READING THE ROOM: TIGHT ENDS
A complete reload for a position that only started existing for Kennesaw State in 2023.
I almost quit football forever when the coaches tried to put me at tight end during high school. No thank you. To be fair, I weighed 160 pounds at the time and couldn’t block a tackling dummy. Know your personnel.
For my money, tight end is the toughest position on offense. They’re used as receivers, linemen, and fullbacks with duties and positioning that vary from snap to snap. One down you’re asked to pull on counter, next play you try to beat a DB downfield, and then your OC kindly requests a head-on collision with the backside edge.
You’re probably thinking about the tight end who dates a pop star, or the one who slams beer ringside at WWE. There’s a whole lot of dirty work to get to that point, especially in this offense.
Where else can you find a position for both of these gentlemen to play?
Kennesaw State only started utilizing the position in 2023 while overhauling the offense and moving away from the flexbone triple option. Carson Kent caught three passes in that season opener, a trailblazing night at the time, and claimed the starting job for the last two seasons. He, along with nearly everyone else, is already gone from KSU’s first tight end room after two seasons on the job. Of the 10 rostered tight ends in 2024, only Rowan Darnell and Isaiah Williams will return.
In terms of roster construction, I’m thinking about the Owls’ current tight end room in a similar way as the running backs. KSU’s main weapon(s) left town through the portal and graduation, and Jerry Mack’s replacing them with another mysterious group featuring a couple Bohannon holdovers that didn’t see the field, a high-ceiling freshman, and a likely starter whose only production happened at the FCS level.
To backfill (and upgrade) the room, Kennesaw could have chased down a four-star looking for a second-chance or a G5 starter, similar to other positions. That might not have made sense given how the TE portal market played out and what else the Owls needed to bring in elsewhere.
Think about Kent: He caught 32 career passes and finished last season with a worse PFF run blocking grade than Braden Bohannon. He’s at Oklahoma now after racking up an impressive portal offer list. Connor Finer, last year’s third or fourth TE, found a spot on an FCS playoff team. Former Owls OL Seth Adams moved to the position in 2023, and has since transferred from Southeastern Louisiana to San Diego State without catching a college pass. The proven tight ends available in the portal weren’t exactly lining up to play in CUSA.
The position is a hard job, but someone on this Owls roster has to do it. Who’s going to step in?
Losses
Carson Kent (18 catches, 217 yards, 3 TD) → Oklahoma
Preston Daniels (2 for 18) → Exhausted eligibility
Connor Finer (3 for 29) → Rhode Island
Jackson Manning (1 for 6) → TBA
Gatlin Hancock → Gardner Webb (prior to stepping away from the game)
Returners
#85 | Rowan Darnell
6’3”, 220 | RS Junior | Johns Creek HS
Originally arrived on campus as a WR prior to the offensive overhaul, Darnell got a cup of coffee during the lost season in 2023, catching 6 passes for 66 yards and a TD. Credited by KSU as playing in 12 games last season, but I think every snap was on special teams. Same deal as Diggs and the other Bohannon holdovers in position rooms that were otherwise cleaned out: Mack saw some reason to bring Darnell back.
#86 | Isaiah Williams
6’4”, 239 | Sophomore | Pickens HS
One of two high school tight ends signed in the ‘24 class, Williams did not see action during his freshman season. He sticks around while his classmate and fellow TE Corey Gardhigh was among the outgoing transfers. We always trust college rosters around here, and the fall camp update makes Williams the clear biggest guy in the room. Something to consider in an offense that will prioritize finding a plus run blocker in the rotation.
Newcomers
#17 | Gerard Bullock, JR
6’1”, 230 | Graduate | Tenn. State
2024 at TSU: 755 snaps, 25 catches, 212 yards, 2 TD
A long and winding road to Kennesaw: High school QB who attended Dayton as a student, transferred to Austin Peay and changed positions for spot duty at FB/TE in ‘23, and then made the move to start at Tennessee State in 2024. Year 5 sees Bullock join the Owls as the only tight end on the roster with any relevant college experience.
#84 | Semaj Parker
6’4”, 220 | RS Junior | Mississippi State
One of the most mysterious newcomers on the entire roster, Parker might know the offense better than anyone after spending 2024 in a nearly identical system under Jeff Lebby. He played mostly as a WR at Camden County before starting his college career at Livingstone (D2), where he caught 9 passes as a freshman and then redshirted the following year. New OL coach Jay Clements worked as an analyst in Starkville last season, so it’s not like the KSU staff went in blind on Parker. Intrigued to find out more as camp unfolds.
