Top 10 College Football Players Who Could've Been in the NCAA Tournament
With conference hoops tournaments just wrapping up this past weekend all across the country, it isn’t long until we’re all cranking up to listen to “One Shining Moment” and witness somebody cutting down nets.
It’s a different point of the season for college football as spring practices are in full swing. But a handful of dudes focusing on the gridiron could have possibly chosen another path that would have seen them in March Madness.
There are football dudes who have got plenty of game when it comes to the hardwood.
From two pairs of teammates to some big men with mad hoops skills, you could field a pretty good team come tourney time. In another place, another time, they may be readying for the NCAA tournament.
It takes special athletes to make this list, but college football is full of them. Most of these guys already proved themselves in high school (or, in some cases, college) basketball. Others just have that tenacity, drive and skill set to do it all.
Let’s take a look at some college football athletes who could have chosen another path through March Madness.
Maliq Carr, Houston Cougars Tight End
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It's fun to talk about uber-athletic guys who, in another realm where limitless ability ran rampant and the commitment to play collegiate sports wasn't a full-year gig, may be able to translate their talent in another sport.
Maliq Carr actually did it at a high level.
While he didn't stay with playing both sports, the elite tight end prospect who likely will make an NFL roster in this year's draft played both football and basketball in his first year at Michigan State.
Playing for coach Tom Izzo's Spartans is no small feat. He was on the roster, as well as current NFL receiver Keon Coleman. As a matter of fact, Carr's Houston Cougars personal profile says his nickname is Maliq "The Freak" Carr.
That's a dude embracing his do-it-all ability.
Carr's collegiate eligibility just ended after he transferred from East Lansing to Houston and had a decent end to his career. In 2023, Carr had 30 catches for 352 yards and three touchdowns. In '24, he took a bit of a step back with 19 grabs for 186 yards and a score.
But at 6'6", 265 pounds and having proven his ability to be a high-caliber, multi-sport athlete, this is a guy whose bounce and agility could translate in the pros. He will get a shot somewhere, and NFL teams will love his potential.
Ethan Davis, Tennessee Volunteers Tight End
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The first of a couple of Tennessee Volunteers on this list is still waiting on making a major impact on the football field for coach Josh Heupel, but big things are expected from the redshirt sophomore tight end in 2025.
Alongside Miles Kitselman, Ethan Davis could still have a terrific career on Rocky Top. He is uber-athletic, and while he’s had to learn the nuances of in-line blocking, Davis is a great pass-catcher.
He also was pretty strong on the basketball court.
Back in high school at Collins Hill, he set the school record with a 43-point performance and was a two-time all-state performer who had offers to play that sport for Georgia, Georgia Tech and others.
He played football and basketball with Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and the duo was quality no matter what they did. At 6’5”, 232 pounds, Davis was an absolute unit on the basketball court and made things look effortless.
Football was the path he chose, however, and the potential is limitless. A season ago, he had 13 catches for 100 yards and a pair of touchdowns for the Vols, and a better season is expected. Wonder if coach Rick Barnes could use him for some depth in a tourney run?
Trey'Dez Green, LSU Tigers Tight End
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If you're looking at the picture and wondering what it's doing in a football slideshow, yeah, it's recent, and yeah, it's the right dude. LSU's Trey'Dez Green is an actual two-sport player in college football right now.
He's getting legit minutes for the Bayou Bengals on the basketball court, too.
The coolest thing is the 6'7", 245-pound Green's career is just getting started in both, too. He's a freshman who is showing terrific potential on both the gridiron and the hardwood.
So far for the Tigers hoopsters, he's playing power forward and averaged 1.8 points and 1.7 rebounds, though he's averaging just under seven minutes in six games.
In football, though, his potential may be even greater. As a true freshman, he got onto the field fairly regularly and was a red-zone target for quarterback Garrett Nussmeier on coach Brian Kelly's team. The Jackson, Louisiana, first-year player caught 13 passes for 101 yards and scored four times.
That's a guy who has a nose for the end zone, a huge catch radius and is showing the size and athleticism to be dependable where it matters most.
If you want a player to get excited about in regards to his football future, Green is a good one to pin hopes to. He may have enjoyed a breakout game in the bowl win over Baylor, scoring twice when Mason Taylor opted out to prepare for the draft.
