Florida $93 Million Key Player Agrees Terms to leave for 1-year contract….

Tyler Keltner proved himself for years at the FCS level with East Tennessee State. Now, after a year at FSU, he aims to do the same and win the starting kicker job at Oklahoma in his final season of eligibility.

NORMAN — Tyler Keltner’s introduction to football came 16 years ago on what was, essentially, a construction site.

Oklahoma’s newest kicker grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, where both of his parents were educators — his mom an elementary school principal, his dad a technology coordinator at a middle school. As construction was wrapping up on Montford Middle School in 2008, Keltner and his father were checking out the new facilities. The buildings weren’t yet finished, but the goalposts on the football field were already installed.

“At the time, I was a soccer player,” Keltner said. “But my dad one day had an idea like, ‘Let’s go try out those new uprights; they’re brand new…. There’s nobody here, so let’s give it a go.’”

Keltner and his father grabbed a football and a circular soccer cone, and thus began Keltner’s path toward kicking — one that took him from Tallahassee to Johnson City, Tennessee, and back to his hometown before arriving in Norman this spring. It’s a stop he hopes isn’t his last, as he eyes an NFL future that he believes Oklahoma can help him achieve.

“It’s tough going in (the transfer portal) knowing that you only have one season left to play, that this is kind of now or never at this point,” Keltner said. “… (Oklahoma) is a platform that can really help me with where I want to go, and it’s also a place where I’m like, ‘Look, I can help this place out too.’ I felt like it was a very mutual decision for OU and for me, and I just think that, overall, I have a lot to bring to this team, and this team has a lot to feed into me.”

Keltner transferred to Oklahoma this offseason after spending last year at Florida State, the program he grew up watching and cheering for. He’s one of two new kicker additions for the Sooners, who are looking to upgrade the position after struggling to find consistency in the kicking game each of the last two seasons.

Along with Keltner, Oklahoma added preferred walk-on freshman Liam Evans, a Moore native, to the fold. The Sooners also bring back Zach Schmit, the starter the last two seasons who has missed a combined 12 field goal attempts and accumulated a 69% accuracy rate on kicks during that time. All three are competing for the starting job as Oklahoma opened spring practices this week, though early indications have been that Keltner has turned heads through the first three practices.

A source told Sooners Illustrated on Friday afternoon that Keltner has routinely connected on field goals of 50-plus yards “with ease” during the first week of practices, with the fifth-year senior the early favorite to earn the starting job this season.

“I’m excited to see our kickers come in here and help make us better,” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said ahead of the start of spring practices. “The competition will help bring out the best in everybody is my expectation, so Tyler Keltner and Liam Evans will have a chance to come in here and make us better that way.”

There is still a long way to go before Oklahoma’s season opener on Aug. 31 against Temple, but Keltner is off to a good start to what will be his final college season as he tries to make the most of his sixth year and an opportunity to extend his career to the professional level. That was always the goal after hitting the transfer portal back in December after barely seeing the field during his lone season at FSU, where he attempted one PAT.

Keltner started his career at East Tennessee State, where he was a two-time All-SoCon kicker and made 56-of-74 career field goal attempts — with a long of 54 yards — and was a perfect 131-of-131 on extra-point tries. He finished his ETSU career as the program’s all-time leader in made field goals and PATs and second in career points for the FCS program. After his senior season with the Bucs, though, he wanted to show he could succeed at the highest level of college football, so he transferred home to FSU, where he ultimately lost an offseason competition with Ryan Fitzgerald for the starting job.

Despite biding his time on the bench for the Seminoles, Keltner has no regrets about his year with the program. He was back in his hometown near family and playing for the team he grew up watching, but beyond that he said being part of that FSU team—which went undefeated in the regular season and won the ACC championship before being left out of the College Football Playoff as an undefeated Power Five champion — was a “special” experience, even with how the year ended for the Seminoles.

“There was really no better team to sit and wait on and watch,” Keltner said. “That was such a fun team to be on, but with that, I really learned a lot about myself, and I think I proved just through the course of that year that I really do love this game — that even when I am sitting on the bench, even when I am the backup and taking backup reps, it doesn’t matter because I’m willing to keep going and keep pushing to get better at my craft.”

With one year of eligibility remaining and still holding onto dreams of an NFL future, Keltner opted to transfer again this offseason. He was deliberate in his approach this time around, taking his time to assess his options before committing to Oklahoma on Jan. 3. Even though he was recruited by Jay Nunez, who has since left OU to take over special teams operations at Alabama, Keltner is happy with his decision to join the Sooners. He doesn’t begrudge Nunez, understanding the business (and personal) decisions that come with the territory, and he’s excited about the opportunity to be coached by new Sooners special teams analyst Doug Deakin.

“The entire time I was in the portal, I was just looking for the best opportunity for me,” Keltner said. “Ultimately, I transferred because I want to play, and I want to go on to play in the NFL. I know being an FCS kicker, sometimes the odds are stacked against you; there’s always assumptions about, ‘maybe these guys can’t play in big stadiums or play on big screens, play on ABC well.’ I think we can. I think there’s been a number of kickers that have come out and proved it at the highest level. I just really want to be the next one do to that.”

But first, he wants to win the starting job this offseason and help Oklahoma become a top-10 team, kicking-wise, in the country. The Sooners were 86th among FBS teams in field goal accuracy last season (71.4%) and haven’t finished in the top-10 since 2019, when they were tied for seventh in the country at 90.5% (including a 17-for-17 effort by Gabe Brkic). That was the second year in a row OU finished top-10 in field goal kicking, ranking sixth in 2018 when Austin Seibert went 17-of-19 on field goal attempts (89.5%; tied for sixth nationally).

“It’s hard to deny a school like Oklahoma when they come knocking at the door,” Keltner said. “This is such a treasured program, and I’m just really fortunate to be here.”