Mark Schmor’s Top 10 Tight Ends of the Pac-10/12 Era

Posted on October 1, 2023


  By Mark Schmor, SuperWest Sports

To celebrate the history of the Pac-12/10 Conference in the wake of its demise, I’m putting together a weekly Top 10 list of memorable players, coaches, teams, games, and plays.

For this week’s rankings, we’re assessing the greatest tight ends in conference history.

There are several factors that go into a fair evaluation of the tight end position, including blocking, strength coming off the line, speed, and agility. However, in this list, I’ve focused almost exclusively on receiving stats: receptions, yards, and touchdowns.

So if you think I’ve overlooked how essential your favorite tight end was to his team’s blocking schemes, you’re right.

Like most fans who notice tight ends three or four times a game, when they find a seam in the defense and haul in a grab for a key first down, my emphasis is on the players who tended to shine in those key moments.

No. 10 — Clarence Williams, WSU (1989-1992)

As noted in the intro, this list is going to be skewed toward guys who are pass catchers, but it’s also going to be skewed toward guys who played in the last couple of decades.

So USC fans are going to wonder where Hoby Brenner is and UCLA fans are going to wonder where Tim Wrightman is and Washington fans are going to wonder where Mark Bruener is.

All those guys were among the best players at their position but I just had no way of measuring them against the pass-catchers of today.

I ultimately decided on Clarence Williams because he is the only tight end in conference history to be named First-Team All-Pac-10 three years in a row.

Career Receiving Stats: 94 catches, 1,256 yards, 3 TDs

No. 9 — Brant Kuithe, Utah (2018-present)

It seems like Brant Kuithe has been at Utah forever.

His freshman year was 2018 and he’s played three full seasons of 14 games (because Utah played in the conference championship each year he’s been healthy).

Plus five games during the COVID year of 2020, and plus four games last year before a season-ending injury turned that into a medical redshirt season. He’s still in the process of rehabbing and hoping to make it back on the field for a sixth season.

The fact that Brant Kuithe has already played in 51 games has skewed the data a little bit. The next guy on this list played in 34 games. There’s one guy on this list who played in just 22 games.

So I don’t really know how to juxtapose a 51-game (and counting) college career.

I think Kuithe deserves inclusion here as a career achievement award and I’m leaving open the possibility that he returns to Utah and has an amazing stretch of games that forces me to reconsider his ranking on this list.

Career Receiving Stats: 148 catches, 1,882 yards, 16 TDs

No. 8 — Tony Gonzalez, California (1994-1996)

Prior to Tony Gonzalez becoming the greatest tight end in NFL history, he was a two-sport star at Cal where he was an All-Pac 10 tight end in 1996 (44 catches, 699 yards, 5 touchdowns) and also a member of the Bears’ Sweet Sixteen team in 1997.

Since the scope of this list is limited to Pac-10/12 athletes, I’m going to resist the urge to talk about some other notable football/basketball stars like Antonio Gates (Kent State), Julius Peppers (North Carolina),and Charlie Ward (Florida State).

A lot of people are just going to browse this list when it’s posted on X (formerly Twitter), see that the greatest tight end in NFL history is 9th on this list, and think I’m an idiot who doesn’t know anything about anything.

While there may be truth to all of that, it’s also true that Tony Gonzalez wasn’t nearly as dominant at the college level as most people assume.

Notice that he only had eight touchdown receptions in his Cal career. Every single player above him on this list found the end zone more than Tony Gonzalez did.

Career Receiving Stats: 89 catches, 1,302 yards, 8 TDs (3 years)

No. 7 — Todd Heap, Arizona State (1998-2000)

Arizona State had a great tight end in the 1960s named Ken Dyer. For a couple of decades, he was the guy Sun Devil fans looked to as the best tight end in school history.

Then Todd Heap came along and broke all of his records Some figured that Todd Heap would be the best ASU tight end for another generation to remember.

Unfortunately for Todd Heap, but fortunately for the Sun Devils, Zach Miller came along a couple of years later.

Career Receiving Stats: 107 catches, 1619 yards, 10 TD (3 years)

No. 6 — Zach Miller, Arizona State (2004-2006)

Zach Miller broke all of Todd Heap’s records, and I could make the argument that Heap reached a higher peak in 1999 than Miller, but do you really want to get into an argument about Arizona State tight ends?

Miller finished his career with 144 catches in just three years. Only two players on this list ended up with more. So I’m giving the slightest of edges to Miller.

Career Receiving Stats: 144 catches, 1,512 yards, 14 TDs (3 years)

No. 5 — Ed Dickson, Oregon (2006-2009)

Ed Dickson’s career numbers are good but they could be even better. He played 13 games as a defensive lineman in 2006 before changing over to the offensive side of the ball.