#88 | Jamari Harrold
6’2”, 232 | Freshman | Norcross HS
Mack’s elevator pitch on National Signing Day: “Jamari Harrold’s the new version of what tight ends look like in college football right now.” The in-state product received an offer as a wide receiver from the previous regime, along with a solid offer list elsewhere in the G5 ranks. To keep spamming ‘21 Tennessee comps: He might be KSU’s Princeton Fant — a high school receiver who found a second wind as a power slot/TE hybrid when Heupel, Mack, and co. arrived to Knoxville.
Leading the room will be Kyle Blocker (elite Football Guy name) who joins Mack’s first KSU staff from Miami (OH). He’ll pull double duty and also serve as special teams coordinator. To learn more about Blocker, I would highly recommend his sit-down interview with Nolan Alexander on the new Coaches Conversation podcast series KSU started this summer.
Since we don’t have much on record about Blocker’s specific philosophy on tight ends, we’re mostly using Tennessee as a case study (along with some other Veer and Shoot stuff) to figure out how the position will be deployed in the Mack era. We should also consider that KSU’s new OL coach Jay Clements played TE in college and finished his career at Baylor. That sets up a nice Venn diagram for the tight ends to rotate between working with the big fellas and David Whitlow’s receivers if Blocker needs to devote more time to special teams.
Friend of the program Josh Heupel calls tight end his “utility knife” in this offense. These guys will line up all over the place - as a traditional Y tight end, an H-back, a fullback, out wide, and in the slot. You’ve heard plenty about the tempo and ultra-wide receiver splits Not to go all Art of War, but the new offense creates distinct battlefields to give the QB a clear picture. Tight end’s the only position routinely expected to thrive both in the core and on the perimeter.
Wherever he lines up, he’s the guy who will change the math and cause the defense to react. That versatility will be one the main non-negotiable parts of the job description needed for KSU’s tight ends. Can you play in-line, on the wing at H-back, in the backfield, in the slot, and even out wide? And can you do it in an effective enough way where it makes sense to keep a fourth WR or sixth OL off the field?
Apologies for the convoluted chart, but this this is Tennessee’s TE production during the Heupel era, compared to KSU’s 2024 season and what Bullock posted last year at Tennessee State.
Out of the gate, we can probably expect 45% or so passing snaps in the slot from the rotation. You’ll also see plenty of pass blocking out of the position, though that number is probably a bit inflated given the heavy RPO usage.
Can you find 30 catches total out of the tight end room? I don’t think that’s unreasonable given what you’re asking from them in terms of the route tree. We’ve talked a lot about the downfield element of the new passing game. That’s not really what the Owls will look for from the tight ends — they’re more likely to provide an underneath option to take advantage of the vertical threat from others. Last year’s 10.4 yard average depth of target for TE1 was the deepest of the Heupel era to date.
Here’s how that played out on the field for Miles Kitselman, an Alabama transfer who stepped into a starting role last year.
Odds are we will see something closer to that 7 yard range in Kennesaw, unless one of the tight ends comes to camp and lights it up as a downfield. Last season, 84% of Tennessee’s TE receptions came against coverage tagged as zone by PFF. For a major oversimplification, sometimes your job in the passing game is to make the defense forget about you while they worry about getting gashed on the ground or somebody like Gabe Benyard running by them on a deep choice route. Watching some of the Kitselman highlights, he’s running about as open as you can get on some of those receptions.
When the tight ends are the primary option, expect it to be more along the lines of RPO action like these:
Hard to tell for certain using tight-zoom camp clips, but it looks like we saw an early glimpse at a pop RPO concept to Harrold this week.
For the record: KSU’s official social channels have posted attempts for the following QB/tight end combos: Dexter Williams to Bullock, Amari Odom to Darnell, and Tommy Ulatowski to Harrold. Does it mean anything? Absolutely not. That’s just all we have to look at in the absence of daily camp coverage. Bullock probably is the safe bet to start, though, given the lack of experience elsewhere in the room.
The underneath game fits with what Bullock’s used to from his lone year as a starter. TSU mostly asked him to be somewhat of a spacing/mesh merchant during their playoff season. Take a look at the map of where he was targeted in 2024 - only four catches all season that traveled further than 10 yards downfield. He would’ve loved the Owls’ last offense.
A few other Bullock numbers from PFF:
Pass block grade: 72.2 (tied for 51st in D1 TEs)
Run block grade: 45.3 (439)
Yards per route run: 0.59 (175 out of 185 D1 tight ends with 25+ targets
Drops: 0
Contested catches: 5 (more than KSU’s 2024 TE group combined)
Without the benefit of full game All-22 (plus ball knowledge I don’t have), I’m not sure what to make of that Y/RR number. That feels like a massive red flag, but it’s not like Kent blew that number away during a season that earned an Oklahoma offer. We can’t discount that it was Bullock’s first year as a starter and only second at the position. It’d worry me a lot more if Kennesaw planned on asking these guys to be dominant receivers at the position. You don’t need prime Travis Kelce walking through that door to succeed.
