Tyrell Fenroy – Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2023

Soft-spoken player finished his career at all-time leading rusher in state of Louisiana

Written for the UL Athletics Hall of Fame

Ask college football fans around Louisiana who’s the state’s all-time leading rusher, and you’ll likely get a collection of different answers. It’s also likely that very few, if any, would come up with Tyrell Fenroy’s name.

That’s fitting, since UL’s four-time 1,000-yard rusher was as quiet and unassuming as any football player in Ragin’ Cajun history.

“Tyrell was a grinder and worked hard,” said former Cajun coach Rickey Bustle, UL’s football boss in all four of Fenroy’s seasons. “He said very little. But when he did say something, everyone else in that locker room stopped what they were doing and listened. That’s what kind of respect he had.”

Respect? How about having your jersey retired even before playing your final collegiate game? That’s how the native of LaPlace was honored back in December of 2008 before the Cajuns hosted Middle Tennessee in the season finale. Fenroy had his final two touchdowns in that 42-28 win, tying Brian Mitchell’s record 19 rushing scores in a season and capping a season in which he rushed for 1,375 yards and a 6.1 average.

Fenroy ended that season as the school, Sun Belt Conference and state of Louisiana all-time career rushing leader with 4,646 yards, and also became the seventh player in NCAA Division I history to go over 1,000 yards in four different seasons. The others include names like Pittsburgh’s Tony Dorsett, Amos Lawrence of North Carolina, Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne and Cedric Benson of Texas.

For that and more, Fenroy will be honored with induction into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday as part of the university’s Homecoming celebration and one day before UL meets Sun Belt rival Georgia State in the annual Homecoming game. He will be inducted along with seven other former athletes, coaches and staff members in a 7:30 p.m. ceremony at Warehouse 535 in Lafayette.

Odds are his acceptance speech will be the shortest of the group, given his quiet nature. And ironically, it was that subdued nature that nearly derailed his college career before he ever made an appearance at Cajun Field. Bustle said he and the UL staff thought they’d lost him – literally.

“He said so little that it was hard to tell if he was feeling homesick,” Bustle said of training camp in his 2005 freshman season. “One day Tyrell was a ‘no-show.’ We looked all over campus for him. Without knowing him very well yet, we started assuming that he’d gone ‘over the wall,’ our term for someone who’d left fall camp and quit but were afraid to discuss it with the coach.

“We sent coaches to the dorm multiple times, and the third time through the Conference Center (which formerly housed UL athletes), the coach checked the bathroom and there he was. The bathroom doors between those suites locked on the outside and the inside, and he was using the restroom when his roommate left and locked the bathroom door. Their suite-mates had locked theirs as well, so there was Tyrone, locked in the bathroom for four or five hours.

“We thought we’d lost him before we even got started. Had that been true, Cajun Nation wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience one of the greatest running backs in the history of the NCAA.”

A three-time All-Sun Belt and All-Louisiana first-team selection after being on the second team and the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year in 2005, Fenroy was the Sun Belt and Louisiana Player of the Year in 2008. He set UL’s single-game rushing mark that year with 297 yards on only 20 carries against ULM, a mark that still ranks in the top five in both Sun Belt and Louisiana history. He was the Walter Camp Football Foundation national Player of the Week after scoring on runs of 89, 52 and 80 yards in that Cajun win.

Big games were not uncommon for the former St. Charles Catholic standout, but it was his consistency that set him apart from many running backs. He had a UL record 22 100-yard rushing games and holds 10 of the top 50 single-game rush totals in Cajun history including 194 against Kent State, 183 against Kansas State, 178 against Arkansas State and 172 against Florida International. All four rank among UL’s all-time top 30 single-game rushing efforts. He had four straight 100-yard games twice during his career.

As another measure of that consistency, Fenroy had 808 career rush attempts and 868 career touches (including 60 pass receptions) and lost only four fumbles in four years – none in his senior year.

Fenroy burst on the scene with 1,053 yards as a freshman in 2005 when he became the first-ever Cajun running back to go over the 1,000-yard mark – a number he achieved in each of his following three seasons, including his record-setting senior year. His numbers in that 2008 season were even more remarkable considering that Cajun quarterback (and now head coach) Michael Desormeaux also topped 1,000 yards (1,035) as the eighth QB in NCAA history with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons.

“Tyrell was just a beast,” Desormeaux said. “One person couldn’t bring him down. He wasn’t big (5-foot-9, 186 pounds) but he was strong like you wouldn’t believe, and when you really needed yards there wasn’t a more determined guy anywhere.”

At the time, Sun Belt bowl opportunities were slim, and Fenroy never had the opportunity to play in a bowl game despite three bowl-eligible seasons and a Sun Belt title in 2005. Bustle openly wondered what his numbers would have been had his teams played more than 11 or 12 games in a season, without the benefit of league championship and bowl games.

“You could make a case that there’s never been a more dominant running back in the history of the Sun Belt,” he said, “and every few in the history of the NCAA.”