CORVALLIS — Time in the weight room occurs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Practices that last roughly two hours take place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In addition to lifting and team workouts, the remaining time is filled with walk-throughs, team gatherings and position group meetings.
Players must work hard to learn the playbook, new signals and assignments — especially on offense with a new coordinator calling the shots.
This is the world of college football in the spring at Oregon State University. Obviously, it’s a lot of hard work that requires an intense commitment.
Team newcomer Ty May is loving it.
“I wasn’t part of the team through the first bit of practices,” May said last week. “They wanted me to come in later and I had a bunch of paperwork I had to get done, so they’re getting me caught up with the playbook right now, which has been quite an interesting journey.”
May, a 2023 graduate of Philomath High School, was accepted as a walk-on over the winter after several months of uncertainty as to whether he would even be able to continue in the sport. He passed on an opportunity to play football at Boise State, considered playing basketball at Linn-Benton Community College and ultimately decided to enroll at OSU to pursue a civil engineering degree.
It was not an easy process.
“There was a chunk of time there when I wasn’t playing football and I was getting down in the dumps about it,” May said. “Then, you know, the Philomath community — people would ask me about it and tell me to keep working. That meant a lot to me.”
May has stayed close to the PHS campus with a younger sister involved in athletics and a family that shows a high level of support. Plus, he spends a lot of time visiting with former classmates and coaches along with several others from the community.
“My family, my friends, that’s what’s important to me,” May said. “There was a while there where I was having a real hard time with not being one of those big-name guys.”
As a freshman walk-on at Oregon State, May’s starting on the ground floor and will need to work his way up if he hopes to see time on the gridiron. A tight end, he had fears that the scholarship players with stars next to their names wouldn’t give him the time of day. But he says that hasn’t been the case.
“One of the biggest things that I was worried about when I got the opportunity to play football was how the other guys were going to treat me, you know, that everybody’s going to look down on me because I was a walk-on,” May said. “And really, it’s not that at all, you know. We’re a bunch of guys that are normal dudes that happen to be really good at football and we’re all kind of working towards the same goal. So they’ve been super nice throughout the whole process.”
May has his sights set on becoming one of those scholarship players someday.
“With the walk-on situation, you definitely have to work harder,” May said. “You don’t have any scholarship money, you’re always working for a scholarship, and so it definitely is a motivation. That’s my ultimate goal — to get put on scholarship and play and perform at the best level that I can. It’s been great so far.”
Oregon State is not quite halfway through its 15 spring practices with players currently in a two-week intermission for finals and Spring Break. The team scrimmaged March 16 and May was among the tight ends who saw reps on that Saturday with the third group.
“We were down a couple of tight ends and so the coach threw me in there with the 3s,” May said. “Usually, the 1s, 2s and 3s get thrown in and then the other guys kind of filter in but we were down to two tight ends and so he was throwing me in with the 3s. And it was pretty awesome.”
May feels like he performed well based on the reaction of tight ends coach Jon Boyer.
“He was impressed that I was able to kind of even know where I was remotely going without as much practice but that we’ve got a lot of work to do,” May said.
May said there has been a learning curve on offense. Trent Bray is in his first year as head coach and Ryan Gunderson has taken over as offensive coordinator. He had words of admiration for his position coach.
“To be at Oregon State, to be a good coach, you have to be a good teacher as well,” he said. “Because, I mean Coach Boyer, my tight ends coach, he’s an excellent teacher and an amazing coach. He knows football very well. But it’s also like you’re in school and you’re sitting in on a class … you’re in meetings and you learn the playbook and you also have to go home and learn it on your own.”
May’s just thrilled to be back in the game that he loves. The recent scrimmage was a great day.
“That was fun,” he said. “It was a blast.”
