EAST LANSING — Two tight end terrors tore up Michigan State on Saturday.
All night, graduate student AJ Barner and sophomore Colston Loveland came as advertised. In a breakout game for Barner with the No. 2 Michigan football team, the two combined for 178 yards and three touchdowns — all before being rested early in the second half after the Wolverines’ lead ballooned in a 49-0 blowout.
Barner had already flashed his potential earlier this season. All the while, Loveland was always an ever-dangerous target. However, Saturday’s performance was not only a breakout performance for Indiana transfer Barner, but an emphatic depiction of how the two can terrorize as a tandem.
“(That’s) some of the best tight end play, I think, anybody’s ever seen in college football.” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said.
And with that play, perhaps junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy has found his number-two options.
In nearly as much time as it took for McCarthy to feel comfortable with Loveland last season, so too has Barner’s development parallelled. From logging one lone target during Michigan’s entire non-conference schedule, to eight receptions against the Spartans, Barner has become a featured face of the offense.
In his own right, Loveland too has had a quiet buildup to this weekend’s limelight. After an electric finish from week nine and forward last season, Loveland had yet to find the endzone through the team’s first five weeks. After Saturday though, he has scored four touchdowns in three weeks. The 6-foot-5 behemoth that floats around defensive backs like a butterfly, now stings with caught touchdowns like a bee.
Because, the question was never if the two could play together, but how.
In an offense that already has innumerable mouths to feed, pairing the two together was certainly a potential goldmine. Nevertheless, it came with much digging. From weeks where the only offensive assignment was to throw unheralded pull blocks behind the line of scrimmage, to now, Barner and Loveland are both in the spotlight, and ready to shine.
“Me and C-Love, February, March, April, it would be 8:30 at night and we might go out there and get jugs (machine catches),” Barner said. “That’s just our connection is (that) we just feed off each other and we both want to see each other succeed.”
That desire came full circle in East Lansing. On all four of Michigan’s first-half touchdown drives, either Barner or Loveland found the ball in his hands. Meanwhile, on two of those four, both Barner and Loveland hauled in catches. The tandem worked like a well oiled machine. Unselfish, unblemished, and now unsurprising, the two waited for their moment and each found it on the same night.
“Honestly, the game plan wasn’t really targeting them or anything. It just happened naturally,” McCarthy said. “That’s the most beautiful thing that could play out. The boys were open and they finished the play. So great job by them — national tight ends day tomorrow, too.”
Every fourth weekend in October since 2019, the NFL has commemorated National Tight Ends day in honor of the work done by the likes of Loveland and Barner. Thus, perhaps it was only fitting that their time came only one day before the professional festivities kicked off.
The two seemingly couldn’t wait for Sunday though. Against what seemed to be an underwhelming Michigan State defense, both Barner and Loveland found themselves covered well throughout the game. However, in the timely moments — whether taking a hit from a defender or reaching out to make a grab — the two came through.
It was Loveland’s first two-touchdown day for Michigan. For Barner, it was his first touchdown for the Wolverines ever, and his only one in nearly an entire calendar year. The transfer could’ve even snagged his second of the day if a false start by junior running back Donovan Edwards hadn’t ended the first half early.
Yet, as Loveland went on to surmise, the tight ends’ day might have felt big, but the work building behind it was enormous.
“I don’t think anything’s changed,” Loveland said. “It’s just the time came today and (I) happened to be open in (McCarthy’s) reads and he just put the ball where it needed to be. It happens all the time in practice and it was bound to happen some time.”
Walking out of East Lansing, that defensive mismatch finally moved out of practice and into game days. The Wolverines may have seen this building from inside the walls of Schembechler Hall for sometime now. Loveland and Barner may have squandered schemes and secondaries on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for some time now. But it doesn’t matter.
Because now the two tight ends terrorize teams on Saturdays, too.