Dickson was a huge part of the 2009 Oregon team that reached the Rose Bowl in Chip Kelly’s first season. His signature game was an 11-catch, 148-yard, three-touchdown performance against a Top 10 Cal team in Oregon’s conference opener.

Dickson’s most memorable catch was a leaping game-tying grab to force overtime against Arizona.

Career Receiving Stats: 124 catches, 1557 yards, 12 TDs

No. 4 — Zach Ertz, Stanford (2010-2012)

Zach Ertz was a First-Team All-American in 2012 but wasn’t the Mackey Award winner for reasons that mystify me. The winner of the Mackey Award that year was Tyler Eifert of Notre Dame. Here are their receiving numbers side by side:

Ertz 2012 Receiving Stats: 69 catches, 898 yards, 6 touchdowns
Eifert 2012 Receiving Stats: 50 catches, 685 yards, 4 touchdowns

Maybe we should give the Mackey Award voters the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they watched a ton of game film and determined Tyler Eifert was the superior blocker to Zach Ertz.

After all, the previous year Eifter’s receiving numbers were significantly better than those of Dwayne Allen of Clemson who took home the 2011 Mackey Award. The only explanation for that is that Allen was an incredible blocking tight end.

What’s more likely is that the voters felt like they snubbed Eifert in 2011, so they wanted to make up for it in 2012.

And then Eifert’s Notre Dame team had an undefeated regular season and that gave the voters all the cover they needed to give Eifert a make-up trophy at the expense of Ertz.

As awesome as Ertz was in 2012, he wasn’t even the best tight end that Stanford had during his first two years because he was teammates with Cody Fleener, who was awesome.

In Fleener’s final season for the Cardinal, he had just 34 receptions but he averaged a ridiculous 19.6 yards per catch. To put that in perspective, Ertz averaged 12.8 yards per catch during his Stanford tenure.

Fleener and Ertz are arguably the best pair of tight-end teammates in conference history.

Career Receiving Stats: 112 catches, 1,434 yards, 15 TDs (3 years)

No. 3 — Rob Gronkowski, Arizona (2008-09)

Rob Gronkowski was a force of nature at the tight end position.

I remember marveling at the Arizona tight end for whom the Ducks had no answer at Autzen Stadium in 2008. Gronk finished the game with 12 catches for 143 yards.

He’s the only guy on this list who only played two years so his stats are tough to compare.

Even still, his 16 touchdown receptions in two seasons are more than most of the guys on this list picked up in three or four seasons.

Career Receiving Stats: 75 catches, 1,197 yards, 16 TDs (2 years)

No. 2 [tie] — Fred Davis, USC (2004-2007) and Marcedes Lewis, UCLA (2002-2005)

USC’s Fred Davis and UCLA’s Marcedes Lewis | Getty Images

The city of Los Angeles produced two Mackey Award winners within a couple of years from each other and I have a hard time picking one over the other so I’m going to cheat a little and proclaim this a tie.

Fred Davis won the John Mackey Award in 2007 when he had 62 catches for 881 yards and 8 touchdowns. Davis was the leading receiver on a USC team that went 11-2 and finished 3rd in the nation.

Marcedes Lewis won the John Mackey Award in 2005 when he had 58 catches for 741 yards and 10 touchdowns. How essential was Lewis to that surprise 10-win team for the Bruins? Their best wide receiver, Joe Cowan, had just 35 catches for 469 yards.

Davis had the higher peak, Lewis had the more productive career. There isn’t a wrong choice here.

Davis Career Receiving Stats: 117 catches-1,408 yards, 13 TDs
Lewis Career Receiving Stats: 126 catches, 1,571 yards, 21 TDs

No. 1 — Austin Seferian-Jenkins, UW (2011-2013)

I’ve got Austin Seferian-Jenkins as the top choice because he won the Mackey Award in 2012 as a sophomore while both Lewis and Davis won it as seniors.

Being the best player in the county at your position as a sophomore is a pretty astounding feat.

Seferian-Jenkins’ 2012 season, when he had 69 catches for 852 yards, was phenomenal. He didn’t match those numbers as a junior, which I attribute to the Huskies developing a more balanced offense and ASJ suffering a broken pinkie which required surgery.

When he left UW, Seferian-Jenkins was the career leader among conference tight ends in receptions and receiving yards. Brant Kuithe has since broken his records, but as we noted earlier, Brant Kuithe is in a category all his own.

Kuithe has played in 51 games but ASJ set his career marks in 38 games over three seasons

Career Receiving Stats: 146 catches, 1,840 yards, 21 TDs (3 years)

—More from Mark Schmor—