Meet Jerry Tillery, College Football's Most Fascinating Freshman

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Ask his teammates about Notre Dame football freshman defensive lineman Jerry Tillery, and the responses will typically be joined with smiles and laughter.

“So Jerry is a …” says senior defensive lineman Romeo Okwara, who pauses with an ear-to-ear grin, searching for an unattainable mix of words, “… very goofy—I’m not really sure how to explain him—loopy. There’s a lot of adjectives I could use to describe Jerry.”

“He’s a unique cat,” senior linebacker Joe Schmidt says.

“Jerry’s an awesome guy,” senior defensive back Matthias Farley says. “He’s a huge personality.”

“Jerry’s unique,” senior defensive lineman Sheldon Day says. “He does things Jerry’s way.”

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On and off the field, the 6’7”, 305-pound defensive tackle, who’s carved out more playing time along the line in his rookie campaign, presents an array of fascinating features.

In addition to his football career, Tillery wants to be a doctor.

“Why can’t you do both?” Tillery asks rhetorically.

He took an official visit to Dartmouth.

He participated in a few triathlons over the summer with his godmother.

He studied abroad in South Africa this past summer. “Easily the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” Tillery summarized.

“He wants to live life to the fullest, and he's trying to do everything in his power to get the full experience of the Notre Dame experience and just experience the outside world,” says Day, who’s taken Tillery under his wing since the freshman arrived on campus as an early enrollee in January.

Tillery originally committed to Notre Dame all the way back in June 2013, becoming the first pledge in the Irish's Class of 2015. The No. 11 offensive tackle, No. 158 overall player in the country, the native of Shreveport, Louisiana, took visits to LSU, Texas A&M and, yes, mighty Dartmouth before enrolling at Notre Dame for the spring semester.

“The recruiting process was fun,” Tillery says. “That’s what it should be. People stress out about it, like, ‘Oh my God, all the offers and camps and all that stuff.’ I try not to look into it. I definitely didn’t when I was being recruited. I just enjoyed the process and had fun.”

Long expected to be an offensive-tackle-in-waiting for the Irish, Tillery instead joined the Irish as a defensive lineman, putting him in a position to contribute immediately.

“I just wanted to help the team however I could,” Tillery says. “I feel like this would be the way to do it fastest.”

Tillery quickly drew praise from Irish head coach Brian Kelly in the spring and earned first-team reps. When senior defensive tackle Jarron Jones suffered a season-ending knee injury in August, Tillery and sophomore Daniel Cage assumed the responsibility in the starting lineup beside Day.

Kelly lauded Tillery for his hand technique, an ability Tillery credits his high school coaches with developing. Now four games into Tillery’s first collegiate campaign, teammates point to the youngster’s flexibility.

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“Great balance,” senior center and captain Nick Martin says of going up against Tillery. “His body twists and turns in weird ways, and he always seems to stay up, so you have to have your feet underneath you.”

“Jerry's body—I don't know if I can say that—but Jerry's body does some unique things, so that's why we let Jerry get away with a lot of things,” Day says.

“I would say he’s too flexible,” Okwara says. “One time he was sitting in the locker room, just hanging out, he didn’t realize he was doing this. There were two chairs next to him. He had one leg on this chair at a 90-degree angle. Other leg on the other chair. He was just sitting there very comfortably. I just looked at him and was like, ‘Jerry, what are you doing?’ He was like, ‘OK.’ He realized he was being Jerry and put his legs up.”

Reminded of that fiber-stretching occasion, Tillery laughs.

“No, I don’t [realize how flexible I am] sometimes."

Perhaps it comes as no surprise, then, that Tillery decided to loft his dorm room bed close to the ceiling despite his massive frame. Or that he organized a Yoga and Yogurt event in that 280-student, all-male residence hall as a first-semester freshman.

“There’s only a handful of times where you’d see a freshman step up and lead projects, and you also never had a scholarship athlete take on a huge leadership role on a project,” says Connor Malone, who served as Tillery’s resident assistant on campus last year. “So for a freshman football player who was an early enrollee to come in his first semester and plan an event and follow through on it was very rare.”

That rarity and the desire for a full collegiate experience, as Day notes, explain how and why Tillery’s goals extend beyond the football field.

“He’s an intellectual guy,” Schmidt said.

“His head’s really big, so he’s very smart,” Farley quips.

“I enjoy the finer things, I guess,” Tillery says. “It’s something I take pride in. I focus on my studies as much as football. So it’s all a balance for me.”

A second-semester freshman with his sights set on medical school, Tillery says he’s “handling” his coursework, which includes chemistry. And when he would have been finishing his senior year of high school, Tillery instead joined six other Irish football players studying abroad in South Africa for three weeks at the beginning of the summer.

“It was incredible,” Tillery says. “The safari to the beaches in Cape Town. It was a country of contrast, really, huge townships with the poorest people in the world to opulent neighborhoods, super-rich and fancy. It was a country that really gave me a different outlook on life.”

“Jerry’s mature—at times,” Okwara jokes. “He’s one of the more mature freshmen here. He loves traveling.”

Somehow, though, Tillery missed the first leg of his flights to South Africa.

“Jerry always gets left behind,” says junior wide receiver Corey Robinson, who also studied in South Africa.

Tillery always gets picked on, too, which is nothing new after growing up with three sisters who poked and prodded “every day of my life." Now with his football family, Tillery’s teammates have dubbed him “Terry Jillery.” Day even ordered Tillery to bring his helmet with him to the bathroom during a break in practice.

“It’s crazy, right? C’mon,” Tillery recalls.

“He's always good for a laugh or something,” Farley says. “His facial expressions are hilarious.”

Described by Schmidt as “happy-go-lucky” up until game time, Tillery says he’s able to flip the switch and focus at kickoff, even while acknowledging his pregame nerves.

“I just learned how to lock in and keep it light."

All things considered—sacks and studies, mischief and maturity, laughing and locking in—it’s a balancing act for Tillery.

“He also works his tail off, and he wants to be really good,” Farley says. “I think it's that coupled with an incredible work ethic and drive that make him a lot of fun to play with and a lot of fun to be around on and off the field. He's pushing guys around him to be better, and he's not satisfied with being mediocre whatsoever.”

Unless otherwise noted, all recruiting stats and information courtesy of 247Sports. and all quotes obtained firsthand. Star ratings reflect 247Sports composite rankings.

Mike Monaco is the lead Notre Dame writer for Bleacher Report. Follow @MikeMonaco_ on Twitter.