FORT COLLINS — Last season, Colorado State had one of the better tight end combinations in the West, with senior Crockett Gillmore and junior Kivon Cartwright. Cartwright was more H-back than conventional tight end, but regardless of the labels, they were an effective tandem.
Gillmore departed for the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens, who drafted him in the third round. Cartwright played only in the first game this season against Colorado before he was ruled out for the rest of the year because he needed additional ankle surgery.
Yet the Rams — 5-1 heading into their key Mountain West game Saturday with Utah State at Hughes Stadium — have gotten by.
Sophomore Nolan Peralta, switched over from linebacker, has been the blocking tight end. And junior Steven Walker, who transferred in from Butler County Community College in El Dorado, Kan., has stepped in for Cartwright and has 20 receptions for 209 yards and three touchdowns.
Walker was an offensive lineman in the powerhouse program at Heights High School in Wichita but wasn’t close to big enough to be a collegiate prospect.
“I played guard my junior year and then tackle my senior year,” Walker said. “My high school coach told the junior college coach that I had the best hands on the team; it was just the offense that we were playing.”
So he went to junior college to convert himself into a tight end. In two seasons there, he caught the attention of the CSU staff and enrolled in January.
“We really thought we were getting a versatile H-type receiver,” CSU coach Jim McElwain said. “What really surprised me is how well he has adapted to playing on the line of scrimmage, and even in the fullback role, which is what we ask him to do in our silver grouping.”
Walker called the loss of Cartwright “a hit for the team. I was just the one lucky enough to be the one who got to fill the role. … We hope he gets healthy so he can come back next year (in a possible medical hardship sixth year) and come back strong, and we can all mix it up together.”
Peralta was the valedictorian at Elsinore High School in Wildomar, Calif., where his father, Tony, was his coach. McElwain is fond of mentioning that Peralta “gets it,” playing with the savvy of a coach’s son.
“I loved playing for my dad,” Peralta said. “On the field, I didn’t see him as my dad. I grew up with the whole coaching staff. I knew I was going to get the best coaching in the (Murrieta) Valley, and if I gave it my best effort with their coaching, I could be a great player. I guess that’s really carried over to here, giving it my best effort in every opportunity and chance I have.”
At CSU, he was a reserve linebacker as a freshman before being switched to tight end for spring ball.
“I just love playing football,” Peralta said. “If I get one catch a season and it helps the team win, I’m fine with that.”
The Mountain West on Monday as supplemental discipline in the wake of the personal foul penalty he drew in the first half of the Saturday night at Nevada. The league said it was “for targeting and initiating forcible contact against an opponent with the crown of the helmet.”
The penalty came on Dee Hart’s 2-yard run late in the first half.
“It was something that I thought was within the play, within the whistles,” Peralta said. He added: “They happened to rule that it was an illegal hit and I used the crown of my helmet. … It’s bang-bang, it’s so fast. I just tried to hit him as hard as I could, and I guess my helmet hit him and that’s the way they ruled.”
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei
