Otton Has Everything a TE Needs Except National Attention — It'll Come
Cade Otton was the best player on the field for the University of Washington football team last Saturday night at Husky Stadium. Coach Jimmy Lake made that clear when he tossed the game ball to his tight end after the Huskies' 44-27 victory over Arizona.
All Otton did was catch a game-high 7 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown, and block impeccably for the second consecutive game.
You don't get to the NFL as a tight end without showing that you possess both of these football traits at a high level, though former Seahawk Jimmy Graham somehow managed to do it without ever hitting anyone.
A junior from Tumwater, Washington, Otton has these talents, which are becoming more evident with each outing. At 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, he has the perfect size to excel at his position. As the grandson of the winningest high school coach in Washington state high school history, he is extremely well coached.
It appears that Otton lacks only the requisite attention-getting antics and resulting publicity to be considered one of the nation's top players at his position.
No self-promoter, he just quietly goes about his business. He's modest and self-effacing. Hey, he wears No. 87, which couldn't be more obscure.
"Cade is one of our best players," Lake said, "and we need to utilize him more."
While starting all 29 games he's played, Otton has been a hidden commodity after playing for two seasons in the shadow of Hunter Bryant, an AP second-team All-America pick last season who left early for the NFL, and Drew Sample, now a second-year starter for the Cincinnati Bengals.
"I wasn't worried about that at all," he said of his sometimes unnoticed role, which involved just 1 catch for 4 yards in the opener against Oregon State. "We're just going to do what we can to be an efficient offense, to be an explosive offensive."
So where does Otton stand nationally with the Husky tight-end spotlight all to himself?
Generally speaking, the college analysts grade players at this position only on their size and receiving numbers before expressing great surprise when a lot of these guys struggle in the NFL because they can't block.
Bryant is an example of this. After a 52-catch and 825-yard season, he passed up his senior season and made himself available to the NFL. He went undrafted and it wasn't because he couldn't catch. He finally latched on with the Detroit Lions as a free agent, but he hasn't played this season because of a string of injuries, and is still trying to catch up.
The most hyped college tight ends are Penn State's Charlie Freiermuth, a 6-5, 258-pound junior who naturally answers to a "Baby Gronk" nickname; Florida's 6-6, 246-pound junior Kyle Pitts, who has more TD catches than anyone at his position nationwide; and Iowa State's 6-6, 257-pound junior Charlie Kolar, who wanted to play for Oklahoma but has been a Cyclones star.
In four games this season, Freiermuth has 23 catches for 310 yards and a score, with his longest catch going 74 yards.
Pitts has played in five games, hauling in 24 passes for 418 yards and a whopping 8 TDs, with his longest catch going 71 yards, but he's not considered much of a blocker.
Kolar has seven games under his belt, coming up with 25 catches for 286 yards and 4 scores.
The top Pac-12 tight end is supposed to be Utah's 6-2, 230-pound junior Brant Kuithe, a second-team All-Pac-12 selection last season (behind Bryant) who's appeared in just one game because of pandemic cancellations.
Players from Bowling Green, Colorado State and Louisiana-Monroe have generated more attention the Huskies' No. 1 guy, which seems odd, or misinformed, considering the UW has the following tight ends on NFL rosters: Bryant, Sample, Derrell Daniels (Arizona Cardinals), Josh Perkins (Philadelphia Eagles) and Will Dissly (Seattle Seahawks).
So what's Otton have to do to get more people to talk about him?
For starters, he should probably call himself "Baby Otter."
Or he could entice Husky redshirt freshman quarterback Dylan Morris to throw a couple deep to him.
Unlike everyone else, he's probably going to play all four seasons at the UW because that's his style, and people won't help but notice him in time.
Maybe Otton should just keep doing what he's best at, which is everything, done in a quiet yet productive matter.
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