Trading one uniform for another

Drew Doyle hasn’t been confused for a college professor yet. He isn’t drawing Social Security, and he doesn’t get the senior citizens’ discount at Denny’s.

But his age certainly has made him an easy target amongst his wisecracking football teammates.

“Yeah, they never let me forget it,” Doyle said. “That’s for sure.”

Doyle happens to be a 24-year-old redshirt freshman on Virginia Tech’s football team. He’s six years older than a typical freshman because the Collinsville, Illinois, native charted an unconventional course to get here.

Doyle spent five years in the U.S. Navy, enlisting right out of high school, and his service is one of many at Virginia Tech that deserves to be saluted as part of Veterans Day.

Though he always has loved playing football, Doyle said enlisting after his graduation from Collinsville High School was part of his plan back then.

“My mom was and still is in law enforcement,” Doyle said. “I had some great uncles who were in [the military]. My great-grandpa served and a cousin of mine, so it was just something that I was around. But once I started getting toward high school, I wasn’t really getting a ton of looks football-wise, and the Navy just seemed like the best option for me.”

Doyle originally went to boot camp in Chicago and later went to San Diego for BUD/S, or Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. His primary reason for enlisting was to become a Navy SEAL.

But the intensity and difficulty of the training led to him dropping out. For sure, there is no shame in that. According to multiple military-focused websites, between 70 and 80 percent of candidates fail to finish one of the armed forces’ most difficult challenges.

“Out of the class that we had, maybe 200 guys, only 16 survived ‘Hell Week’" the first training phase of BUD/S,  Doyle said. “And I think one guy made it" to the end.

“You always think that’s going to be you, that you’re going to be that one guy. I was wrong, but it helped me maturity-wise."

Doyle eventually was stationed back in Chicago and became a corpsman, receiving training on how to provide medical care to military personnel. Typically, corpsmen are attached to a Marine Corps infantry division, but with the U.S. not in conflict with other countries at the time, Doyle worked at a hospital. He even received training on dealing with dental issues while in Chicago.

In addition, he worked on the auxiliary security forces team as a Naval police officer.

“I was planning on going back into the Special Forces selection, but it just didn’t work out,” Doyle said. “It has to get approved by so many people, and especially coming out of COVID at the time, they weren’t very excited to let any sort of medical personnel leave the job. The hospital wouldn’t allow me to go do it. They needed guys.  

“I think that’s when I really started looking for what I was going to do next because I didn’t want to stay in doing the job that I was doing. I didn’t necessarily want to be in a hospital. If I was doing that job, I wanted to be doing it on the battlefield. With us not being in any sort of conflict, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. So I started thinking about what I was going to do after that.”

Doyle said he had been attending long snapping camps in the Chicago area during his time in the Navy and working with a snapping coach. After an appearance at one of the camps, he earned a national ranking, which attracted the interests of college coaches looking for players at a niche, though important, position.

So Doyle eventually decided to change from one uniform into another.

In 2024, he enrolled at Iowa State and took a redshirt year. The following summer, the NCAA hinted of capping the roster sizes of football programs, and Iowa State coaches couldn’t guarantee him a roster spot. Doyle decided to transfer.

“Ultimately, the cap never hit, but I don’t regret the decision,” he said. “If I wouldn’t have hit the transfer portal at that time and the cap would have hit, I wouldn’t have had a spot on the team. I would have had to sit a season with nowhere to go and waste a year of eligibility.”

Doyle said he came to Virginia Tech largely because of the presence of Stu Holt, the team’s special teams coach, and Brandon McCombs, the special teams assistant coach, preferring their hands-on approach to coaching. He thought they gave him the best shot of having success on the field, both in college and possibly at the professional level.

Doyle has played in one game this season, though he travels with the team and serves as the emergency snapper. For now, his value to the team carries more weight off the field than it does on it.

“I hope I bring a different perspective on things with my age and experience,” he said.

Doyle is pursuing a degree in exercise and health science within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and he hopes to remain in football once his playing days end. He said he may get into coaching or he may train athletes.

He’ll be in his late 20s when he graduates. But he said he doesn’t regret his time in service, adding that what he learned during his five years in the Navy has been invaluable.

“I enjoyed it, and I am happy that I did it,” Doyle said. “I think the biggest thing I learned is that anything that’s worth it is hard. I used to say that all time, but I don’t think I completely understood it. I would be like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s hard. That’s why it’s cool that you did it – because it’s hard.’ But I don’t think I really understood the effort that certain stuff takes, and the drive that you truly have to have to be able to accomplish just the tough things in life.

“The other thing I learned is that goofy stuff is going to happen all the time. Some things in life don’t go the way that you expect it to go. It’s never going to, so are you still standing on two feet? Yeah, all right, you’re good. Just keep going. It’s not that deep. I think those are two of the big things that I took from my service and have tried to pass on to the guys here.”