Tough love has made Iowa's Noah Fant the most dangerous tight end in college football

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Tears streamed down Noah Fant’s face barely 30 minutes after he suffered the worst moment in his Iowa football career.

Fant fumbled through his words outside the locker room at Ryan Field after a 17-10 overtime loss to Northwestern, but he answered every question. His eyes were red and his voice muffled. Every second was torture, but the tight end lasted for three minutes before returning to the locker room.

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He spent the four-hour bus ride to Iowa City in silence. Fant stayed up until 2 a.m. watching film. He barely slept for the next week. The pain was real.

On fourth-and-3 from the Northwestern 18, Fant lined up off the line of scrimmage and ran a 5-yard stick route to the left of quarterback Nate Stanley. Fant had scored on the same play late in the first half and picked up another first down on the same route. As Stanley delivered the ball perfectly, the ball hit Fant in the midsection and he turned his head to the right. Fant never secured the catch, the ball hit the ground and the game was over.

He relived that play repeatedly the following week. He described it as “shell shock.” Fant continued to attend Bible study and prayed for peace and comfort. He also looked to his family for guidance. They offered him support — and the backfist of reality.

“My message to him after he dropped it was, ‘I hope it does hurt,’ ” said older brother Chris Fant, who was Noah’s high school football coach at Omaha (Neb.) South High School. “I hope you don’t sleep a wink for the next couple of days. You focus in those moments and don’t let those things happen. I’ve never been one to teach him to run away from it or hide your emotions. It should hurt because you’ve got so much invested. Then you lean on your faith and lean on God to help you emotionally get through it.”

“You should feel that pain, and Noah had to accept that as a part of growing up,” said Willie Fant, another older brother. “He did, and he put in a lot of work. After that Northwestern game, you (saw) a different kid out on the football field. He definitely had a different level of focus in him.”

Noah Fant, now an Iowa junior, was a talented performer before that dropped pass. Afterward, it fueled him to become one of the most dangerous tight ends in college football. This year, he just might be the best.

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Picking Iowa over Nebraska

Noah Fant grew up the youngest of six siblings in Omaha and watched his older brothers excel in sports. Willie Fant was the family’s basketball player, and Chris Fant was the big, physical football player. Chris started for three seasons as a defensive end at Division II Nebraska-Kearney before competing with the Omaha Beef of Champions Indoor Football. Every step along the way, Noah tried to compete with his older brothers.

“He was a tagalong,” said Chris, who is 10 years older than Noah. “Willie was at college, so all he had was myself at home. Whatever I was doing, he was right there trying to do it with me, whether it was basketball, football, checkers, Monopoly. If I had friends over, he was right there. No matter what I was doing, he was right there with me.”

Noah started playing youth football when he was 8 and dominated his peers. He did the same in basketball. By the time he became a teenager, Noah flashed enough ability to put his family and bystanders on notice about his potential.

“Noah always has been talented,” said Willie, who is 14 years older than Noah. “I think in junior high and high school, he really took it to that level. I saw it in high school that he was a super-talented kid and that he worked really hard.”

“When I started working with him when he was 8 or 9, I could tell the athleticism that we were kind of blessed with, I saw he had that,” Chris said. “If he messes around and gets some added height to what he has, the sky is going to be limit. Then Jimmy Graham hit the scene and we started seeing that 6-5, 6-6, 6-7 guy who is an athlete and a good basketball player. That was the way he started to look like he was growing. Then by eighth grade, you started to see that he was sprouting up. That’s when I knew at the very least he should be able to play somewhere at Division I football-wise.”

At Omaha South High, Noah earned all-state honors after catching 78 passes for 1,064 yards and 18 scores combined in his final two seasons. As a senior, he hauled in 46 passes for 570 yards and 10 touchdowns. Noah also scored 11.4 points and grabbed 4.9 rebounds a game for a state championship basketball squad and finished third in the state triple jump. He had plenty of scholarship offers, and most Nebraska fans wanted him to stay home.

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Noah visited UCLA and Oregon early in his high school career, but Iowa offered him the best package. Nebraska and Minnesota saw him as a potential defensive end. He wanted to play tight end, and that’s a focal point for the Hawkeyes’ offense. Since 2000, NFL clubs drafted a Big Ten-high nine different Iowa tight ends, and others saw action as free agents.

“That was a big part for me,” Noah said. “Obviously I don’t want to go to a school where they don’t use their tight ends. So coming to Iowa was obviously a no-brainer for me with how much they use their tight ends.”

As Noah sought input, his family members helped him whittle his list to three schools. His father told him it was a life-changing decision. College coaches continued to hound Chris. Finally, Noah decided on Iowa. He rebuffed late efforts by Nebraska and Minnesota and stuck with the Hawkeyes.

“Anybody with a football mind, if you compare that position, those two schools (Iowa and Nebraska) aren’t even close when it comes to productivity and the way they are used,” Chris said.

Takeoff

Noah stood 6 feet 5 and weighed 210 pounds after his senior basketball season. He needed to transform his body to become a full-service Iowa tight end, and his coaches accepted that.

Instead of redshirting, Noah played in 11 games as a true freshman in 2016. He was involved in many two- and three-tight end sets. He finished the season with nine catches for 70 yards and a score. His impact statistically was minimal, but his athletic ability was noticeable from the beginning.

