitter man i'll retweet every single one of them i'll just let you know that you're on the way out well we all just being honest we could bring notre dame in the big 12. yeah yeah all right well aaron do you have anything else left here for this guy before we get him out of here no as always he knows i know how to find him so i'm looking for them playing year seven excited for what he's doing um proud of him from the bottom of my heart right i've seen him grow up but uh he's doing it the right way and he's uh he's making an impact on a lot of people's lives and i'm proud of that so just happy to be connected with him uh through family and happy that he'll be my first guest and we're looking forward to doing more well i appreciate that man love you uncle aaron all right love you as well all right mr kurtz thank you tyler i appreciate it man we definitely uh definitely are thrilled that you were the first guest here and again the show is brought to you by 360 vodka and holiday distillery big thanks to them for for helping bring all of this to you it's going to be awesome as we get rolling here throughout football season with the lock it up podcast he's tyler lockett he's aaron lockett i'm john kurtz thanks for listening today for the first edition of the lock it up podcast here on kcsn [Music]

Channel: KC Sports Network, powered by Let it Fly Media

Views: 756

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Kansas State, K-State, Kansas-State Wildcats, K-State Wildcats, KSU, KSU Wildcats, Tyler Lockett, Aaron Lockett, John Kurtz, Tyler Lockett interview

Id: BEvTJZPpZRA

Length: 31min 0sec (1860 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021