Tucker erases doubts

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002 | 9:49 a.m.

Going into the season opener against Wisconsin, UNLV coach John Robinson admits he had doubts about senior outside linebacker Tyrone Tucker.

"He's not a real good practice player," Robinson said of the 6-foot-2, 240-pound senior transfer from Iowa State. "He would do his job and everything, but he didn't play with much passion."

But any concerns Robinson may have had about Tucker have been erased during the Rebels' first two games of the season.

Tucker goes into Saturday afternoon's contest at Oregon State averaging 13.0 tackles, tops in the Mountain West Conference.

"When he gets into the game he plays like a maniac," Robinson said. "His instincts for the game seem to be so good. He plays really hard and fast. We're really pleased with him."

"It's kind of a fair assessment," Tucker said of Robinson's practice comments. "But I was just trying to prepare myself mentally and not too much physically for the games, trying to get my reads down and everything. I probably wasn't going as hard as I should have been. I'm working on trying to practice fast and play fast, too."

Tucker came to UNLV after playing just one year at Iowa State. He started against the Rebels in the 2000 season opener in Ames and had seven tackles in the Cyclones' 37-22 victory.

"It kind of went downhill after that," Tucker said. "I was uncomfortable there and I didn't really like the situation. I was looking to go to a place that had more of a city atmosphere and luckily (UNLV) had a scholarship open and I took advantage of it."

Tucker transferred to UNLV last fall and sat out per NCAA transfer rules. He had visited UNLV after earning JC Grid-Wire All-American status his sophomore year at junior college powerhouse San Francisco City College but decided to play in the more prestigious Big 12 Conference.

Tucker was MVP of the California junior college title game his sophomore year after he recorded 15 tackles and two sacks. So it shouldn't be surprising that he has put up some impressive tackle numbers this season.

"I really don't worry about (leading the Mountain West in tackles) right now," Tucker said. "I didn't even know that until somebody told me. If I'm leading the conference at the end of the year, then I'll be happy. But right now it is kind of irrelevant to what this team is trying to accomplish."

"(UNLV) did not offer me a scholarship, didn't look at me, didn't talk to me, didn't send me a letter ... nothing," Seigler told the Eugene Register-Guard. "I have a lot of motivation for Saturday's game. ... All of us from Las Vegas want to go out and show that they missed out on all the Las Vegas players."

Seigler's senior season at Chaparral High School was in 1998, the last year of the Jeff Horton regime at UNLV.