New UF football strength coach Tyler Miles defined by rural Midwestern background
Growing up on a cattle and horse farm in rural Kansas, new Florida football head strength and conditioning coach Tyler Miles was no stranger to hard work.
"We threw thousands of hay bales," Miles said. "I never minded throwing hay bales, I'd say shoveling, period. I hated shoveling, even at 12 I felt like I was 60."
A background in farming and construction led to a work ethic that Miles has brought into the field of football strength and conditioning. That paid off two weeks ago when, at the urging of current Florida Gators players, Miles was promoted to replace the departed Craig Fitzgerald as UF's new strength and conditioning coach.
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After earning an engineering degree at Kansas State, Miles began his career in construction management, working for his family's business.
"I just thought that was what I was supposed to do my whole life, to be a construction worker and a farmer," Miles said. "Very blue-collar. I’m about as blue-collar and country as they come."
But Miles, a former high school football player, found himself training football players in the mornings and evenings before and after work.
"I just missed football, missed the game," Miles said. "I just kind of uprooted my whole life and moved to Tennessee and got started from there.”
Miles spent two years (2019-20) at Boost Performance in Nashville, working primarily with athletes on combine training, and National Football League and college offseason workouts. During that stretch, he also worked as the strength coach for the football and volleyball programs at Tennessee State University.
In 2021, Miles was an assistant strength coach at Miami, and in 2022 he moved on to Duke, before joining UF's staff last year.
What Tyler Miles looks to bring to UF football's strength program
Miles was working Fitzgerald, who unexpectedly left the program after only two months, to join close friend Bill O'Brien at Boston College.
“I love Coach Miles," Florida linebacker Shemar James said. "He came in with a different mindset. It was unacceptable, what we had last year. We just came in ready to work. We have days where we’re kind of like, 'Oof, glad that’s over.' That’s going to help us go from the weight room to the field.”
Miles said he appreciated the vote of confidence from players.
"For them to do that, to help with this monumental change in my life, I owe them the best that I can give them every day, and I’ll never, ever forget that," Miles said.
Shortly after strength coach Mark Hocke was re-assigned in Decemeber 2023, former UF edge rusher Princely Umanmielen (now at Ole Miss) took to social media to claim that UF's strength program was too focused on cardiovascular gains and not focused enough on strength gains. Miles said he will continue using Fitzgerald's blueprint despite his short tenure in Gainesville, though he didn't say specifically how things will be different, beyond being numbers based.
"My background, in my first degree, was in engineering, so numbers are my thing," Miles said. "It will continue to be that. And we’ve done that together – percentages in reps and that, and also saw that in running. It will continue to go that way. We’re going to lift heavy weights; we’re going to push and we’re going to train hard. We’re going to do it very smart. We’re going to know when to put our foot on the gas and our foot on the break, and it will all be based on numbers.”
Miles said he's eager for the challenge, which begins with hard work from both coaches and players.
"Even though it’s completely different worlds, people for the most part are still going to be the same," Miles said. "So, just using those principles that I was raised with, I’m using them here now, and I’d like to think it’s going pretty well.”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: What to know about new Florida Gators football strength coach Tyler Miles
