Michigan’s Colston Loveland named college football’s top returning tight end in 2024 by PFF
However, the lone returning starter for the Wolverines is a solid one. Pro Football Focus, an analytics website, believes he may be the greatest in the nation.
Pro Football Focus unveiled their rating of the best tight ends who will play college football again in 2024 on Wednesday morning. Colston Loveland, a rising junior from Michigan, topped the list.
With 45 receptions, Loveland placed ninth among tight ends last fall. He also finished sixth with 649 receiving yards and four touchdowns. With a PFF receiving grade of 80.5, Loveland was ninth out of 53 tight ends with at least 40 targets.
“Loveland went from a promising freshman to one of the nation’s best tight ends as a sophomore,” PFF wrote in its breakdown. “He finished as the fourth-most valuable FBS tight end this past season according to PFF’s wins superior metric and ranked seventh in terms of receiving yards (649).
As a 6-foot-5, 245-pound man with exceptional athleticism, Loveland is practically unguardable. In terms of open-target percentage in 2023, his 88.7% put him in the 97th percentile among all tight ends in the nation.
Fans of Michigan are accustomed to the excitement around Loveland; during Big Ten Media Days last summer, then-head coach Jim Harbaugh said, “I think the secret’s out, he is really, really good,” while on camera.
The former four-star recruit (No. 302 in the 247Sports Composite) from Gooding, Idaho was seen as a major, if not underrated win in Michigan’s 2022 recruiting class. He chose the Wolverines over offers from Alabama, LSU, UCLA, Utah, and many more. In Michigan’s first nine games as a freshman, Loveland only had five receptions for 39 yards; but, in the Wolverines’ final five games, he recorded 11 grabs for 196 yards.
Loveland basically continued where he left off as a sophomore. He had a reception in every game, at least two in 13, and seven games with at least 50 receiving yards. These victories included victories over Washington in the national championship game (three receptions for 64 yards), against Ohio State (five receptions for 88 yards), and against Michigan State (four receptions for 79 yards, two touchdowns). The coaches in the league selected him for the first team, and the media named him for the second team.
Now that starter tight end AJ Barner has joined top wideouts Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson in the NFL, Loveland has an opportunity to be among, if not the most, productive tight ends in the nation this autumn.
Apart from Loveland, the list featured Big Ten representatives Jack Velling (Michigan State) and Luke Lachey (Iowa), as well as Caden Prieskorn, the elder brother of Brady Prieskorn, who was an early enrollee, at No. 7.
