Tylin Jackson’s Long Road FOLLWED One Goal: Win
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 5, 2026
When Tylin Jackson entered college football for the first time he carried about 190 pounds on his 6-foot-4 frame and had two years of high school football experience. It’s a bit different for the former Eastern Washington University defensive end as he enters his new home at UAB.
Jackson now weighs somewhere in the vicinity of 260 pounds and has three seasons of college football seasoning.
So he was much more prepared to contribute immediately when arrived in Birmingham than he traveled across Washington from his home in the Seattle area to Spokane to begin college football.
“My true freshman year at Eastern, I knew I had no chance to see the field because I was so little and just learning,” Jackson said.
Part of the reason he was so slender was Jackson thought his future was in basketball. His cousins – Jaden and Jalen McDaniels – not only excelled at the sport but they were headed for college basketball and the NBA. He wanted to pursue the same path.
Just before his junior year, though, he took a realistic look at his quest.
“I just realized I'm not 6-9, I'm not 6-10,” Jackson said. “I can't dribble like a guard. I'm playing center and I'm 6-4, 6-5. So I'm like, ‘I gotta change.’ I played a little bit (of football) in like little league. I was already used to like a little certain stuff, being athletic and stuff like that. But it was definitely different. I was a chicken with my head cut off.”
It didn’t show in his first game when he came off the bench and contributed a few sacks. The next day he received correspondence from coaches at Eastern Washington and Washington State, which lit the fuse for his desire to play football at the next level. He had a pair of productive high school seasons but was not heavily recruited. He chose Eastern Washington, which is a successful FCS program.
Jackson played in 24 games with 22 starts over the past two seasons. He had 54 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks over those two seasons. He also played two games as a true freshman, contributing two tackles, while maintaining his redshirt status. After this past season, he decided to look for a FBS opportunity.
His decision to come to UAB meant he had to travel across the country. He did have Deep South experience, living in Georgia for more than 10 years as a kid, but the weather was still an adjustment.
“When I stepped off the plane I'm like, ‘Yo, this is a different,’" Jackson said. “Like, I feel like the heat is like touching me, hanging on me. With the humidity, I'm walking down the street and I’m sweating. I’m like, ‘Yeah, this doesn’t really happen in Seattle.’ It was an adjustment.”
His biggest adjustment, at least in the spring, was being sidelined while strengthening a shoulder during spring practice instead of getting the chance to make a good first impression.
“It's super frustrating,” Jackson said. “While they're at practice I'm going into the training room like, ‘Dang, I wish I, I wish I could be out there.’ But really it was just having confidence in yourself, knowing they brought you here for a reason. I really just tried not to harp on (being sidelined), stayed true to myself and knew the work I put in while I'm here. I just tried to keep my head strong (and) stay confident.”
It helped that Jackson was a college football veteran.
“You know, my freshman year, my first fall camp, going to a new school environment, I think that definitely made me a, stronger mentally,” Jackson said. “So being able to come here and face adversity, I'm like, you know, it's, it's nothing I haven't faced before.”
On Monday, when fall camp opened up for UAB, Jackson practiced for the first time. It doesn’t take long to see that Jackson should play an important role in a edge position filled with depth and talent.
“As a player, we’re excited about him,” UAB head coach Alex Mortensen said. “He stayed engaged (while sidelined) and I think he's got some really good physical traits. We really feel like he can help us.”
Jackson said he can be an “asset on the field” because of his ability to rush the passer and “be dominant against the run.” All of that leads to his main objective.
“I just wanna win,” said Jackson, who has two years of college eligibility remaining. “I've had a lot of seasons where we didn't really win, we came up short, but I just wanna win here. I'm coming here to win, coming here to compete, coming here to dominate, coming here to be the best. So my biggest motto is just win.”