CFF Targets - Utah TEs Kuithe & Yassmin primed to be VOLUME PIGS in 2023?
The CFF Offseason Targets series continues, this time featuring a pair of Pac-12 TEs Brant Kuithe and Thomas Yassmin
The Utes are one of my favourite College Fantasy Football (CFF) programs in college football. Under head coach Kyle Whittingham (2005-present) this outfit has produced numerous CFF relevant assets over the years, particularly at RB and TE. There is something admirable about the stability of a program like this, and I love that they have an identity and stick to it.
In the context of CFF, elite TEs are hard to come by. Few programs prioritize the position that simply finding a guy who can score 10+ FPG from the TE spot in CFF can be a task. That means that when we do find programs that show love to their TEs, we should pay close attention.
In this article I want to highlight two Utah TEs that have an opportunity to see some nice volume this upcoming season and potentially bolster your CFF roster’s TE spot.
If you’re new to CFF, you could be forgiven for being unaware of the Utes’ offensive philosophy. This program has made a killing in recent years with a simple formula of running the football effectively and utilizing the TEs off of play-action. As with every profile I do we will start by taking a deeper look at the system in place.
OC Andy Ludwig (2019 - present)
The Utes current offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig has been at Utah since 2019. During his time in Salt Lake, Ludwig’s TE1 has averaged just over 600 receiving yards and nearly 7 TDs a season. If you go back to his final season at Vanderbilt before moving to Utah (using data from 2018-2022 excluding 2020), his TE1 has averaged 719.25 yards and 6.75 TDs a season.
TE1 #s / season under coach ‘Lud’
2022: Dalton Kincaid — 94 Targets / 70 Rec / 890 Yards / 8 TDs
2021: Brant Kuithe — 74 Targets / 50 Rec / 611 Yards / 6 TDs*
2020 (5 games): Brant Kuithe — 37 Targets / 25 Rec / 236 Yards / 0 TDs
2019 Brant Kuithe — NA** / 34 Rec / 602 Yards / 6 TDs
2018 (Vanderbilt) Jared Pinkney — NA** / 50 Rec / 774 Yards / 7 TDs
* Kincaid actually led the team in TDs in 2021 with 8, but in terms of yardage, receptions and targets, Kuithe led the way.
** Target data not available.
Coach Lud’s utilization of the TE is promising from a CFF angle, and this trend kicked into over drive when Camron Rising took over as the starting QB. When Lud is calling plays and Rising is starting at QB, the TE1 at Utah averages 72 targets, 60 receptions, 750 yards and 7 TDs per season. I have no reason to believe Rising and Lud’s return in 2023 will not yield similar results.
Now I mentioned in the header of this article that there are two TEs I am highlighting. On top of the TE1 production, the TE2 also gets utilized when Rising is playing QB. In 2022 the TE1 & TE2 combined for 1397 yards (890 for Kincaid, 301 for Yassmin who took over once Kuithe went down, and 206 for Kuithe before injury). The individual numbers for the TE2s in parenthesis may not seem that impressive, but consider that they combine to effectively make the TE2’s stats 32 receptions for 507 yards and 9(!) TDs in 2022. For that season those numbers would have been good for tenth among TEs in receiving yards and tied for first with Michael Mayer in receiving TDs. Note that while Kincaid did miss one game on November 5th vs. Arizona, where Yassmin could be considered TE1 for that game, he caught 2 passes for 42 yards and a score, Yassmin himself also missed multiple games due to injury in October. So I think we can say these two forces balance each other out when assessing the TE2 numbers (i.e. Yassmin was actually TE1 in one game where he compiled the above stats, but if he was playing in the games he missed in October as TE2 he probably makes a few receptions, maybe even scores a TD).
The trend is the same in 2021, Kincaid caught 36 passes on 46 targets for 510 yards and 8 TDs behind Kuithe.
I want to stress that the Utah TE2 was not typically drafted in CFF re-drafts in both 2021 and 2022. To put some of these numbers into perspective, Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer, who were virtually unanimously thought of as the top two CFF TEs going into 2022 re-drafts, posted stat lines (Rec-Yards-TDs) of 63-942-7 and 67-809-9, respectively. In my opinion, looking at the top CFF TE numbers over the past few seasons, if you can get a player who catches somewhere around 50-70 passes and accumulates around 600-800 yards and 6+ TDs, you have generally found one of the top performing TEs in CFF that year.
Brant Kuithe - 6’2 219
2022 FPG (1-ppr): 14.4
Kuithe has been around the Utes program long enough that he could be the TE coach by now. In fact, when writing this article I figured I’d better double check who’s been at the program longer between he and coach Whittingham just to make sure I wasn’t mixing up the coach and the player.
Jokes aside, I think most CFF players know who Brant Kuithe is by now. He’s been productive over multiple seasons and came out in 2022 hot, catching a TD in each of his first three games while garnering 13, 5 and 9 targets before going down with injury in the Utes’ fourth game. Indeed, I think it’s accurate to suggest that he was the default TE1 coming into the season. His injury however, gave way to another TE stud in Dalton Kincaid. Kincaid went on to have a massive season at TE garnering 94(!) targets, catching 70 of them on his way to 890 yards and 8 TDs. He was one of the best TEs in CFF that year.
Kincaid leaves behind a massive production vacancy as he’s headed to the NFL- yet the underlying ingredients to the success (coach Lud and QB Rising) remain. This is good news for Kuithe, who’s physical measurables more so resemble that of a jumbo WR or H-Back, he should be a focal point of the offence once again this season.
The early mock drafts I’ve participated in so far reflect that the community is well-aware of Kuithe already (how could they not right? My man’s a tenured veteran at this point) and so the price to acquire him may be steep in terms of TE draft capital. The payout could be worth it though, depending on what ‘it’ ends up being. I’d probably be comfortable spending a 7th round pick on him, maybe even a 6th if I was so inclined to take a TE early. My interest in writing this article actually stems around the TE2 though, so without further ado, let’s get into it.
Thomas Yassmin - 6’5, 250
2022 FPG (1-ppr): 5.9
Wow, where to begin here. I guess I can start with the fact that for two years in a row, the pre-season’s ‘second’ TE has led the Utes in receiving TDs. Kuithe, who has been a known commodity in CFF and CFB since 2019, was typically the TE taken first from this roster in the majority of CFF drafts in the last two seasons. However, it was Kincaid, who broke out in 2021, that led the team in receiving TDs each season. Despite Kincaid pacing the Utes in TDs in 2021, CFF managers still prioritized Kuithe over Kincaid in 2022. Maybe they would have been rewarded had Kuithe not gone down, he had a strong start after all. However, the point here is that we should pay attention to the ‘other guy’ in the TE room this spring.
When Kincaid injured his shoulder late in the year last season, it was Yassmin’s name that Whittingham mentioned first as far as guys they were going to rely on more, and his name came up again heading into the Utes’ bowl game. Here is Whittingham on Yassmin leading up to their bowl game in January:
We've got a couple more tight ends we feel really good about, Thomas Yassmin is the guy who really is going to be picking up a lot of the slack for what those two guys that we're missing.
And again Whittingham mentioning Yassmin when Kuithe went down in September:
Thomas Yassmin is really the guy that takes most of the reps that it would be typically for Brant, so just got to continue to move forward…
He was pretty darn good in the game Saturday, when he came in for Brant. He started from ground zero when he got to us, there was no football experience so everything has been a process, a learning process, and he's better now. He's got size, speed, good hands, athletic and he's a prototypical tight end at 6-foot-5, 251 pounds
In case you haven’t had enough quotes let me throw one more at you, here’s starting QB Cam Rising on Yassmin:
We've been working together since 2019 scout team and it's always been productive . . . He's a phenomenal player, just got to get the ball in his hands and watch him do the rest.
Yassmin ended up catching a TD in each of the Utes’ last three games, and garnered a season high five targets in the bowl game vs. Penn State. Granted, those five targets only materialized into one catch for a TD. But wait! While we’re on the topic of ‘one reception’ I should point out that Kincaid’s 2020 season with the Utes prior to his breakout the following season ended with a singular reception for 14 yards too, only his wasn’t a TD.
The precedent has been set here for a veteran TE to step in and see a high target share in this offence. Especially if Kuithe were to go down again. Yassmin offers a cheap, low risk, yet high upside asset in CFF.
You saw coach Whittingham mention Yassmin starting from “ground zero” upon arrival in Salt Lake. His path to CFB is certainly a unique one.
Originally from Sydney, Australia, he played rugby for The Scots College in New South Wales and competed in something called the “Tri Nations Series” in 2017 against Fiji and New Zealand. I mention this only to articulate the point that he appears to be an elite athlete, which bodes well for his future in American Football. I should also point out that while I joked about Kuithe’s age, it actually turns out these two came to Utah in the same class in 2018.
Something to note is that Kuithe’s physique makes him more of a hybrid positional player, while Yassmin’s build is much more that of a prototypical NFL TE, and matches Kincaid’s build (6’4, 240) more closely. This could mean that he will be used as more of a red zone piece as Kincaid was, which would bode well for his CFF upside. At the very least his size will keep him on the field as a player who could be blocking, or receiving on any given play.
As of writing this article I expect Yassmin to be the ‘other’ TE on the field this upcoming season and I think he will go undrafted in most CFF drafts. This combination of facts could prove useful for those of us in the know- as there could be value in waiting for someone else to pay the price for Kuithe. The nice thing about waiting to take a TE is there’s no strings attached, and in every CFF season I’ve played so far there are always TEs that emerge on the wire within the first two-to-four weeks. So if Yassmin isn’t cutting it, no biggie, just cut him and move on. In fact, you might not even have to draft Yassmin, you could probably just keep an eye on this room and if you like what you see week one pull the trigger on the waiver wire before your CFF competitors attempt to do the same.
VolumePigs’ insight: Sometimes it pays to be number two in CFF. What I mean by that is there are times where you want to let someone else pay the higher price for the big name commodity while you slide in and pick up the guy behind him. This strategy generally only makes sense to do when there is ambiguity surrounding the positional hierarchy of a room. Probably the best illustration of this would be the Ohio State WR room in 2021 and 2022. If you passed on JSN and instead picked up Marvin Harrison Jr. or Emeka Egbuka in 2022, you probably felt pretty good about yourself. Ditto in 2021, JSN, the third WR taken in most drafts, led the team in receiving yards and put up similar numbers in receptions and TDs to Wilson and Olave. With regards to the Utah TE room, I’d argue there could be a similar phenomenon here.
Side note.
I want to hedge my bet now before it’s too late. There is another TE on the roster to keep in mind. Logan Kendell transferred to Utah prior to the 2022 season from FCS Idaho. Kendell is more of a blocker though, as he is listed as 6’3, 263 pounds. However, there is the parallel to Kincaid in that he spent multiple seasons at the FCS level and then did next to nothing in his first year with the Utes. The difference here is that Kincaid appeared to not play most of the games in his first year. Kendell played in each of the Utes’ games but rarely ever saw a target come his way- reinforcing my notion that he is more of a run-support component in this offence rather than a TE chess piece at coach Lud’s disposal.
Whittingham’s comments on Kendall confirm as much:
Logan Kendall, more of a blocking tight end that's invaluable to us. What he brings to the table in the run game, and he can also catch, as well, but he's a guy that does the dirty work for us.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article please leave a like and share it. Your support is crucial in providing feedback to me on the type of content you want, so if there’s a type of article you want to see more of this is a great way to let me know!