Bronco Nation News is taking a look at 25 questions about the Boise State football team heading into the 2024 season. First up in our series is No. 25: What should be expected from the tight end group and is Matt Lauter ready to be a star?
Boise State’s top tight end in 2023 wasn’t sixth-year senior and team captain Riley Smith. It was Matt Lauter.
Smith graduated and Lauter returns as the clear leader of the tight end group. But even he has just 13 career catches – and the rest of the group behind him has only two.
So what should be expected of Lauter and a mostly young and inexperienced group behind him? It’s a fair question facing the Broncos heading into the 2024 season.
Lauter, a 6-3, 240-pound redshirt junior from San Diego, had 11 catches for 157 yards and three touchdowns last season. He had two touchdowns at Utah State and scored on a 16-yard reception at UNLV in the Mountain West Championship.
His explosiveness and ability to run after the catch was impressive. He had three catches for 76 yards at Memphis and finished with a 17.4 yards per catch average for the season.
In two seasons Lauter has averaged 15.2 yards per catch – but only on 13 catches. Boise State could certainly use big plays from him in the passing game, but his small sample size makes it tough to just assume he’ll carry over the same production rate with a bigger workload. But if the can? Boise State’s offense should be even more dangerous.
Lauter could be the big-play tight end the Broncos have been searching for since Jake Roh had 39 catches for 410 yards and nine touchdowns back in 2017.
There’s plenty of intriguing talent behind Lauter – but it’s mostly young and unproven. Redshirt sophomore Austin Terry saw action in 11 games last season but didn’t record a catch. Matt Wagner, a redshirt freshman, impressed in the spring but saw action in only four games last season and didn’t record a catch.
Luke Voorhees found the stat sheet when he scored on a 2-point conversion, but the redshirt junior mostly played on special teams and has zero career catches.
Others on the roster who haven’t seen the field include redshirt freshmen Oliver Fisher and Cayden Dawson and incoming freshmen Kaden Anderson.
How concerned were Boise State’s coaches at the lack of depth at tight end? They used a scholarship on Villanova graduate transfer Mitchell Bothwell, who had just two catches for seven yards in four years while serving mostly as a blocking tight end for the Tigers.
Riley Smith was a steady, veteran presence but dealt with injuries and struggled to put up the big numbers many expected from him. He had just 11 catches for 113 yards and a touchdown last season.
Lauter was banged up some during the spring but drew rave reviews when he practiced for his ability to run after the catch. He also has good hands and made several impressive catches during drills.
Boise State has deep and talented groups at both wide receiver and running back, so the tight ends won’t be counted on for big production.The Broncos just need Lauter to be a threat defenses must account for – potentially opening up opportunities for others.
Lauter has shown flashes and could be ready to break out. If he takes another step and former three-star recruits Terry and Wagner can start to show their potential, the Broncos should be just fine at tight end in 2024.
But Lauter and that group are still a question mark – and their outlook is No. 25 on BNN’s look at questions facing the Broncos in 2024.
