How John Carroll receiver Tyren Montgomery went from basketball walk-on to NFL draft prospect

Tyren Montgomery lined up wide in the red zone and locked eyes with TCU cornerback Channing Canada across from him. At the snap, Montgomery jabbed, burst outside and had two steps on his defender by the time the quarterback let the pass go. He extended his body and hauled the ball in for the touchdown.

“All you heard was ‘Oh, wow’ from players, coaches — even scouts on the sideline,” Montgomery said. “I’m thinking, ‘I told y’all. You’re shocked, but I’m not.’ ”

Could a record-setting NCAA Division III receiver do it against Division I talent? That was the question Montgomery carried from John Carroll University (Ohio) to last month’s American Bowl, a postseason college football All-Star game in Lakeland, Florida.

He answered fast. The level of competition changed. The challenge of covering him didn’t.

Later in the week, during a seven-on-seven drill, Montgomery showed his talent again — tracking a ball in the end zone and soaring over a defensive back to grab it.

“Guys said it looked like I was in the air for a minute,” said Montgomery, who is 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds. “All weekend it was D-III this, D-III that. I’m like, ‘Whatever, bro. I tried to tell you.’ ”

Montgomery didn’t come to Lakeland just to win a rep or quiet doubters. He came to put his skills on display — as an overlooked Division III star who didn’t play football until college and is now a legitimate NFL draft prospect — and to prove the gap between small-school production and big-time validation is often more about opportunity and belief than ability.

The American Bowl opened the door. The Senior Bowl, nine days later, kicked it open wider. Montgomery’s journey explains why he didn’t need the sideline’s approval to know what was coming.

Montgomery’s path to football didn’t begin with Pop Warner or Friday night lights. It started with a pandemic, a neighborhood park and his little brother. But the belief behind it started long before that.

His mother, Tara, used to tell him he’d be an NFL player — even when Montgomery saw himself only as a basketball player. She died in 2025. Every route he runs, every one-on-one he wins, is for her.

“I’m going to fulfill her dream,” Montgomery said. “This is what she wanted me to do, and that’s what keeps me pushing.”

After two years starting on the high school basketball team at The Woodlands College Park (Texas), Montgomery took his shot in college in 2019 at LSU as a walk-on for the basketball team. It didn’t last. His mother became ill. After one semester, he returned home to The Woodlands, Texas, which is about 30 miles north of Houston.

“I was in denial when it came to her [illness] because she had it before and she recovered,” Montgomery said. “I figured she’d get through this again. And at the time, I was just trying to figure out life, because basketball wasn’t a vision for me anymore.”

Then came 2020 and the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. Jobs were scarce. School was uncertain. Without basketball, Montgomery felt stuck: no clear major, no clear plan, no consistent work.

So he went to the park.

To kill time, Montgomery caught passes in the neighborhood with his younger brother, who was a high school quarterback at the time.

“He just needed me to catch for him,” Montgomery said of his brother Kam, who plays at North Greenville (S.C.) University. “So, I’d go back there, run around and catch the ball. After a few throws, he said: ‘You might as well try out for [the University of] Houston.’ I stopped, looked at him funny and said, ‘Well, I don’t have anything else to do.’ ”

Before his attempt at Houston, the brothers watched YouTube clips of the NFL’s best receivers, taking notes and seeking tips. They filmed Montgomery running routes and catching passes, then studied the videos like game tape — because he didn’t have any.

Shortly after Montgomery enrolled at Houston in 2020, he learned that the football team wouldn’t hold tryouts. With so many players returning because of the extra year of eligibility granted during COVID, the roster was crowded. Montgomery assumed the dream was over.

When he told his mother, she urged him to go with her to see a Buddhist.

“A man came up to me after the service and asked what I wanted out of life,” Montgomery said. “I told him health for my mom and a chance to play college football. He looked at me and said, ‘What about pro football?’ My heart sank. And on the ride home, my mom said she had a strong feeling football was meant for me.”

Montgomery kept training. He started posting workout clips and route-running videos in a flag football Facebook community, The Official AFFL Group. Hours later, a team searching for a receiver reached out: SPORTSMAN!AS.

“He posted some videos, and Ty’s footwork is what stuck out to me as different,” said Eddy Franca, coach of SPORTSMAN!AS.

Franca didn’t add Montgomery for that particular tournament because they went for a defensive player instead, but several months later he called again. Montgomery flew to Las Vegas with his father, Greg, for a tournament, joining the team just hours before the game. After a quick handshake, Franca started warming up by throwing him passes.

“His dad walks up to me and says, ‘My son is very humble, so I’m sure he didn’t tell you he has a 45-inch vertical,’ ” Franca said. “I’m like, ‘Michael Jordan had a 45-inch vertical. I don’t know about your son.’ He goes, ‘Throw it up.’ I purposely threw it high — and Ty looked like a great white shark coming out of the water. I said, ‘Oh s—, we’ve got something here.’ ”

Montgomery kept making plays. Afterward, Franca learned the full context — including the part that still sounded unreal.

That was Montgomery’s first time playing competitive football.

“We were blown away,” Franca said.

Montgomery returned and won another tournament with SPORTSMAN!AS in December, then performed again a month later in another one. Franca began seeing more than flag football. He reached out to college contacts, and Montgomery enrolled at Nicholls State in 2022, redshirting his first season.

In his second season, injuries limited him to 12 catches for 171 yards. It wasn’t enough film to put him on the NFL’s radar, and the eligibility math pushed him toward a place where he could actually play — and dominate.

That place was John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. It’s program with deep football roots, tied to prominent football figures such as Don Shula and London Fletcher, and its pipeline has produced executives and coaches across the league.

Franca reached out to then-John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman, who was recently hired as Bucknell’s head coach.

“Eddy sent me his film and it didn’t take me long,” Behrman said. “I saw two clips and could tell he was a different player, a guy we could win with. The leaping ability and the running ability was something I hadn’t seen on film in a long time.”

It didn’t take long for Montgomery to deliver at John Carroll.

In his first season in 2024, he caught 57 passes for 1,071 yards and a school-record 17 touchdowns. He followed it with 119 receptions for 1,528 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2025, setting school records for single-season catches and receiving yards and earning consensus Division III All-America honors.

That final season came with a weight he couldn’t shake. His mother died from stage four bladder cancer three months before it began.

“I was in a tough place,” Montgomery said. “I’d tell myself she was asleep and hadn’t woken up yet. There were times at practice I’d just start crying and have to excuse myself. I’d look into the stands during games and she wasn’t there. … My dad was very supportive. He’d always tell me, ‘You know your mom would want you to keep going.’ ”

NFL scouts continued coming to John Carroll’s campus, which made Montgomery’s invitations to the American Bowl and the Senior Bowl feel inevitable. What wasn’t inevitable was what he did once he got there.

“He showed, not only at the American Bowl but at the Senior Bowl, that these are the best corners in the draft, and no one could cover him,” said his agent, Christian Addison, of National Sports Agency.

Even after those weeks, Montgomery didn’t receive an invitation to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Addison still expects the receiver to hear his name called during the NFL draft.

“If my name is called or not on draft night, I’m sure I’ll break down,” Montgomery said. “I’ve been holding in a lot of emotion for years. So just being able to sign with a team is going to be a lot, because this is what my mom was talking about.”

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