Big tight end Carsen Ryan has one season to make a splash for BYU, and he's determined to make it count in more ways than one.
In his heart, Ryan hopes his ailing grandpa, Steve Downey of Orem, will be able to see him play this fall. Also, he's got only one season of eligibility left. Every practice, every game, every play has to count.
That's why Ryan traveled to Southern California this past week with quarterbacks Jake Retzlaff, McCae Hillstead, Treyson Bourguet, and receivers Parker Kingston and Chase Roberts. They got in four sessions with John Beck at 3DQB and worked on timing and chemistry.
"But just as important, the trip was about bonding with each other, building relationships and friendships by hanging out, hitting some malls, going to the beach, and eating together," said Ryan.
At 6-feet-4 and 250 pounds, Ryan is a monster blocker. But he also has surprising speed and agility. His strength is setting up defenders, executing crisp routes, and deploying deceptive tactics to get up and make plays. He's hungry to play with Retzlaff and the other BYU receivers.
"We've got a great offensive line and I'm excited for the season," he said.
BYU landed Ryan out of the transfer portal with the promise of returning to its tight-end roots.
"We have been making a point of getting the ball to Carsen every day in practice, because he is (good)," BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said during spring camp. "I always say the ball goes to the best players on the team, and he is one of them."
Has Ryan got speed?
"I wouldn't say I'm some sort of speed demon, but I feel like I can move really well for my size, and I know how to manipulate guys while running routes to kind of adjust for the speed difference, which helps me get creative separation," he says. "I feel like I can catch people off guard too, which really helps me.
"Hopefully this year, I can show it a little more and hopefully surprise people."
BYU tight end Carsen Ryan runs after a catch during spring practice on March 15 at the indoor practice facility. Ryan transfer from Utah to BYU in the offseason. | Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo
Ryan predicts Retzlaff is due for a great senior season.
"He's improved every year. Our offense has potential to be good this year with the O-line, some great running backs that go well with our pass game," he explained. "We can do it with a lot of guys, which creates versatility on offense. It gets me excited to go out and show what I can do, too."
Ryan wants his grandpa to see it. "He's lasted a lot longer than a lot of people thought he would."
As long as Carsen can remember, his grandpa has been there for him. Throughout the years, they've shared Sunday dinners every other week. He's lived with him off and on when his parents have been between moves and houses.
"I've been able to spend a lot of time with my grandpa, doing a lot of different stuff," Ryan said. "He'd take me golfing. We'd do yard work together and we grew very close. He's one of the biggest role models in my life and I've always looked up to Grandpa.
BYU tight end Carsen Ryan poses with his grandpa, Steve Downey, at BYU's indoor practice facility in Provo. | Courtesy Ryan family
"He's a man I want to grow up and be like," Ryan said. "He's just such a good example of a Christ-like person. He's always served others and given what time he can to others. It's hard to find people like him these days.
"He makes me want to give back to others. When he was a bishop, he'd go out in the street and always give a helping hand. Everyone knows my grandpa."
Carsen remembers people coming up to talk to his grandpa and turning and telling him and his family how much they love him and how much of an impact he had on them. He values every day he can see his grandpa. His apartment is close and he's often called upon to be a minuteman to help and serve him.
Will Grandpa survive the next few months?
He just has to.
Carsen's father, Chas, played football at Granger High, Snow College and William Penn in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Later, Chas returned to Snow College as a coach, where he coached Denver Broncos offensive lineman and former University of Utah great Garett Bolles .
The day Carsen was born, his dad played football at William Penn. When just 10 days old, Carsen witnessed his first football game. He spent the first two years of his life traveling around watching Chas play football for the Statesmen.
Most of Chas' records (tackles for loss, sacks for a season and career) still stand at William Penn.
Carsen's mother, Danielle, was a multisport high school star and her father, Carsen's grandfather, Steve Downey, was also a multisport high school star. He is a retired high school athletic director and football coach, whose career spanned 42 years. Steve, some say, is the best athlete to ever compete at Spanish Fork High.
Ryan's athletic genes are science.
UCLA tight end Carsen Ryan, right, stiff-arms California defensive back Nohl Williams during a game Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Pasadena, Calif. | Ryan Sun, Associated Press
Carsen went to UCLA after playing at Timpview High and American Fork High. He was a four-star recruit and rated the No. 3 tight end by ESPN. After playing 17 games at UCLA, he transferred to Utah and then to BYU. The first college game Steve Downey ever saw his grandson play was when his UCLA team played at Colorado.
Said Danielle, "It was a very hard day for him (Steve) and after the game we all were going down to meet Carsen. My dad said he was going to stay in his seat because the thought of walking down the bleachers sounded too hard and exhausting, but I guess Dad just couldn't sit back.
"The next thing we knew, he had made it down to congratulate Carsen. It was a really cool moment.
"The only other time he's been able to watch Carsen play in college was his sophomore year, when UCLA played at Utah." Steve was unable to see Carsen play a game in a Utah uniform. He was, however, able to make it to two BYU spring practices in March. The hope is that Steve will be able to see Carsen play for BYU this fall.
Carsen is home.
His grandfather needs him. He needs his family and his family needs him.
If you don't know Steve Downey, here's an introduction.
You can't talk to anybody involved in high school or college sports in Utah County who doesn't know him.
These days, Steve is in a fight for his life. He has myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. There is no cure.
