There’s nothing like a quick career change to get the juices flowing.
On March 7th, Carson Towt was clearing the boards for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball team. Ten days later, the 6-foot-7 forward signed with the Indianapolis Colts as an undrafted free agent to convert to tight end.
Towt said Tuesday, after making an unexpected, quick career change, that he has never played football at the high school or college level, but believes his physical style is better suited to a pigskin than hoops.
“Just an awareness of my physical gifts that were on display on the basketball floor,” Towt said on the team’s official website. “I think this sport honors those gifts, and what got me to Notre Dame and carried me through my career, and what I’m proud of, I think this sport honors those things…I pride myself on dirty work and rebounding and physicality. So I think football honors them almost a little bit better than basketball does.”
Considering Towt just finished his college career, you may be wondering why he isn’t in the 2026 NFL Draft. The 24-year-old’s long college career is why he is not eligible for the draft. Towt redshirted his first season at Northern Arizona (2019-2020), then, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and injuries that wiped out his entire 2023-2024 season, he earned more years to play college basketball.
Under NFL rules, players are only eligible for the draft the year after their college football eligibility expires. Towt spent the season at Notre Dame. He said he considered playing college football and basketball in 2025, but eligibility requirements meant he had just one more year of basketball left after his run at Northern Arizona.
Towt, who turns 25 this summer, attended the NFL Scouting Combine three weeks ago to meet with teams (not practice). He said he has been considering changing sports since the basketball season started, having not played football growing up.
“In high school I was really short, I hit my growth spurt too late,” Towt said. “I didn’t have armpit hair until late in high school, so I was kind of a late bloomer. I never thought too much about it until my freshman year of college, when I started gaining weight.”
Towt met with the Colts and also spoke with Indy veteran Mo Alie-Cox, who also made the transition from the hardwood to the gridiron in 2017. Playing alongside someone who made that journey could help Towt immensely.
Changing careers at this stage is no simple task. We have seen professionals from the highest level of rugby washed out. The success stories of players moving from basketball to tight end are famous – Antonio Gates, Jimmy Graham – but like many, don’t work out. Heck, it’s hard enough to change positions within the sport itself at the NFL level, let alone carve a career out of raw materials. Still, it’s an admirable effort for Towt to tackle.
“It’s been quite a ride so far,” he said. “And man, it’s just getting started.”