The play was so ruthless in execution, so devastatingly simple in process, that Colorado defensive back DJ McKinney hit the turf and slammed his fist in frustration.
In the fourth quarter of a November CU blowout win over Utah, Utes tight end Caleb Lohner isolated on the left side of the formation from the 3-yard line. He made a move, cut slightly to the outside — and then simply shoved his 250-pound backside into McKinney as if he was going for a rebound. The corner flailed his arms helplessly, disappearing behind a white jersey. And Lohner snagged a touchdown pass, shot a cool glance at a peeved McKinney, and casually flicked the ball away behind him.
It was his fourth touchdown catch of the season. It was his fourth catch, period, of the season. And it was his fourth catch — at any level — since Lohner decided to shelve football after seventh grade to pursue basketball.
On Saturday, with their last pick of the NFL draft, the Broncos took Lohner in the seventh round.
“I know I don’t have a ton of football under my belt, but that’s exactly why I’m playing the game, because I’ve developed a passion and love,” Lohner said Saturday, on a conference call with media.
That fourth catch against Colorado was also Lohner’s final of the season. Four catches on tape, total, of collegiate football. Zero catches on tape, total, of high school football. “Fifty-seven plays,” Broncos head coach Sean Payton affirmed Saturday night, referencing Lohner’s total snap count last year for the Utes.
How on earth, then, did a kid with 57 plays under his belt hear his name called in Green Bay?
“It’s super unique,” said Utah basketball coach David Evans, who coached Lohner with the Utes last winter. “Oh my God.”
Lohner also played basketball for Evans in his junior and senior seasons at Utah’s Wasatch Academy. Even back then, “everyone kept telling him” to switch to football, Evans recalled. He was skilled as a rebounder and a sheer athlete, but somewhat of a 6-foot-7 tweener without an explosive jumper in a changing era of basketball.
But Lohner, still, exited high school as the second-highest-ranked player in Utah, according to 247Sports. He averaged seven points and seven rebounds a game across his first two seasons at BYU, an integral piece to a solid program under former coach Mark Pope. But a transfer to Baylor for his junior and senior seasons didn’t pan out, relegating him to a reserve role, and Lohner entered 2024-25 with one year of eligibility left and his career dangling in the balance.
Lohner had family friends at Utah burrowing into his ear with a call to try football. He hit the portal and transferred to the Utes to switch sports.
“I took the time to watch some film and take a visit there after I graduated at Baylor, and man,” Lohner said on a conference call Saturday, “it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”
Evans and other members of Utah’s basketball staff persuaded him to come out for basketball, too. He wound up playing more minutes on hardwood than he did on turf in 2024-25. But he caught the Broncos’ eye at March’s Big 12 pro day and took an in-house 30 visit with the Broncos in the pre-draft process.
It’s a massive swing, to be sure, on Payton and general manager George Paton’s ability to evaluate talent. But Payton pointed to Lohner’s upside at such a late draft slot — and drew a brief comparison to his former Saints All-Pro tight end Jimmy Graham, who also played basketball at Miami and had just 17 catches coming out of college.
“You go all the way back in our league, historically — [Antonio] Gates was signed, I believe, undrafted,” Payton said Saturday of the Hall of Fame tight end who’d starred in basketball at Kent State. “And so, it’s kind of one of those things where the body types for the tight end, it’s not like they’re making less of them. They may be playing volleyball and they may be playing basketball, but it’s projecting.”
“When you get a chance to see him play football,” Payton continued, “he goes through a season of putting pads on, but his movement skills and his height, weight and his eye-hand coordination — there’s a lot of developmental upsides, and we’re excited about that.”
The pick might not pay off for years. If it pays off. But Lohner, Evans said, put countless hours behind the scenes into studying film in the Utes’ facility last year. And the measurables are there.
“You can’t teach a 40-inch vertical to a kid that physical and tough,” Evans said.
“If he can figure the other stuff out,” he continued, “it’s going to be a cool experiment.”
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