This is a player who can do big things in the future, maybe in two sports.
Jahzare Jackson, Georgia Offensive Lineman
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With the way Georgia coach Kirby Smart stacks classes in Athens, he can stand to roll a little dice when it comes to high-upside prospects, and he did that with a late addition to his 2024 recruiting class.
That’s when the Bulldogs signed 6’10”, 348-pound massive offensive tackle prospect Jahzare Jackson, who camped with UGA after playing three seasons in the Overtime Elite basketball program, which is a semipro league for 16–20-year-olds.
Jackson may have a ways to go before he contributes on the gridiron, but you can’t teach size and athleticism like Jackson possesses. He also has extremely long arms.
"He's a tremendous athlete, raw, hasn't played football since eighth grade,” Smart told Dawgs247’s Jordan D. Hill. “But we recruit size, recruit athleticism. We don't have an expectation of he has to help us right now. We've got the expectation that he has to grow and get better and develop. We saw that as a kid that has the ability to be a good football player if he has toughness and all the qualities that it takes to play offensive line.”
One of Jackson’s former teammates is LeBron James’ son and Laker, Bronny James.
There are no guarantees Jackson will ever help the Dawgs, but if he can learn technique, he will be a massive force down the road, and what NFL team wouldn’t want to take a chance at him?
Even though Jackson is already 21 years old, he’s a redshirt freshman who is one to watch for the future.
Bai Jobe, Kansas Jayhawks Defensive End
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Before Bai Jobe was a 4-star, top-60 prospect in the 2023 recruiting class who signed with Michigan State, he was a kid trying to make it in basketball.
The chances are that the 6’4”, 225-pound pound prospect eventually would have had a shot, too. But the gridiron came calling because he was such a quick-twitch athlete with a high upside.
He even told WholeHog Sports’ Richard Davenport one of the reasons he moved from his home country of Senegal in 2018 was to pursue a basketball career.
“Watching basketball in Africa, watching the NBA, I had a big dream about basketball to become like an NBA player,” Jobe said.
A couple of years later, his collegiate football career hasn’t exactly gone the way he’d hoped. He’s now a rising third-year player with the Kansas Jayhawks, which is closer to his Norman, Oklahoma, home. He is hoping to reach some of that untapped potential.
But the same athleticism he displayed on the basketball court could ultimately help him excel getting after quarterbacks for coach Lance Leipold.
With three seasons of eligibility remaining and with so little time spent playing organized football, Jobe has an immense amount of untapped potential that he still could realize. He’s a possibility to be a breakout player for the Jayhawks this year.
Just not for coach Bill Self.
Jacobe Johnson, Oklahoma Sooners Defensive Back
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After moving around from defensive back to wide receiver and back to defensive back, Oklahoma's Jacobe Johnson finally gained some footing with the Sooners last year.
Now, he appears poised to be a contributor in Norman for the next couple of years in the defensive backfield as they try to take a huge leap toward contention in the SEC in the future.
But Johnson's versatility shouldn't be in question. This was a guy who, while at Mustang High School in Oklahoma, was a combo guard who likely would have run the point on the next level had he chosen to go that path.
According to SI.com's Parker Thune, in 2020 as a freshman, Johnson became the youngest in-state skill-position player ever to receive a scholarship offer from Oklahoma. At the time, he already had offers to play both football and basketball for TCU, Oklahoma State and the Sooners.
“I feel like it’s very doable,” Johnson told Thune about playing two sports way back then. “All my coaches say so. It’s gonna take hard work, but it’s very doable. I can’t just put one sport down, because I love both sports the same. I love basketball and football the exact same; I don’t love one more than the other."
The hoop dreams never materialized, but Johnson still has pro potential on the football field, and it's going to be fun watching him play on the back end for the Sooners over the next couple of seasons.
Lincoln Kienholz, Ohio State Buckeyes Quarterback
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Kind of along the same vein as former Iowa Hawkeyes defensive back and Super Bowl hero Cooper DeJean, Ohio State backup quarterback Lincoln Kienholz was a do-it-all, multi-sport superstar in high school.
The former South Dakota High School player of the year hasn't had things quite so easy since arriving in Columbus.
Now, he's going to have to make a difficult decision on his future with the Buckeyes before long as he wasn't in the conversation for the starting quarterback last year with Will Howard in the picture. Now, everybody is expecting Julian Sayin to be the man.
