Keith Tandy makes appearance on Hardknocks
Keith Tandy was a highly talked about player for the WVU football team from 2008-11. He stood out on defense in many positive and negative fashions.
Keith Tandy played the unforgiving position of defensive back. On quite a few occasions, he seemed to be the whipping boy of a defensive scheme that gave up many deep passes to opposing teams.
He played in a total of 45 games for the Mountaineers in his four-year career in Morgantown, which included six games as a freshman in 2008. Tandy tallied 13 interceptions, including six as a junior. He started all 13 games he appeared in through his sophomore, junior and senior seasons.
In his four years, though, the WVU football team surrendered nearly 800 total points and only posted one shutout. On three occasions (against Auburn, LSU and Syracuse) a Tandy-led Mountaineer defense gave up more than 40 points.
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Keith Tandy did finish his WVU football career on a high note, though, in the Orange Bowl game that saw the Mountaineers top Clemson, 70-33. In that season, the WVU football team rattled off four consecutive victories to close the season.
Tandy’s playing days were far from over after that magical end to his collegiate career. He was selected in the sixth round of the 2012 NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Five years later, he is still with the Bucs and is heavily invested in earning a starting spot on the 2017 team. His journey to the top of the depth chart will be under a magnifying glass as Tandy’s Buccaneers are now featured on the hit HBO show, Hardknocks.
The debut episode of the infamous series occurred on Aug. 8 and Tandy saw some brief air time. Twice, he was featured in the team meeting room listening to a speech from head coach Dirk Koetter and laughing at a solo singing performance of the song “If I Ever Fall in Love” from rookie quarterback Sefo Liufao.
Tandy is a veteran on this team who is led by Jameis Winston, Gerald McCoy and newly-acquired Desean Jackson. They have a great chance to compete in the NFC South.
Even though Tandy’s name was not really brought up in the first episode, it was good to see a familiar face on such a high-profile program. It is likely that Tandy will be seen much more as the season progresses because of his impact on defense and as he is on a quest for a starting job.
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Last year, Tandy appeared in 16 games for the Bucs, and started five. Both milestones are career highs. He had 46 total tackles last year with four interceptions.
The Bucs went 9-7 a year ago, but have failed to make the playoffs in the past 10 seasons.