How Carson Towt went from Notre Dame basketball to Colts tight end in 10 days
· Yahoo Sports
INDIANAPOLIS — The move seems so sudden.
Visit rocore.sbs for more information.
Carson Towt started at center in Notre Dame’s season-ending loss to Boston College, pulling down six rebounds and fouling out of the final basketball game of his career after a decade spent on the hardwood at Gilbert High School, Northern Arizona and Notre Dame.
Ten days later, Towt signed a professional contract with the Indianapolis Colts.
To play a sport he’s never played before.
“It’s been quite the journey so far,” Towt said. “And man, it’s just getting started.”
Towt’s path to the NFL began long before that disappointing night at Conte Forum.
The 6-foot-7, 250-pound bruiser has been circling the sport of football for a long time, going back to those days at Gilbert High School in Arizona.
“In high school, I was real small, I hit growth spurts too late,” Towt said. “I didn’t have armpit hair until late in high school, so I was kind of a late bloomer. I never gave it too much thought and attention until my freshman year in college, when I started bulking up.”
The more muscle Towt packed onto his frame, the more he played basketball like a football player.
Towt redshirted his first season at Northern Arizona, spent two seasons as a redshirt freshman starter for the Lumberjacks thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, became a force as a sophomore and then bounced back from a 2023-24 season lost to injury to lead the entire nation in rebounding in his final season in Flagstaff.
The whole time, Towt had his eye on football.
“An awareness of my physical gifts that were showcased on the basketball floor,” Towt said. “I think this sport honors those gifts. The things that got me to Notre Dame, that carried me through my career, things I pride myself on.”
Towt thought about playing both sports for the Lumberjacks, then thought about playing football somewhere collegiately after his Northern Arizona basketball career was done.
An advisor realized that wasn’t an option. Because of COVID-19 and a season lost to injury, Towt still had NCAA eligibility as a basketball player, but he couldn’t play football.
“I didn’t have any eligibility left in college,” Towt said.
Towt’s hopes remained undaunted.
“I pride myself on dirty work and rebounding and being physical,” Towt said. “I think football honors those things a little bit better than basketball does. That’s why we’re here today.”
Towt wasn’t satisfied with dreaming about a chance to play in the NFL.
He made it happen. Towt knew the history of college basketball players making the transition to NFL tight end, a lineage that has everything from Hall of Famers (Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates) to longtime starters (Marcus Pollard) to players who’ve carved out long careers as rotational pieces, such as current Colts tight end Mo Alie-Cox.
Towt figured his best chance was to find a representative who knew the position he wanted to play.
His research led him to Jack Bechta and Jack Tabb. Half of Bechta’s clients are tight ends; Tabb, a relative newcomer as an agent, made it all the way to training camp as a tight end with the Saints before a torn ACL ended his NFL dream before it could get started.
Bechta and Tabb’s agency, JB Sports Inc., represents Cole Lohner, the dual-sport tight end Denver drafted in the seventh round last year.
Towt didn’t let his work stop there.
While he was still playing basketball, getting ready to average 5.9 points and 9.0 rebounds for game for Notre Dame this season, he reached out to NFL players who’d already made the transition.
Including Alie-Cox, the former VCU power forward who recently signed a one-year deal with the Colts for his 10th season in the NFL. Towt sent Alie-Cox a direct message on social media, the Indianapolis tight end followed him right back and they set up a phone call.
“We talked for probably half an hour,” Towt said. “I just wanted to hear his experience, hear his journey, how he did it.”
Towt and his agents formulated a plan.
He had an advantage. Towt is not eligible for April’s draft. Under NFL rules, “players are draft-eligible only in the year after the end of their college eligibility,” and Towt spent that year working the glass at Notre Dame.
Towt might not have been draft-eligible, but he came to Indianapolis for the NFL scouting combine three weeks ago.
He didn't work out — Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry might have taken exception to his leading rebounder running routes for NFL teams while he was still trying to make the ACC Tournament — but to meet with teams, pitch the transition he wanted to make.
The Colts were an obvious target, not only because of the franchise’s history with Pollard and Erik Swoope and Alie-Cox, but because tight ends coach Tom Manning was working with Indianapolis when Alie-Cox made his NFL debut in 2018.
“We had to teach Mo everything,” Manning told Towt. “He didn’t know anything, just like you don’t know much about football.”
Oddly enough, that was exactly what Towt wanted to hear.
He knows how much work is in front of him. If Towt is going to follow in Alie-Cox’s footsteps and carve out a lengthy NFL career, he’s likely going to have to spend this summer proving he deserves a spot on the practice squad, allowing him to develop without playing in games at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The first step of Towt’s transition to the football field was finding a team.
The hard work is just beginning.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Carson Towt went to Colts tight end from Notre Dame basketball in 10 days