Don't be surprised if Kienholz doesn't compete for the job this spring, if he changes venues and goes somewhere where he has a clearer path to playing time.
Kienholz's immense athleticism has never been in question in the least. He was an all-state player in football, baseball and basketball. While hoops was probably his least of the three, he did have offers from South Dakota, South Dakota State, North Dakota State and others.
The dude could play no matter what ball he held.
Remember, Kienholz wasn't exactly a household-name recruit in football until late in the game and flipped from Washington to the Buckeyes. He hopes to ultimately find his way onto the field for somebody.
Mike Matthews, Tennessee Volunteers Wide Receiver
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There may not be a more important player not named Nico Iamaleava for the Tennessee Volunteers in 2025 than receiver Mike Matthews.
The Georgia native was a 5-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class and wasn't much of a factor during his true freshman season on Rocky Top. But with defections all over the place in that pass-catching room at UT, Matthews' development is critical.
He's having a very good spring, and that's big news considering he's probably WR1 for a rebuilt room.
The 6'1", 197-pound receiver could have been a star on either side of the football and had high-major offers from virtually everybody, ultimately choosing to play for coach Josh Heupel over Georgia, Clemson, Alabama, Auburn and others.
But it wasn't just the gridiron where Matthews shone. He also was a dynamic guard while at Parkview High School in Lilburn, Georgia.
It's a well-known recruiting tool for schools to say, "Oh yeah, come play for us and you can play both sports," but, in Matthews' case, they meant it. A lot of mid-major programs (including some pretty good ones) extended basketball offers to him. Mississippi State also gave him a basketball-only offer.
In the end, though, Matthews' elite offensive ability on the football field was just too much for anybody to ignore. This is a player who has NFL potential, and the Vols need him to be a mass-producer this season.
Hopefully for Tennessee fans, he will.
Jelani Thurman, Ohio State Buckeyes Tight End
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Jelani Thurman already has a national championship as an Ohio State Buckeye, but he wasn't a massive part of the plan for coach Ryan Day this past season.
Maybe it won't be long before the athletic Georgia native is a bigger part of the picture for the future of the program. With receiving weapons moving on to the NFL, it may not be a bad idea to inject the 6'6", 258-pounder into the offense.
As a sophomore in 2024, Thurman caught just four passes for 48 yards, but entering Year 3 in the system, he could be a factor next season.
Lots of teams tried to sell Thurman on playing both football and basketball when he was coming out of high school in Lilburn. The power forward certainly had some skills.
He also had the bloodlines. Thurman's mother is former WNBA playmaker Kara Braxton, and his father is UGA defensive great Odell Thurman. The younger Thurman wasn't a high-level prospect in basketball, but he could have played both sports in college.
Jacksonville State and Stetson, among others, offered and schools like Michigan State were trying to talk to him about both sports.
“Izzo was out of town,” Braxton told Spartans Illustrated's Jim Comparoni. “He was in California following Draymond Green in the Finals. We talked to him on the phone while Jelani was there doing the photo shoot. He was nice. It’s just exciting times right now.”
While the hoops thing didn't work out, Thurman could ball.
Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State Sun Devils Wide Receiver
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The best football player on this list has a chance to be a first-team All-American and an NFL draft first-round pick, and that's Arizona State wide receiver Jordyn Tyson.
He finished the '24 season with 75 catches for 1,101 yards and 10 touchdowns, and with the Sun Devils maybe throwing the ball more this season in the post-Cam Skattebo era, Tyson figures to have a huge season.
He is an elite athlete, and while football was always the sport for him, the 6'1", 175-pound pass-catcher is one of those guys who would have been good no matter what he was doing.
Things just come easily to him, and that's why he's being counted on as an impact leader for coach Kenny Dillingham's team along with quarterback Sam Leavitt in 2025.
Tyson's older brother, Jaylon, is a 6'6", 215-pound forward who played at California and is now a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He is averaging three points, two rebounds and an assist for the NBA's top team.
His brother told Sun Devil Source's Jake Seymour that his younger brother could have been a collegiate hoops star, too.
With his build, ability and athleticism, Jordyn Tyson makes this list. If you don't buy it, just don't challenge him to one-on-one on the court, but especially not in coverage.
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