1 / 2

BYU freshman tight end Ryner Swanson catches a pass during fall camp in Provo on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.

Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo

2 / 2

BYU freshman tight end Ryner Swanson (20) and senior Keanu Hill pose for a photo before a fall camp practice in Provo on Friday, Aug. 2, 2024.

Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo

❮ ❯

One of many ways to start an argument among BYU football fans is ask who is the best tight end to wear a Cougar uniform.

“Chad Lewis!” some would immediately respond.

“He was great, but he wasn’t as good as Dennis Pitta,” someone else would fire back.

An older supporter would chime in with “Gordon Hudson” while another would point to Clay Brown and his signature Miracle Bowl moment.

The reality is that arguments could be made for a number of former BYU tight ends, including guys like David Mills, Doug Jolley, Chris Smith, Itula Mili, Jonny Harline, Andrew George, Matt Bushman and Isaac Rex.

While the Cougars have certainly had plenty of great quarterbacks and some impressive linebackers, the list of elite tight ends may be one of the best hallmarks of the BYU program.

But, not surprisingly, that isn’t something the current Cougar tight ends think about all that often.

“It’s cool,” BYU freshman tight end Ryner Swanson said after practice on Wednesday. “BYU has had great tight ends, but I’m focused on now. That’s what we all should be focused on. We don’t talk about the past greats. We are just trying to win games.”

Swanson is correct that none of those successful Cougar tight ends of the past can do anything to directly help BYU win now. That’s up to the current players, which is what new Cougar tight ends coach Kevin Gilbride is focused on.

“I’m honored to be in this position and that I get to coach these guys with the great tradition of BYU tight ends,” Gilbride said. “But as far as pressure or anything like that, to me, you don’t have time to think about that. If you’re trying to get the most out of your players, you really don’t have time to think about it.”

They do, however, appreciate the underlying fact that historically BYU’s offense has been a lot more effective when it has had excellent tight end play.

“We use our tight ends really well,” Swanson said. “We always talk about how the tight ends are going to get the offense going. We’ve got a lot of speed and a lot of depth. When we line up, we just go all out.”

Gilbride said his guys should embrace the pressure of needing to perform at a high level for the Cougars to consistently move the ball.

“That’s how I would like it,” Gilbride said. “We’re going be asked to do a lot of things, and we were going to be asked to be able to execute at a high level. We want that. We want to be on the field. We want to be the guys who are going to make the key block, make the key catch, protect long enough so that the quarterback can throw it downfield to some of our talented receivers. We want to wear the hat, so to speak.”

The Cougars listed four players on the depth chart, with senior Keanu Hill getting the nod as the starter and three others — Swanson, senior Mata’ava Ta’ase and junior Ethan Erickson — being listed as a group as next in line.

Gilbride said that is group goes even deeper than that though and that the goal is to have all of them ready to play.

“You maximize what they can do and what they do really well, but then you have to have the ability to minimize where they’re a little bit deficient,” Gilbride said. “You can’t have the opposing defensive coordinator know that when this guy comes on the field, this is what he does because he’s good at that. They all have to be able to execute even in areas where they are a little more deficient in order to be successful.”

Given the depth at the position, the growth of Swanson to the point of making the depth chart has been impressive.

“The spring was a whirlwind for him,” Gilbride said. “He just got to college with a brand-new college offense, which is much more intricate than you have in high school. So there were a lot of mistakes, which we anticipated, but he bounced right back from him and continued to grow.

“The summer was tremendous for him, because he really learned our offense, just from what to do on paper, how to execute it, all that stuff. Then he made progress physically as well.”

Swanson ended up missing some time in fall camp due to an ankle injury, but said he has faith that everything happens for a reason and he’s looking forward to getting on the field at LaVell Edwards Stadium for the first time on Saturday against Southern Illinois (6 p.m. MT, ESPN+).

“I’m most excited about getting in there and, after I did my assignment, just looking up at the ROC and the whole stadium and just saying, like, I’m on this field right now,” Swanson said. “This is what I prayed for. This has been my goal for a long time. I’m going to be thinking, thank you so much, Heavenly Father, for giving me this opportunity.”