On3 Roundtable: Tyler Van Dyke to Alabama rumors were ‘absolutely real’

For a brief few days during the spring transfer window, it appeared that Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke could be heading for the exits — and then to Alabama. In an On3 Roundtable, CaneSports’s Gary Ferman shared how close Van Dyke came to leaving.

Ultimately Van Dyke returned to Miami, using the leverage of Alabama’s interest to secure more lucrative NIL deals, Ferman said. He explained more to On3’s J.D. PicKell.

“It was nip and tuck for Miami for several days. Because if they lose Tyler Van Dyke, they are in a major hurt locker,” Ferman said. “And I think Tyler Van Dyke’s representatives knew that and I think they took advantage of Alabama’s interest in him to get a better NIL deal out of Miami. And I don’t see that as something that Miami would get into very often. I would consider it kind of like a one off. But, it absolutely was a real possibility that he was going to go to Alabama. And they got done what they needed to get done in the NIL world and so he stayed.”

Locked in to be the Miami quarterback for 2023, Van Dyke also spent the spring learning the trappings of the new offense the Hurricanes will be running. Miami moved on from Josh Gattis and hired Shannon Dawson from Houston to be the offensive coordinator.

Van Dyke struggled in 2022 after a stellar redshirt freshman campaign in 2021. He threw for just 1835 yards and 10 touchdowns to five interceptions in 2022, a big step back from his nearly 3000 passing yards and 25-to-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio the year before.

A return to that form would have Miami in a very good spot.

Ferman said that Van Dyke took to the new system very well, and he’s also been playing better now that he’s had time to heal from an injury that plagued him throughout last season. All good signs for the future.

“But he looked back to being the old TVD in spring drills,” Ferman said. They were very encouraged. He picked up Shannon Dawson’s offense extremely quickly and really executed it to a T, exactly how coach Dawson wanted. So the quality of Tyler Van Dyke’s play is giving Miami hope that it can significantly improve off what was obviously a disastrous 5-7 season last year. And they just have continued to try to add playmakers around him to just put more firepower into the offense.”