Tight Ends are Anything but Loose Ends for Iowa State Football
The Cyclones have put Charlie Kolar, Chase Allen and Dylan Soehner in the NFL in recent years and that position group remains critical to the Cyclones' success
The question hinged on percentages and Iowa State head football coach Matt Campbell knew where it was going.
The query came Thursday during the second session of Big 12 Football Media Days in Arlington, Texas, and pertained to diminished usage of multiple tight ends last season.
Campbell nodded along then answered.
“A little bit of that, honestly, is we had some really tough injuries,” said Campbell, who feels the tight end room is loaded with talent this season. “Easton Dean, who had really come on last year in fall camp for us was injured and really played sparingly for the first 70 percent of the season. To get him back was huge.”
Dean is back again, but he’s far from alone. DeShawn Hanika, who averaged a team-best 14.4 yards per catch last season, caught four touchdown passes. Jack Bjorn, Gabe Burkle, Andrew Keller, Stevo Klotz and Tyler Moore also return to vie for more time in 12 and 13 personnel groupings.
“DeShawn Hanika really started to play great football the second half of the season and then you talk about the underswell of youth in our program at that position,” Campbell said. “I would tell you, in my opinion, we are as deep at the tight end position that we’ve been since we’ve been at Iowa State.”
Now, depth doesn’t always dovetail with a rise in production. As Thursday’s questioner noted, the chronically offensive-challenged 2022 Cyclones saw 12 and 13 personnel usage (that’s when two or three tight ends are on the field any given play) drop from 68 percent in 2021 to 38 percent last season. That’s a problem for an offense that was plagued by another season-long spate of uneven offensive line play and debilitating injuries to its top two tailbacks (Jirehl Brock and Cartevious Norton). Couple that with a talented but turnover-prone new starting quarterback in Hunter Dekkers — who has been pushed by backup Rocco Becht and hot-shot true freshman J.J. Kohl — and it becomes clear that the tight ends group could once again be leaned upon for wide-ranging production both in the running and passing games.
“The development for that group, from the experiences they got a year ago to the opprtuinty to really grow and develop this offseason, we’re really excited about what that group’s got the ability to look like,” Campbell said.
The Cyclones were tabbed by the media to finish 10th in the one-off 14-team Big 12 this season. I’m not surprised by that broad-based rating, but if the defense can once again be one of the best in the league, a top-half finish is very much possible despite fielding a youthful team with a gambling investigation still hanging over its collective head (though Campbell said a “minimal” amount of players are involved).
“I think all of us, from myself to our assistant coaches, to our players, having the humility to see where are our gaps, and how do we do a great job of filling in those gaps together moving ourselves forward, that’s critical for us,” Campbell said. “Our ability to have success at Iowa State is probably different than a lot of places. We’ve gotta go up the rough side of the mountain. There’s no easy fix and we’ve gotta win as a team. We’re not gonna have human erasers running all over the film. Our team has to play together to win football games.”
It’s gotta be tight-knit. And they’re gonna need skilled tight end play. All signs point to that being possible this season, but it still remains very much a “stay tuned” situation.
“When we’re playing at our best, our detail and precision is as good as anybody in college football,” Campbell said. “That’s what it’s gonna take for us to have great success.”
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