I was able to find TSU’s Howard game and obviously watched Bullock’s portal highlights once he committed. On the blocking front, from a dumb guy’s perspective: Bullock does seem to initiate contact and punch above his weight class in the run game. How that translates to the FBS level remains to be seen, but he allegedly weighed in at 230 this year, up about 30 pounds from where Tennessee State listed him last season. His age and his time as a QB at Austin Peay — in Scotty Walden’s offense with a similar turbo pace as the Owls — won’t hurt his cause to make a quick transition into the program.
Bullock also passes a highly important test: Is his character good on CFB 26? I’m pretty bad at the game right now due to limited reps. He and Javon Rogers have been clutch for me, though. That’s the kind of expert analysis you can expect from this site.
No matter how the transfer pans out as a one-year rental, Kennesaw will still need to at least one more tight end. That leaves the Owls, even if they hit on Bullock as the presumed starter, relying on someone who has never played serious reps at the college level. It took Tennessee three seasons into the Heupel era before feeling comfortable running 12 personnel (one back, two TEs) regularly. When the Vols broke out some beefier formations against NC State last year, it was a revelation during a 41-point beatdown in which the Vols racked up 8.6 yards/play. As Dan Casey and others have said: living in standard 11 personnel is anything but bulletproof - you have to find a backup plan.
To that point, can the Owls get anything out of Parker or the two returners? We’re in wait-and-see mode for those three until any news trickles out of camp. We can likely put Darnell in the lead, but in this offense, any photo finish on the depth chart will go to the more effective blocker. Darnell was behind Kent, Daniels, Finer and Manning on the depth chart last season, earning most (if not all) of his reps on special teams. Williams didn’t feature in ‘24, yet you can’t ignore the 240ish frame assuming the Owls want a different look in the rotation that otherwise features former WRs with smaller builds.
If I’m giving out investment tips, I’ve been loading up on Harrold stock since signing day. That share price definitely didn’t dip when he showed up on campus at 232 pounds, even if he did get a little shorter in the process. To revisit the archives:
TIME25PEND A FEW MINUTES READING ABOUT RECRUITS
Originally offered under the Bohannon regime, Harrold comes to campus as the best receiving tight end prospect the Owls have ever signed, mainly because that’s not where he spent most of his career at Norcross. That’s not the hottest take ever, given Kennesaw State’s limited history recruiting the position.
Harrold boasts one of the most impressive offer list among KSU’s incoming freshmen, including App State, Liberty, Jacksonville State and a few other G5 mainstays as suitors at one time or another. Are the Owls getting a steal here based on valuing him at tight end, instead of the wideout position he played in high school?
The key question on Harrold: How quickly can he figure out the blocking aspects of the position? Depending on who you ask, you’d get a lot of votes for tight end as the toughest spot to learn in the new offense as a freshman. I get it — real-life football isn’t quite as simple as the position change screen in CFB 26. But if the Owls can get ANYTHING out of him in the box, the true freshman would be the best receiving threat in the room.
If the staff doesn’t feel comfortable with the tight ends on the roster, could you find some tight end-esque contribution elsewhere? It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see help arrive from from a couple other positions. Can they just pull a Baylor and throw an eligible number on an athletic lineman and play some serious Man Ball? I would bet on it at some point this season, to be honest. With 10+ guys vying for the starting OL spots, that allows some reps to the sixth man if the blocking from the nominal TEs isn’t up to standard. You could also get creative and use a RB like Chase Belcher in that H-back/sniffer role, especially given his previous WR work and experience in similar offenses.
Another option would be to tinker with formations/alignment to simulate a second tight end, especially if the Owls can get some physicality out of the WRs closer to the box. Say Bullock is lined up as an H-back on the wing, and a receiver like Christian Moss or Jordan Jackson is in a condensed set just outside them. Heupel’s branch of the Veer and Shoot tree hasn’t shown quite as much willingness to condense WRs as someone like Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss. If the staff doesn’t feel as confident about the tight end personnel at tight end, that would be an option to add an extra gap in the run game and give some more versatility to the passing menu.
The preseason verdict, like most other positions on the team, is a TBA. Tight end looks like the biggest question mark and one of only two positions where the Owls can’t count on any real FBS experience. Like at RB, I think that’s by design as Mack and the staff focused immediate rebuild efforts elsewhere. There’s plenty of variance in the room depending on if Bullock pans out does and if the Owls can find a second contributor.
Will it work out? Excellent question that I’m not prepared to answer. Either way, I can I can see the vision on what the staff tried to do by using him as a bridge to Harrold or whoever else is up next. Even a worst-case scenario at tight end this cycle won’t doom you in the same way that missing at QB/OL did last year.
Previously on the Kennesaw State position preview series, which always comes out on time: