Former walk-on embodies the best of the Rams
Mike Brohard
The good thing is he’s never needed an answer to the question.
What if the coaches just brushed him off, the kid from Erie who kept showing up day after summer day asking for a chance. What if they never relented and let him take part in an old-school tryout for walk-ons.
What if he hadn’t lied and told him he could carry the football?
“Yeah, never had to. I probably would have just stayed and been a student,” Ryan McConnell said. “To be honest with you, that never really went through my head. I just knew I needed an opportunity, and I knew if I got that opportunity, I could show them that I could play. I spent that whole summer coming up here, standing outside the coach's office, bugging them, trying to get a workout in front of them or something. So, I kind of knew if I got that opportunity, I'd make the most out of it.”
He’s the kind of kid coaches say they wish they had more of on the team. He’s the teammate everyone one has a story about, but they all start a different way.
“Oh, the strongest man in America?” quips Durell Robinson.
“Do you have three hours?” Phillip Ocon asks. “I can tell Ryan McConnell stories all day.”
“He's tough. He's smart. He's mature. He's focused. He's serious. He's a great teammate,” CSU coach Jim Mora said, working the gamut of positive adjectives. “He's a great team member. He's dependable. I mean, all of those things … You want to fill your team with guys like Ryan and have that type of mindset. He's just special. Yeah. I love him.
“I like guys that are tough. If you want to call that throwback, that's fine. I like tough guys. This is a tough sport played by tough men, and if you're not tough physically and mentally and emotionally, then you should find something else to do. Ryan kind of embodies all of that.”
It’s best to just call McConnell a football player. Even he’s not sure what role he actually fills. He is listed as a tight end, so that room claims him. He’s more in the mold of an H-back, which means fullback, a term he loves.
In that regard, the running back delegation would like to claim him. One, his blocking creates pathways for him, and two, he has a carry now.
“If he’s not the strongest man in America, he's definitely the strongest on the team,” Robinson said. “With his strength and his power, as you can see, like on that fourth-and-1, he dragged a 265-pounder 5 yards. He's that powerful. So if he's dragging people like that, you can only imagine seeing so many defenders who would really want to step in his way when it's time for him to be the lead blocker or when he has the ball in his hands.
“I didn't even know Ryan was a walk-on when I first got here. I thought he'd been on scholarship. He's a great help. He's a great, positive-minded guy, and he's excited to be in there every single chance that he gets.”
The strongest man on the team is fact, and strength and conditioning coach Shelton Bynum has the numbers to back the claim.
McConnell is the strongest pound for pound based on Bynum’s metrics which give McConnell 642.6 points. It is based on the 1,000-pound club, totaling the weight of three main lifts – clean, front squad, bench press. McConnell is the only Ram to hit 1,200 pounds, going to 1,205. Only two other Rams reach 1,100 – Brandon Kelley and Desman Manuel.
“He’s not making that up,” Bynum said of Robinson’s claim. “I call him Hulk. Or Baby Hulk.”
That carry was a long time in coming, mainly because it wasn’t part of the playbook until about a month earlier. The offense would rep it in practice, and deep down, McConnell hoped offensive coordinator Pryce Tracy would actually call it in a game.
Remember, to get the initial tryout, he had to tell a former staff he could carry the ball. It was, of course, a lie from a guy who had played the offensive line at Erie High School.
“I'm reminding them that we’ve got it in the game plan,” McConnell said of his attempts at subliminal messaging during practice. “I’m saying we can do it at every spot of the field, not just third and short. Getting on the goal line, trying to get in every short-yard situation.”
The play was initially stuffed, but McConnell didn’t hang around all summer for nothing. He didn’t want his first shot to be his only one, so he bounced it out, towed a defender or two for a few yards and picked up six to keep a scoring drive alive.
The run was a true tip of the cap. One he and strength and conditioning coach Gabe Watson had seen a few NFL guys wearing a hat which said, ‘Make Fullbacks Great Again.’ A hat former teammate and walk-on mentor Brig Hartson had made up for the two of them.
Hartson and McConnell are cut from the same stone. Colorado kids from smaller high schools. Players willing to do anything to earn a spot in a sport they love, backed with a work ethic few are willing to match. In the end, like McConnell, no one was really sure what to call Hartson, so the program just labeled him as “athlete” on the roster.
Still kept going, and that's what that guy's about, and that's how I've known him is just a guy who's going to keep going, keep fighting.Phillip Ocon
And Watson, the strength coach who worked out McConnell on his own due to a class conflicts this summer. Watson, the former finalist for the Harlon Hill Award after rushing for 1,980 yards and 27 touchdowns while at Sioux Falls. A man with an appreciation for a position which is no longer the norm in modern college offenses.
“Brig went ahead and got two of them made because I said that Coach Gabe and I would always joke about it. So, he gave me two of them and said, you gotta give them to Coach Gabe, because he and I spent the whole off-season lifting together because of class conflict and everything.
“Brig is one of the guys I can't thank enough, and I probably wouldn't be here without him. He had heard that I was trying out before the tryout even came around, and he was a tryout walk-on too, so he kind of took me in. You know, he'd take me to the field, he'd throw balls to me, he'd kind of get me ready, help me know what to expect going into the tryout and everything like that. So then once I was on the team, I think he and I kind of grew close to each other because we were the only two tryout walk-ons that were on the team.”
The offensive linemen claim him as an honorary member, too, due to the way he blocks. Plus, he was one of them back in the day.
But three hours of praise?
“Easy. I could talk about the scout team memories with him. I could talk about all the funny stuff he says in the locker room,” Ocon said. “I could talk about the hard work he puts on the field. He's a real good guy and he's really about it. So, Ryan's a great dude.”
When the play was called, Ocon said his only thought was the line had to do all it could to get McConnell the yards he needed to move the chains. He’d worked to hard to have this play go south, had garnered so much respect from his teammates, created too much goodwill to let him down.
When McConnell took the sliver he saw and made it work, Ocon couldn’t have been happier. He loved watching it again on film. He said McConnell “chinned” it. Saw the six points of contact. Plowed in the manner of the great fullbacks of the past.
All guts and determination. Which is all he knows about McConnell over the years.
“I'll give you my favorite scout team story of Ryan McConnell. It was Air Force week my freshman year. We were going down to Air Force to play for the Ram-Falcon Trophy, and Air Force is obviously a triple-option team, and he was basically playing second left tackle,” Ocon said. “He was just in there playing tackle, and I looked over at him during probably our Wednesday practice, hardest one of the week, and he was so gassed, and he just looks at me talking about, ‘I don't know if I can keep going,’ and then they call, ‘hey, Ryan, you're on the other side.’
“He runs right over, makes a big-time block on the next play. Still kept going, and that's what that guy's about, and that's how I've known him is just a guy who's going to keep going, keep fighting. So, that's a pretty good scout story about Ryan.”
Now it is no longer a lie. McConnell has a carry, good for 6 yards, to go with three career receptions. A week later, he’s representing the team pregame as a captain.
Best yet, he’s now on scholarship.
“It was the day we were leaving for UTSA. They called me up to the front, and I had seen my name on Coach Mora's paper, and I thought … I don't know, I thought I was getting a conversation for some other reason. And then, yeah, it was super unexpected, and they just let me know then in front of the whole team. So it was super exciting.
“It felt super rewarding. I mean, there's a lot that went up to that point. So it was for sure the most emotional moment.”
All he ever wanted was a chance, and it didn’t matter where. So naturally, the offensive lineman/linebacker said he can carry the ball. All he needed was a foot in the door and a chance to never turn down an opportunity. Scout team offensive line or fullback, you bet. Jump at the chance to play special teams, any of the four units.
The label didn’t matter. Call him a tight end or a fullback. Either way he’s part of the Grizzly Rhino package with Keegan Shank in short-yardage situations. What anyone calls him doesn’t really matter.
“I ask myself that all the time. I try to tell people I’m a fullback to keep the position alive,” McConnell said. “I love watching guys like (Kyle) Juszczyk and (Patrick) Ricard, so I try to emulate my game to match them. I love that downhill, backfield insert kind of stuff.”
Ocon says he knows the answer. No hesitation.
“He’s a CSU Ram,” the center said. “That’s what he is.”
The only answer he was willing to accept all those summer days on the steps leading up to Canvas Stadium’s doors.
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