Future Penn State football WR Mitchell Tinsley ready to earn his keep as a Nittany Lion
Mitchell Tinsley took a long journey to play Penn State football.
The senior wide receiver gave up football before picking it back up in high school, walked on to play at a community college, earned a few scholarship offers before landing at Western Kentucky, and now he’s set to play at the Power-5 level for the first time in his career.
Tinsley, who will enroll at Penn State in January as a transfer with one year of eligibility remaining, is set to join a program in need of instant impact at wide receiver and could be an important piece to the team’s 2022 offense.
The senior wide receiver played football at a young age but burn out led him away from it until his senior year of high school, when he had to scratch the itch and join the football team at Lee’s Summit High School in Missouri.
Tinsley told the Centre Daily Times he played basketball and track in his time away from the gridiron, but his first love called him back in due time.
“I picked football back up my senior year,” Tinsley told the CDT. “Football was always my first love. I just felt a little bit burnt out. So I just took a break, and the break ended up being two or three years. I really started to feel like I missed playing going into my senior year.”
He rekindled the joy he once had for the sport and that led him to wanting to continue playing at the next level. He didn’t receive a single scholarship offer to play after high school, so he enrolled at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas.
He rarely played his freshman year with the school, but had a bigger role as a sophomore. He caught 47 passes for 556 yards and four touchdowns and received interest from multiple Group of 5 programs, like Akron, Ball State and Western Kentucky.
Ultimately, it was the want to win that led Tinsley to the Hilltoppers.
“I just felt like they had the edge because they were just coming off a bowl win,” Tinsley said. “They were pretty much a winning program. ... I really wanted to go to a place where I could have an opportunity to go to the league and also win.”
Tinsley had a role with Western Kentucky in his first season with the program, earning 43 receptions for 377 yards and four touchdowns in 2020. It was a coaching change following the season that led to a massive boost in the receiver’s production and a large role in one of the most prolific offenses in college football history.
Zach Kittley was hired as the program’s new offensive coordinator and brought with him quarterback Bailey Zappe and wide receiver Jerreth Stearns. The trio of additions increased the entire team’s production with Zappe breaking the Football Bowl Subdivision record for passing touchdowns in a season with 62 and passing yards in a season with 5,967.
Tinsley was a major beneficiary of the new offense, hauling in 87 passes for 1,402 yards and 14 touchdowns. The offense, which featured Stearns lining up exclusively on the right side and Tinsley on the left to help increase the tempo, changed the game for the wide receiver.
“His offense is crazy,” Tinsley said. “That Air Raid offense, it can change the game for some people. The offense we ran this year was fast-paced, and a lot of people couldn’t keep up with it. Coach Kittley made it easy to learn. ... If you master it, and you have a quarterback that knows how to run it too, it’s hard to defend.”
The newfound production helped Tinsley make the decision to enter the transfer portal in search of an opportunity to play at the highest level of college football.
Suitors lined up for the wide receiver upon his entry, with schools like Louisville, Penn State and Tennessee, among others, reaching out. Ultimately his decision came down to the Nittany Lions and Volunteers, with his desire to help a team reach the next step impacting his choice to join Penn State.
“When it came down to it, Tennessee and Penn State were both on the same level,” he said. “I feel like they’re one step away from being that national championship type team or play in the College Football Playoff. I feel like the offense Penn State ran, I feel like that’s something I want to be in. ... I feel like they’ll make me more versatile and I feel like that’s what the NFL wants to see.”
Now that his choice has been made, Tinsley has his eyes on the 2022 season. Senior wide receiver Jahan Dotson has decided to leave the program and move on to the NFL a year early, leaving a gap at the top of the team’s depth chart.
Tinsley has the production and ability as a strong, physical route runner to take over some of what Dotson is vacating in the offense.
Still, he doesn’t expect to be handed anything. Tinsley wants to be his own wide receiver and his own player as a Nittany Lion. He may share the same No. 5 as Dotson, but the senior wants to make his own mark in his final season at the college level.
“Jahan is a great player, he’s an amazing player,” Tinsley said. “But I want people to expect me to be me. I’m not coming in there to be somebody else. I’m coming in there to be me, at the end of the day. ...Whatever I end up doing when I get there, it’s going to be on me.
“The opportunity is there for me to be the guy. But I have to go and earn that right. And that’s what I’m willing to do.”
