FORT COLLINS — Jaxxon Warren went up for a JuCo Hail Mary and came down with an FBS future.
In 2023, Warren was playing in the Champs Heart of Texas Bowl to conclude his first season at Navarro College. A quarterback in high school and at the start of his college career, Warren switched to tight end early in the season for Navarro — a leap of faith that paved his way to arriving at CSU last year.
“There were like five seconds on the clock in the first half, and we just decided to throw it up to Jaxxon in the end zone,” recalled Navarro head coach Ryan Taylor. “He caught it over three guys right in front of about 15 Division I scouts standing right there. Going into halftime, he got two or three Division I offers as he was walking off the field.
“… In the locker room, he had a big ol’ smile on his face, because somebody at the next level finally saw what we saw all season.”
This fall, Warren is entering his first full, healthy season as a tight end in Fort Collins. The Rams have him earmarked as a playmaker, a year after shoulder surgeries ended his debut at CSU before it began.
But in another dimension, the one without that Hail Mary catch, Warren would be living the fraternity life at Arkansas — not primed for a breakout FBS campaign at CSU.
“About two weeks into playing (at Navarro), I was considering hanging it up,” Warren said. “I didn’t win the job as quarterback, and I was second- or third-string.
“… So I was just going to go to Arkansas and be a frat kid. I had been accepted into the school, had my housing all set up. But I prayed about it, and I ended up sticking it out. It worked out ever since.”
The shift came at practice early in that 2023 season, when Warren was working with the starting QB catching red-zone fade routes. Taylor and his coaching staff took notice.
In the second game, Warren caught his first pass. In the third, he caught a pass and had his first collegiate TD on a QB sweep, as Navarro was still using him as a backup QB in running situations and as a wideout.
By the fourth game, his first multi-catch performance, Taylor was sold that the 6-foot-8, 245-pounder needed to be at tight end full-time. Warren ended up catching 17 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns that season.
“He caught a fade ball when we singled him up (in coverage), and our sideline just erupted, because they knew he had been working at it,” Taylor said. “The catch in that fourth game came against a really good DB on a play that got us a big first down late in the game. It was on after that.
“We kind of changed our playbook and our alignments a little bit to get him the ball more. We’d just throw it up to him, and he’d big-body them. He was a matchup problem.”
CSU is hoping to create the same issues for opposing defenses in 2025, with CSU head coach Jay Norvell expressing excitement about Warren’s potential for this upcoming season.
“He really made an impact in the passing game (in training camp),” Norvell said.
Last year, Warren chose the Rams over 15 other Division I offers. He cited his relationship with Norvell and CSU associate head coach Matt Mumme as a primary factor in that decision.
Warren first got to know Norvell and Mumme as a senior in high school, when he attended Nevada’s QB camp and came away as the event’s MVP.
“It was a full-circle moment to come to CSU last year, and I couldn’t say no,” Warren said. “It felt like it was meant to be.”
The Rams believe Warren can emulate the production of Dallin Holker in 2023, when the BYU transfer was a finalist for the John Mackey Award for the nation’s top tight end. Holker, of course, had a Hail Mary catch of his own with the Rams that season.
There will be a learning curve, considering Warren is still relatively new to the position. But he already has the confidence of quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, who said the tight end is a guy who “you can throw the ball wherever, and he’ll go up and get it.”
Warren will be the Rams’ primary aerial threat at tight end, while Valor Christian product Rocky Beers (who transferred from FIU) will also see targets.
“I know I’m not known right now, or on any preseason (watch lists), but I’d like to eventually be in the Mackey talk,” Warren said. “I want to try to achieve the high standard I have for myself and that others here have for me.”
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