Through two growth spurts in his final three seasons of high school football, Austin Conrad found himself playing six positions.
Scouts and coaches saw his potential at tight end, which is what he signed on for at Ohio. After a redshirt season in 2016, he spent this past fall camp working to earn playing time behind two veterans at his position.
In the week leading up to Ohio’s season opener against Hampton, coach Frank Solich approached Conrad, asking him to do something he was all too familiar with: switch positions.
Four defensive linemen graduated in 2016, combined with three fall camp injuries, decimated that position group for the Bobcats. Eager for playing time and a chance to help the team, Conrad happily obliged.
“He really adds to the depth at rush end, which is an area that we needed to have some depth at because of what has transpired from fall camp to now at that position,” Solich said. “He made that move with a great, unselfish attitude.”
The odds were in Conrad’s favor to grow into a tight end or lineman-sized football player. His older brother C.J., now a junior tight end at Kentucky, was 6-foot-4 as a high school freshman. And the boys’ parents had both played Division II basketball at Tiffin University.
But as a sophomore at Keystone High School, Conrad was 5-foot-10, weighed 185 pounds and played corner back and receiver.
“I was kind of looking around like, ‘When am I going to grow?” he said. “Am I gonna grow?’”
He did.
As he grew, Conrad inhaled pasta, chicken, steak, vegetables and protein shakes (usually two a day); he also hit the gym constantly. The result was adding three inches and 20 pounds as a junior, then another inch and 25 more pounds as a senior.
“Between sophomore and senior year, that was just a full-on three years of just eating, growing and working out,” said Conrad, who is now 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds.
As his body changed, so too did his role on the Keystone Wildcats’ football team. On the defensive side, he moved from cornerback to linebacker and defensive lineman. Offensively, despite the added bulk, he took over as the team’s running back.
One game his senior season, Conrad rushed 50 times for 226 yards and three touchdowns. At a small school, with a total enrollment of about 500 students, part of the reason he was the running back was because alternatives were hard to find.
The same can be said for his rushed-in role as a defensive end with Ohio. The Bobcats’ d-line options shrunk quickly in the fall with injuries to Wyatt Shallman, Amir Miller and Sam McKnight, which led to the last minute position move for Conrad.
“When you do that stuff, you hope it’s twofold,” Ohio defensive line coach Pete Germano said. “That it does fill a void and it also gives a kid a chance to play.”
By Germano’s estimate, Conrad has had 60-something game reps. He has eight total tackles in that time, which includes half a sack.
The first thing defensive linemen Trent Smart and Kent Berger noticed with Conrad was that his stance needed work. In fairness, Conrad hadn’t had to put his hand down for a stance since his junior year of high school.
“Once we got his stance down, he figured out the schemes and stuff like that pretty fast,” Smart said. “He’s a smart kid.”
Conrad has the athleticism necessary to be a Division I defensive linemen, though some day he hopes to move back to tight end. In the meantime, his next step is to lock in rep after rep, acclimating to game speed and the constant task of handling 300-pound linemen.
As injury uncertainties loom for Ohio’s defensive line, Conrad continues to work at overcoming the growing pains of a new position.
“It’s taken a little longer because, again nothing against him, it’s just not necessarily easy to play,” Germano said. “You don’t see a lot of freshmen coming in and playing d-line right away at the college level. It’s tough.”
