Dallin Holker doesn’t want the credit, but it’s time to give him some.
In his first season with Colorado State, the BYU transfer has emerged as one of the nation’s top tight ends and a key figure in a bounce-back year under coach Jay Norvell that the Rams hope culminates with a bowl berth Saturday night in Hawaii.
Holker took the long road to get here, with stops in Chile (where he spent the 2019 and ’20 seasons on a mission) and Provo (where he appeared in just three games last season) before he arrived in Fort Collins this past offseason.
But all the twists and turns that eventually led him to CSU produced just the sort of steady hand the Rams needed.
“He’s a very mature guy, and that’s important because we had a team that was really full of immaturity when we took over,” Norvell said. “His maturity has really helped us as a team, especially on the offensive side of the ball. He’s stabilized us; he’s given us some continuity there and a lot of confidence.”
It was Holker, after all, who came down with the tipped Hail Mary pass that beat Boise State on Oct. 14, capping an improbable comeback at Canvas Stadium that proved to be a turning point in CSU’s season.
And it’s Holker who was caught by the coaching staff jumping the fence to CSU’s practice field after hours, an innocuous trespassing violation he’s made a weekly occurrence with his wife Taye Holker. There, Taye fires off 100 balls, sometimes 200, to her husband through the JUGS Machine as part of the tight end’s routine that’s showing up on game day.
Once left “confused” and “frustrated” by a lack of opportunities at BYU, he now has 59 catches for 739 yards and 36 first downs this year, all of which rank No. 1 nationally among tight ends in Division I FBS.
“It’s that sort of stuff like that that makes him, him,” CSU tight ends coach James Finley said of Holker’s routine. “He doesn’t do it to get credit from the coaches. That’s just him always working. He requests meetings with the O-line coach (Bill Best) so he can make sure he’s got his blocking in order. He’s always in the building. He’s always trying to be first in the sprints. He’s top-ranked on the sleep and recovery app that the players use. He’s always putting in extra work with the quarterbacks, staying late to watch film. He’s taken some of the younger guys under his wing and catches balls with them.
“The stuff that he does is contagious. And he’s always at least five minutes early to the meetings. Sometimes I get there and Dallin is there at 4:50 for a 5:00 meeting. I’ll get there at 4:55 and he’s giving me crap like, ‘Coach, you late!’ He’s definitely trying to beat me there.”
When Holker transferred to CSU with Taye in the spring — his wife competes in the long jump, 100, 200 and 4×100 relay for the CSU track and field team — he immediately made an impression on his teammates, leading to his captainship this fall.
It quickly became clear he could command the middle of the field, a presence CSU sorely lacked last year. But it was also evident that the 23-year-old’s outlook was crafted much differently than the average college player.
For example, shortly after arriving on campus last spring, the Holkers took it upon themselves to cook dinners for a teammate going through the fasting rigors of Ramadan, when Muslims cannot eat or drink from dawn until dusk.
“In our head we thought it would be nice if he didn’t have to worry about cooking that night, so we wanted to make sure he had a meal prepared for him,” Dallin recalled. “A lot of those things I learned on my mission, how to help serve people. I think that’s really important.”
Fast-forward to this season, and Holker’s become one of the ringleaders of the team’s Friday night card games. He’s the type of player Norvell hopes will be the foundation of his rebuild in FoCo — someone the coach says “relates to everyone, regardless of background.”
“He talks a lot about his mission, and about meeting with families with dirt floors and 10 people in one room, and how they don’t have much food but any food they have they give to you,” Norvell said. “That humility he experienced over there has really helped him be a great communicator and great leader in our program.”
While the football stars at the state school down south are driving luxury cars and sporting diamond-studded watches, Holker keeps a low profile in FoCo. He refrains from using “I” in interviews. He doesn’t even have a car, instead biking everywhere around campus, assuring the coaching staff that “a very big jacket” will suffice in keeping him warm when the dead of winter arrives.
And that understated approach off the field is just how Holker likes it.
“I grew from that experience (in Chile) a lot, just serving people every day,” Holker said. “Every day we would wake up, study from the Bible, study Spanish (to become fluent). We’d help people build things, we’d pull weeds.”
This year, Holker’s helped out Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi perhaps more than anyone on the team. The steady tight end, along with star receiver Tory Horton, enabled the redshirt freshman to endure a learning curve in the QB’s first season as a starter.
Horton, despite being banged up for much of the fall, needs 50 yards against Hawaii for his second straight 1,000-yard season. And Holker, at six receiving TDs, needs one more score to set the CSU single-season record for TD catches by a tight end.
Both have one year of eligibility left. With another step forward as a program in mind for 2024, Norvell hopes they take it.
“Tory and Dallin are good enough to leave and go to the NFL,” Norvell said, “but it really is best to make yourself as marketable (for NFL scouts) as you can, have another great year … and solidify their legacies at CSU before they move onto the next level.”
