Leatherneck Nation

Whoops…posting this a day late, sorry. Here’s the Tight Ends on the roster

#7 Senior Trey Dunkelberger
#81 Senior Tony Harper
#87 Senior Cal Breedlove
#45 Junior Tyler Slamans
#83 Junior Adam Conrady
#48 Sophomore Jackson Riley
#88 Redshirt Freshman Chris Age
#47 Freshman Nathan Karsjens

Seniors


Juniors


Sophomores


Redshirt Freshmen


Freshmen


Here’s the stats from last year for the guys who are returning this year:
Tony Harper - 11 games, 14 catches for 159 yards and 1 TD, 11.36 ypc, 14.45 ypg
Adam Conrady - 6 games (season-ending knee injury), 4 catches or 40 yards, 10 ypc, 6.67 ypg
Jackson Riley - 7 games, 1 catch for 28 yards, 28 ypc, 4 ypg
Tyler Slamans - 11 games, 2 catches for 13 yards, 6.5 ypc, 1.18 ypg

Players who are not returning, and their stats from last year:
Well...actually nobody. We didn’t have any Senior TE’s last year.

As we heard going into last year from the previous year, TE’s were going to be used more as receivers rather than just blockers. I mentioned it a while back, but if you look back at the total TE receiving stats over the previous few years, you’ll see a pretty big change once Coach Fisher took over.
2014 - 7 catches, 51 yards, 2 TDs
2015 - 2 catches, 13 yards, 1 TD
2016 - 21 catches, 240 yards, 1 TD

Between 2015 and 2016, the number of catches and yardage increased dramatically (Tony Harper alone last year eclipsed the total number of catches and receiving yards of all TEs in the previous two years combined). So, given that we know that Coach Fisher likes to utilize TE’s more than we had in the past, and that we’ve got a fairly experienced group of older players, combined with the loss of two of the best WRs in Leatherneck history, but still have a very solid QB….I think that all adds up to some pretty good numbers (comparatively) for our TE’s this year.

All of the guys who got playing time last year are back, and should contribute again this year. We also have new senior transfer Trey Dunkleberger as well as some young talent that could be really good now that they have the opportunity to hit the field. Specifically, I’m interested to see how Chris Age does, considering he was pretty well-regarded coming out of HS.

Something of interest that I noticed also is that all of our Senior TE’s are transfers:
Trey Dunkelberger - LA Pierce College (1 year) -> Syracuse (2 years) -> Western this year
Tony Harper - Pitt (2 active years, 1 redshirt year) -> Western last year
Cal Breedlove - Northern Illinois (1 active year, 1 redshirt year) -> Western in 2015

Was it Conrady that took the scary hit at South Dakota last year? Apparently was a rough year for him physically.

rocki wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 10:19 am Was it Conrady that took the scary hit at South Dakota last year? Apparently was a rough year for him physically.

According to the game-by-game stats/participation list, he played against EIU, NAU, NIU, SDSU, ISUb, and MSU, then did not play against NDSU, USD, ISUr, UNI, or SIU. Must have been someone else because he was already out by that point in the season.

ST_Lawson wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:08 am

rocki wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 10:19 am Was it Conrady that took the scary hit at South Dakota last year? Apparently was a rough year for him physically.

According to the game-by-game stats/participation list, he played against EIU, NAU, NIU, SDSU, ISUb, and MSU, then did not play against NDSU, USD, ISUr, UNI, or SIU. Must have been someone else because he was already out by that point in the season.

Wonder who it was? I remember the hit - I thought the kid was going to be badly hurt as he just went totally limp and didn't respond for a bit. Frightening.

rocki wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 12:09 pm

ST_Lawson wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:08 am

rocki wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 10:19 am Was it Conrady that took the scary hit at South Dakota last year? Apparently was a rough year for him physically.

According to the game-by-game stats/participation list, he played against EIU, NAU, NIU, SDSU, ISUb, and MSU, then did not play against NDSU, USD, ISUr, UNI, or SIU. Must have been someone else because he was already out by that point in the season.

Wonder who it was? I remember the hit - I thought the kid was going to be badly hurt as he just went totally limp and didn't respond for a bit. Frightening.

I don't really remember. I remember the USD guy who was hurt at the game the year before down here in Macomb, but I don't remember someone last year. Here's some highlights from the USD perspective, maybe it's in that somewhere: [youtube][/youtube]

Maybe I've got the wrong game. I do remember it was on ESPN3, though, not at home.

rocki wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2017 12:51 pm Maybe I've got the wrong game. I do remember it was on ESPN3, though, not at home.

It was WR Adam Hoogerwerf on a kickoff. He would have been a Red Shirt Senior this year. He was a nice special teams player.

Thanks, huskie! I stand corrected.