Fall Camp Preview: Five players looking to step up this year

Tyler Hunter walks off the field after sustaining an injury last season.

Tyler Hunter, Rs JR, S

Tyler Hunter, admittedly, doesn’t belong on this list. The redshirt junior safety is a known quantity — one of the best defensive backs in the secondary and already one of the leaders on this year’s team. That doesn’t mean Hunter doesn’t still have something left to prove though.

Nobody lost more than Tyler Hunter did last year. After starting the first three games of the season Hunter suffered a neck injury that forced him out for the remainder of the year and threatened to end his career. Making the injury even more painful, it was Hunter — and not departing seniors Terrence Brooks or Lamarcus Joyner — that teammates credited with making sure the secondary understood Jeremy Pruitt’s new defense. After Hunter spent the entire Spring and Summer schooling his teammates on pattern-matching and the nuances of the defense, his injury forced him to watch from the sideline as the season played out. More insultingly, as fans became more and more enamored with freshmen like Jalen Ramsey and Nate Andrews, Hunter’s name seemed to come up less and less.

But do not forget about Tyler Hunter.

A fourth-year player from Valdosta, GA, Hunter will attempt to fill some of the leadership void left behind by former teammate Telvin Smith. While Telvin’s highly vocal form of leadership isn’t really Tyler’s style, Hunter has had plenty of time to observe Smith’s example. The two grew up together, have played football with one another since the pee-wee leagues and are so close that Smith refers to Hunter as his cousin. It also won’t be forced, the young players in the Florida State secondary already look to Hunter for cues after an off-season spent teaching and a season of coaching from the sideline.

On the field, Hunter has good instincts, a very high football IQ and can come down hard from the safety spot and lay the wood. While Jimbo Fisher has never been shy about talking up his players, it’s with good reason that Fisher inserted Hunter’s name into the discussion whenever Brooks and Joyner were brought up last year.

With a clean bill of health this year though, Tyler Hunter won’t need Fisher’s help inserting himself into the conversation.