If you thought Green Bay Packers rookie tight end Tucker Kraft was dominant in earning FCS All-American honors at South Dakota State in 2021, you should have seen him as a running back playing nine-man football at Timber Lake (S.D.) High School.
“He was not a man among boys. He was Goliath among boys,” John Stiegelmeier, who retired as South Dakota State’s coach after winning last year’s national championship, told Packer Central last week.
“It takes more than one guy to win a championship, but he carried his team and he carried the other team quite often when he had the ball in his hands.”
Kraft rushed for more than 3,000 yards at Timber Lake but was a zero-star recruit. South Dakota State was his first Division I scholarship offer.
What did everyone miss?
“Understand where he came from,” Stiegelmeier said. “His ability to develop and max out his ability was limited based on Timber Lake, S.D. I’m not knocking that because that’s exactly where I’m from – I’m from a town of 700 people in South Dakota.
“We knew when he was in our camp that he had a lot of gifts. We knew those gifts, for the most part, were natural because he hadn’t been with a trainer. He’d been playing all the sports and working in the summer. We knew there was an upside.”
Kraft, a third-round pick by the Packers, took full advantage of all the program’s resources to reach that upside. At 6-foot-5 and 254 pounds, he is big. With a 4.69 in the 40-yard dash, he’s athletic. With SDSU weight-room records, he’s strong.
The physical traits and the production made Kraft an excellent NFL prospect. It’s the intangibles that have allowed him – and will continue to allow him – to maximize his physical tools.
Stiegelmeier thought back to when he was recruiting Kraft. In high school, Kraft worked on a farm. There’d be mornings when Stiegelmeier would call Kraft and Kraft would be waiting for his bosses to show up to assign chores.
“He’s very grounded on things that matter: work ethic, people, character, relationships,” Stiegelmeier said.
Relationships and character “without a doubt” came into play following Kraft’s monster junior season, a first-team All-American campaign in which he caught 65 passes for 780 yards. College football’s powerhouses, including schools from the SEC, offered him more than $100,000 to join their team.
Kraft was tempted but stayed.
“At one point,” Stiegelmeier said, “he kind of wavered and he came back to his foundation. ‘I’m going to stick with what my original commitment was and things will take care of themselves.’”
Relationships and character came into play this year, too. He suffered a significant ankle injury in the season-opening game at Iowa. Already considered a top draft prospect at the position, there probably was more to lose than gain by coming back at midseason.
In fact, some “powerful people” in Kraft’s life thought he was coming back too soon, Stiegelmeier said, and Kraft “was not 100 percent” when he returned to score touchdowns in each of his first two games back in the lineup.
“I think everything intersects with the type of person he is. There’s a lot of different things we can talk about and we have talked about, but it goes back to the person,” Stiegelmeier said.
“I’m a math guy and a geometry teacher by trade. The vectors intersect at one point and that point is who Tucker Kraft is, what he stands for, what his foundation is. Not knocking anybody else but that’s how decisions are made, right? It’s deep down in your heart and what’s been planted there. I would say Tucker’s a great example of making the correct decision.”
Another part of that intersection is skill and work ethic. Some players are skilled. Some players have the work ethic. Not every player scores high in both traits.
Stiegelmeier pointed to Kraft’s improvement as a receiver. He didn’t have great hands when he arrived at South Dakota State but “worked his fingerprints off” to become a sure-handed weapon.
“I think his best trait is not a specific characteristic, but his desire motivates his work ethic to be as good as he can be,” Stiegelmeier said. “You and I never and he never will get to 100 percent. That’s what drives you every day. He will push to get as close as he can. Even as a player in the NFL, he will not relax.”
While a perennial FCS power, South Dakota State is not a football factory. Only two Jackrabbits played in the NFL in 2022. One of them is tight end Dallas Goedert. A second-round pick in 2018, he’s coming off seasons of 58 receptions in 2019, 46 receptions in just 11 games in 2020, 56 receptions in 2021 and 55 receptions in only 12 games in 2022.
So, Stiegelmeier certainly knows what an NFL tight end looks like. Why is Kraft going to have a successful career, as well?
“I’ll answer it based on pro scouts,” he said. “Tucker’s a complete tight end. He’s a guy that can do everything you ask him. Is he at the top of one of those categories? Probably not. Who is that? It’s such an elite athlete at that position because of the size and the hands and all the things you ask a tight end to do. I would say Tucker would be a guy that could play any down and distance and be asked to do anything within the scheme that the Packers are going to do.
“Really,” he continued, “I’m so proud of him and what he has accomplished and what I know he’s going to embark on going forward.”
More must-reads: