Michigan State didn’t recruit Jayden Savoury because he looked like a typical tight end. It recruited him because he looked like one of those rare athletes who might become one.
That’s the gamble in converting basketball players to football: the size, the length and the burst are easy to spot. The harder part is figuring out whether the player is willing to live in the mess that comes with the position.
“Sometimes you can get enamored with a kid that's real long and real athletic,” Michigan State offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan said. “You gotta see some toughness in them to be able to feel like you can pull it out.”
Sheridan, who coached tight ends at Indiana in 2019 and Washington in 2022-23 before arriving in East Lansing, said the evaluation takes more than a few looks in a gym. The frame matters.
The athleticism matters. But the edge does too, because tight ends have to do the dirty work - block, absorb contact and keep coming back for more.
“I think in the evaluation process, for the tight end specifically, you're looking for a frame,” Sheridan said. “You're looking for size and length, and then certainly the athleticism that sometimes you get with guys that play basketball.
“The toughness piece, you gotta try to find that out in some competition. Just see the toughness and tenacity and competitive nature of the kid, because a lot of times, some of the great tight ends, they play wideout or they play different positions in high school. They're not necessarily blocking the C-gap; they do other things for their team.”
Savoury, now 6-foot-5 and 253 pounds, has started to show that edge. Through two games, he has eight catches for 99 yards, and his second college season is beginning to look like the one where everything starts to click.
“I feel like I got all the basketball out of me,” Savoury said. “I feel like I've learned so much about football.
I'm still pretty new to it, this is going into my fourth year of football. Still pretty new, and I've been learning a lot and soaking everything in to be honest.”
Before football took over, Savoury had already built a decorated resume at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s.
He won a state championship ring at Ford Field as a senior with future Michigan State teammates Antonio Johnson, DeJae White, Bryson Williams and Darrin Jones Jr. A year earlier, he helped the Eaglets win the MHSAA Division 1 basketball state title at Breslin Center, averaging 14 points and eight rebounds in that run.
He nearly pulled off another title as a senior and finished with honorable mention all-state recognition as the team reached the state semifinals.
Football entered the picture later. Savoury didn’t take it up until his junior year, and even with only 15 catches for 187 yards in high school, his measurables were enough to draw FBS interest. His path became clearer the summer before his senior year when he committed to former head coach Jonathan Smith and tight ends coach Brian Wozniak, who stayed on staff after being retained by Pat Fitzgerald in December.
Wozniak’s belief in Savoury is one of the reasons he ended up in East Lansing, and that trust has mattered since he arrived.
“(Wozniak) was a big part of why I committed here,” Savoury said. “When I heard that he was gonna stay, it was a big approval for me to come and stay.
He's been really good throughout the whole recruiting process. He didn't change when I got here.
I knew last year if I come back I'd have a pretty big role, so those were the two biggest parts.”
The role is showing up now because Savoury has changed, too. Michigan State lists him 13 pounds heavier and one inch taller than he was during the 2025 season, when he played in four games and redshirted. He also says the work with new strength coach Joel Welsh Jr. and his staff helped him feel better coming out of his first full offseason.
“my body feels a lot better”
That physical growth has come with a mental shift as well.
“For sure, I've learned how to get hit. I like to hit people,” he said. “I think, honestly, this offseason braced me (for) being more physical compared to last year, for sure.”
Savoury said the process wasn’t automatic, especially for someone who didn’t grow up taking punishment every week.
“Spring ball, I feel like I was a little soft sometimes, and Coach Sheridan got on me,” Savoury said. “He's gonna push me every day.
He yells at us, he loves us, but he gets on our tails a lot. Him just pushing me, honestly, got me better, got me more physical.
Coach Woz has taught me how to block and how to use my hands and feet.”
That basketball background still shows up in all the ways Michigan State hoped it would. His lone catch last season was a 16-yard high-point grab that looked more like he was finishing an alley-oop than hauling in a football. And in Sheridan’s more open passing attack, he’s becoming a natural target.
“Big-bodied guy, athletic, can go up and get it,” quarterback Alessio Milivojevic said, “it's a QB's dream to have a guy like that playing for you.”
Michigan State knows the profile. The program has seen basketball-to-tight-end success before, from Antonio Gates to Dion Sims, who turned a strong hoops background into a fourth-round NFL Draft pick after finishing fourth in Michigan Mr. Basketball voting as a high school senior.
But the position is full of players who looked the part and never made the leap. The difference usually comes down to the same thing Sheridan keeps circling back to: toughness.
With six career college football games now on his ledger, Savoury looks like he’s trending the right way.
“He's an ascending player, and we're real excited about him,” Sheridan said.
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