The video doesn’t lie: How linebacker Tyler Murray ended up with the Charlotte 49ers

The Charlotte football coaching staff needed some visual confirmation that linebacker Tyler Murray might be a good fit with the 49ers.

Assistant coach Sean Dawkins had already been in contact with Murray, an all-Sun Belt Conference player at Troy who had just entered the NCAA transfer portal after the 2018 season. Dawkins, himself a former Troy player, was also on his way out of the Trojans program after one season as an assistant.

“This was something near and dear to my heart,” Dawkins said. “This was my alma mater. I didn’t want to take the kid away. But if he was leaving, I wanted to give ourselves a chance, because I knew how good he was.”

Dawkins, by then Charlotte’s running backs coach, vouched for Murray, telling 49ers head coach Will Healy and assistant head coach Marcus West how he had observed first-hand his talent, work ethic and character.

But they needed to see Murray in action on the field.

So the 49ers coaches dialed up a Troy game during the 2018 season against Sun Belt standard-bearer Appalachian State. What they saw sold them on Murray.

Murray was everywhere that day in what would be a 21-10 Mountaineers victory, making eight tackles (three solo, two for losses).

West, Charlotte’s always demanding co-defensive coordinator, was stunned by what he saw.

“Hell, yeah,” West said to his fellow coaches. “We’ll take this player!”

The 49ers and Murray sealed the deal. And after sitting out the 2019 season due to NCAA transfer rules, Murray (6-foot-2, 215 pounds) will soon again be on the field against App State on Sept. 12, when Charlotte opens its season against the Mountaineers in Boone.

“It’s finally good,” Murray told The Observer in a telephone interview. “Sitting out last year, I got a chance to sit back and learn about the coaching change that I’d been going through and about my new teammates. But everyone brought me in and cared for me. They helped form me into the leadership guy I am and helped me get used to the system.”

Murray ended his sophomore season at Troy with 49 tackles (six for a loss) and two sacks (both in a victory against Nebraska in which he also had one of his three interceptions for the season).

It was a good enough season to earn him third-team all-Sun Belt honors as a safety, although he often played a hybrid linebacker-safety position, as he will at Charlotte.

West said Murray’s athleticism, size and speed help form an all-important trait for a linebacker: range.

“The cool part of Tyler is that he has a chance to match up with a receiver on the boundary, he can cover so much ground,” West said. “He’s instinctive and he’s always going to find the ball. Those are instincts you love in a football player.”

Healy simply calls Murray, who was born in Miami and grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., “special.”

Murray said he decided to transfer from Troy after former coach Neal Brown left for West Virginia after the 2018 season (which is when and how Dawkins also ended up at Charlotte). Murray said he wanted to give new Trojans coach Chip Lindsey a try, but it wasn’t going to work.

“I tried to give it a chance,” Murray said. “I went through spring (practice), but I sensed something different from the previous coaches. There were some changes that I didn’t agree with.”

Murray spent the 2019 season watching the 49ers have their best year ever, going 7-6 and playing in the Bahamas Bowl. It gave him an idea of how he can best fit in with a defense that loses six starters, including linebackers Jeff Gemmell to graduation and projected starter Henry Segura for personal reasons. He figures to be one of the starting linebackers in West’s 4-2-5 system, along with either Luke Martin or Brelin Faison-Walden, both seniors.

“All the guys in our starting offense kept telling me that (Murray) was making a lot of plays on the scout team,” said senior safety Ben DeLuca, who missed most of last season with a shoulder injury. “I knew he had a great career at Troy, and he’s really brought a tremendous amount of energy and passion here. I’m excited to see what we get to do with him.”

Murray’s anxious to get back to it. First up is another date at App State’s “Rock,” otherwise known as Kidd Brewer Stadium, against a Mountaineers team he knows well.

“They’re a good program,” Murray said. “They’re growing and getting better every year and have good coaching, as well. But we think we’ve got the same thing going here.”

This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 5:53 PM.