Tyler Tryan and Nicky Northcott have raked in $37,906 a man over the last two weeks, moving the 20- and 19-year-olds to third in the 2025 PRCA world standings with $125,010.46 and $126,361.46, respectively.
Fresh off their 2026 Cheyenne Frontier Days win, Tryan and Northcott added another $24,755 a man to their 2026 earnings, highlighted by the wins in Dodge City, Kansas; Heber City, Utah; and Castle Rock, Colorado, the week of July 29-Aug. 2. Their momentum has been impossible to ignore, but Tryan admits things haven’t felt so dominant from the inside looking out.
“It feels good to catch some cows and win some money,” Tryan said. “I mean, [the last few weeks] have been good, but overall we haven’t just done great. That was the first week we’ve had just a big week out here. The first week we came out here was pretty good when we won Sisters (Oregon); we had a $15,000 week. But other than that, we didn’t really just win a lot consistently in one week and keep doing it. So, it felt good to finally win a couple rodeos and not even win them, just place at a bunch of rodeos in one week and get some good checks.”
In the eyes of the former Resistol Rookies of the Year, they haven’t seen a string of rodeos where they both were on their game. Until now.
“We’ve both went back and forth on it, and it’s mainly been me not doing a good enough job,” Tryan admitted. “But I finally turned him a couple in a row and gave him the same looks and just rode our horses in the right spots where we needed to. It just happened to work out. We finally just kind of got in a rhythm that week, and it just started working.”
Rhythm in the prairie
Their rhythm got rolling in Idaho Falls, Idaho, with a 4.8 for fifth place and $1,966 apiece. A no-time in Preston, Idaho, didn’t keep them down long as they split the win in Heber City, Utah, with a 4.2-second run for $5,841 a man.
“Our steer was supposed to be just medium, a little left, and then he just come straight left and loped,” Tryan explained. “It kind of threw us off a little bit, so we were just kind of glad to get him caught. We were somehow winning it when we left, and there was a lot of good teams left in the perf. We just stuck it out somehow.”
They headed to Dodge City where they won second in the first round for $3,423 apiece with a 5.1 and punched their ticket to the Sunday night short round. From there they ran to Castle Rock, Colorado, Aug. 1, where they picked up the win for $7,025 a man, thanks to a 3.8-second run. All different setups, each rodeo had a different feel Tryan and Northcott had to adjust to. Idaho Falls? Pretty simple. Tryan admits Preston felt hard, whereas Heber City felt pretty easy. The steers were strong overall in Castle Rock, but the hardest setup of all came in Dodge City. From Tryan’s point of view, the steers ran this year and weren’t very big, so being sharp was key, especially when it came time for the short round.
“The short round at Dodge just depends on how it’s going,” Tryan said. “It was kind of tough, kind of not. You could just go catch and win fourth or try to make a decent run and win it, and we were kind of caught in between. I felt like we just kind of made a normal run and ended up winning it.”
With a 5.9 in the short round for $595 a man, Tryan and Northcott left Dodge City the average champs with a 16.7 on three head for $5,905 apiece. On the head side, Tryan called on his sorrel for four of the five rodeos and opted for Cowboys Famous Guy, aka “Butters,” in Dodge. The sorrel is new to his herd and came from Utah’s Ben Jordan right before Tryan left for the summer, but he’s quickly demonstrated his significance in Tryan’s trailer.
“The sorrel’s my best one to rodeo on overall, but the yella’s hard to beat,” Tryan said. “Like at Dodge and Cheyenne—the stuff that’s long—Lovington, those type of rodeos, that’s where [the yella] is going to get the call mostly. And it’s not that the sorrel isn’t better at those, I just know the yella in and out more. I haven’t owned the sorrel just about two months now, I guess, so I’m still trying to figure him out. But the one-headers, he scores, can run and faces incredible. So, when we catch on him, it’s usually pretty fast. That’s kind of why I just choose back and forth.”
Not backing down
With less than two months remaining in the regular season, Tryan and Northcott’s current earnings of $125,010.46 and $126,361.46 are already more than it has taken to make the NFR in recent years. In 2025, the cut was $114,735.75 on the head side and $111,672.10 on the heel side. In 2024 it was $105,068.55 and $108,912.27. While they look safe for their first-ever NFR qualifications from the outside, the young guns aren’t shifting into cruise control just yet.
“I think we’re safe, but I don’t want to jinx it, either,” Tryan said with a laugh. “But I think that’s going to be right at the line, pretty close to there. I think we’re in a really good spot, but right now it’s just to keep winning. I would like to come in No. 1; I think that’s the coolest thing of all summer to do is to come in No. 1. That means you roped the best from start to finish. And even for us, we haven’t had a huge win anywhere—we haven’t won $25,000, $50,000 or $65,000 nowhere. So, for us to be third and keep moving up means you’re roping and you’re catching a lot of steers, and that’s what we want to do.”
Both having grown up on the road with their world champion dads, they know there is still too much money to be won these remaining weeks.
“It’s a good feeling and I know where I’m at, but it’s still to the point where you’re still trying to make money and just keep getting better, turn steers and give yourself a chance to win money,” Tryan said. “There’s so much money to win here at the end of the year with Sioux Falls, Puyallup, Pendleton, Ellensburg. I mean, you can win another $100,000 easy if you just do your job this last month-and-a-half. So, it’s really just keep winning and keep trying to make money.”