Entering the 2017 season, Noah had gained 22 pounds and looked the part. He could block defenders at the point of attack and was strong enough to overpower opponents for the ball in traffic.

Through Iowa’s loss against Northwestern — the season’s seventh game — Noah had 16 catches for 232 yards and four touchdowns. Over the final six games, he caught 14 passes for 262 yards and seven scores. He became the primary weapon in Iowa’s passing game.

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“I think after that, he let the game come to him,” Chris said. “The only reason he dropped that ball is because he wanted to score the touchdown for his team. Anybody that knows him, they’ll tell you he’s a team guy, through and through.”

Against Minnesota, Noah hauled in a 45-yard touchdown on a crossing route. The next week against Ohio State, he blazed past the Buckeyes’ secondary on a 25-yard wheel route for one score. He came back a drive later with a 3-yard touchdown when he hauled in an underthrown pass from Stanley.

In the regular-season finale, Iowa traveled to Nebraska in a homecoming for Noah. Cornhuskers fans climbed all over him for leaving the state, which just sharpened his focus. He caught three passes for 116 yards and two touchdowns in a 56-14 rout. After a 4-yard score in the first half, Noah’s final touchdown came late in the third quarter on a pass in the flat. Noah caught the ball and ran untouched up the sideline for a 68-yard touchdown. His celebratory dive into the end zone cost the team 15 yards on the kickoff, but Noah made a statement that day.

“I wouldn’t say it was circled on my calendar or anything like that,” Noah said after the game, “but I definitely knew in the back of my head I was going to have to come back to Memorial Stadium. I’m going to have to produce.”

Noah ended the season with 30 catches for 494 yards and 11 touchdowns, the most in the Big Ten. Among tight ends nationally, he posted the best yards per catch at 16.5. His touchdowns tied for the national high. Only two Big Ten pass catchers averaged more yards per reception last year.

The next level

Predictably, Noah has received significant attention this offseason. Nearly every preseason publication touts him as the nation’s top tight end, and The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman rates Noah as the top athletic freak among offensive players in the FBS. His results during Iowa’s spring testing period have surpassed just about every other tight end prospect.

His shuttle time of 3.95 seconds would be the best in at least 32 years for tight ends at the NFL combine. His vertical jump of 42.1 inches would rank third all-time among tight ends at the event.

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“It’s kind of crazy,” Stanley said. “We’re all kind of doing our verticals at the same time, but when you hear a coach say, ‘42,’ your jaw just kind of drops. It’s pretty special to be able to do that.”

Continuous improvement is the key for Noah this season. In the spring, he wanted to sharpen his routes to gain better separation. Gaining weight and strength was another focus.

“I feel like I’m a lot stronger from last year around this time,” he said. “I put on about 10 pounds of good weight. I feel like I’ve gotten faster. Obviously, that’s all attributed to Coach (Chris) Doyle’s strength program. I’m definitely bigger but more lean at the same time.”

The extra weight will come in handy as he auditions for NFL scouts almost every week. Although Noah is entering his junior season, ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay slated him going No. 12 in his way-too-early 2019 NFL mock draft. While his brothers say it’s too early for that discussion, Noah’s skill level suggests he might be ready for the pros after this season.

“I love his length. I love his quickness,” said Dan Shonka, general manager and national scout for Ourlads Scouting Services. “He blocks OK on the move. He’s a guy that they put him in motion and he blocks OK. I’d like to see him get a little bit stronger. I want to see him get bigger and stronger, bend a little bit more.

“I like the guy. Right now, I’d say he’s a second-rounder.”

Noah’s progression as a blocker would help Iowa’s offense improve, especially in multiple-tight end formations. The Hawkeyes used two or more tight ends on 48.5 percent of their offensive snaps last year, and with Noah’s and T.J. Hockenson’s receiving prowess, Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz could disguise tendencies more easily. Out of Iowa’s two-tight end, two-receiver grouping, the Hawkeyes were balanced with 103 pass calls in 228 plays.

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“If Noah Fant can go in there and be an in-line guy and be a serious blocker where they have to respect closing down both C-gaps or putting him in a wing or bringing him out of the backfield, then it’s going to limit what they can do defensively, and certainly it’s going to make for more opportunity for him,” Brian Ferentz said.

Iowa’s offensive staff spent time with the New England Patriots, where Brian Ferentz coached tight ends in 2011. New England tight end Rob Gronkowski has credited Ferentz with teaching him how to block correctly, and it’s possible the team reciprocated with ways to isolate Fant in passing situations the way the Patriots do with Gronkowski.

“Coach Brian does a great job of coming up with different stuff that’s unconventional,” Stanley said. “I think it plays into the confusion of the defense, too. Not necessarily knowing where (Fant) is going to be, because we showed a lot of different things that he can do. That really causes a nightmare to defensive coordinators.”

The older Fant brothers are proud of their youngest brother, whom they jokingly said their mother “babied.” They admire how Noah has handled his success and failures. They also remain competitive with one another.

“I always made sure he was striving to be tougher,” Chris said. “Me and that dude, we can’t even play Madden without our voices raising or something. We are two competitive individuals. There was no taking it easy on him.

“I don’t ever tell him he’s bigger, faster, stronger than me. I can’t even agree to that. It doesn’t even sound right because he’s my little brother. I would never tell him, but he’s developed really well.”

(Top photo of Noah Fant (87): Jeffrey Becker/ USA TODAY Sports)

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