"Carsen is very committed and a hard worker. He worked out all around the year. I don't think I've ever seen a young man work as hard as he has. And he's very smart."
The day I visited Steve, he'd just returned from getting X-rays and an infusion of fluids. Across the street from his front doorstep stands the Orem First Ward chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Steve served as a beloved bishop of that ward for most of a decade.
Among former Orem High athletes who passed through during Downey's regime are Bryan Rowley , Chad and Mike Lewis, Ben Bradshaw, John MacKay, Jonny Harline , Tyler and Justin Anderson, Ed Chatterly, Chris McMullin, and Richard Lameroux.
Steve's wife, the former Michele Miner, was Miss Utah in 1977.
Carsen lives just a few blocks from his grandpa in an apartment just off Center Street in Orem. He and his father have spent time working on Steve's yard, bringing it back after some neglect because of Steve's illness.
The yard was once an award winner in Orem City. Carsen has routinely answered the call from his mother to bring Steve lunch or help him. That includes administering priesthood blessings.
"Carsen is very committed and a hard worker," said Steve when asked about watching his grandson growing up playing baseball, basketball and his first love, football.
"He worked out all around the year. I don't think I've ever seen a young man work as hard as he has," said Steve. "And he's very smart."
Once an active golfer, Steve doesn't think he can play again because of his balance, so Carsen now has his grandpa's golf clubs. This is kind of a sacred rite of passage for a golfer.
Gary Downey struggles to understand why his older brother, Steve, is fighting for his life right now. Many people have let themselves go, never worked out, or taken care as to what they ate, and they are fine, but his brother is not.
"It doesn't seem fair," said Gary, who lives in Vineyard. "But things happen for a reason and maybe what he is going through will impact others who know him."
"I was always known as Steve Downey's brother," said Gary. "He was my hero and I looked up to him and still do."
Gary remembers the last track meet of the season his sophomore year, where he only needed to place to earn his letter. His brother came in and competed in the shot put, took his throws and placed, bumping Gary down in the standings. "I didn't letter."
But that only added to the mystique that was the legend of his brother. Gary said Steve would never claim he was the greatest athlete ever at Spanish Fork High.
"He'd tell you that would be Jack Sheen, who was older than he was and competed in the '60s."
Steve competed for Snow College out of high school before going on a church mission in Mexico City. Upon his return, he planned on playing for BYU's baseball team before being injured in a freak accident.
"I was always known as Steve Downey's brother. He was my hero and I looked up to him — and still do."
Steve worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a firefighter. Returning from an assignment fighting a forest fire, the helicopter he was riding in with half a dozen firemen crashed into a power line near Grantsville. Steve and other passengers suffered broken backs. "That pretty much ended his college athletic career," said Gary.
Steve always pushed Gary to be better. "I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for him. The only thing I was better at than he was, was football. I worshiped him. I still do. I get mad that he's going through this, a guy who never slacked off, never moped around or abused his body."
The first-ever head basketball coach at Orem's Mountain View High was Joel Gardner. He has known Downey most of his life. While doing his student teaching at Spanish Fork High in 1970, he helped his cousin Mike Gardner with the varsity squad.
"I did my student teaching at Spanish Fork High School. Steve was a junior," Gardner said. "I became the head coach the next year, and Steve became our best player on a team that was supposed to be in a total rebuilding year.
"We had a great year and opened the state tournament with a big upset win over Logan High School. Steve also played football and baseball, and might have been the best athlete to have ever played at Spanish Fork. He was also a great student and most importantly, an outstanding young man.
"Steve later joined us at Orem High School and helped in so many areas, including work as head football coach and athletic director. As a former coach, I have a lot of outstanding former players, but Steve Downey is one at the top of my list."
Steve Watts, former director of golf at TalonsCove in Saratoga Springs, remembers traveling across the country playing softball on club teams with Downey, as well as playing in the Central Utah Basketball League in the 1980s.
Downey and Chris Dowling were among the 30-point-a-game scorers, as were Veryl and Vance Law. "He was a tremendous athlete, a great player. In basketball, he was a scorer, a go-to guy," said Watts.
Dave Boyak (Spanish Fork Class of 1971), retired athletic director at Maple Mountain High, was a sophomore when Downey (Class of 1969) starred for the Dons. "Steve was the guy everyone looked up to, a star, an athlete, handsome with those movie actor looks, everything he played, he did well. Everyone wanted to be like him.
"The thing is," said Boyak, "a lot of people don't know Steve's situation right now."
Former BYU, SUU and Snow College coach Roger Reid remembers Downey as an outstanding athlete at Spanish Fork. His sons, Randy and Robbie, are considered by many to be the best athletes produced at Spanish Fork High.
"When I learned Steve retired from coaching to be athletic director, I asked him, 'What are you doing?' He was a great coach and should have kept going at it."
Paul Clark replaced Downey as Orem High football coach. He grew up with Steve in Benjamin before playing with him at Spanish Fork High (Class of 1970). Clark said Downey was the kind of coach who could rip into a player, and that player would thank him afterward. "He had that kind of relationship and impact on his players."
Downey wasn't a big guy in high school, but after serving a mission to Mexico City, he came back 6-foot-2, 210 pounds. "He was very competitive, he was competitive in everything he did."
Greg Sheide, brother of former BYU All-American quarterback Gary Sheide, said Downey gave him his first break after his student teaching, hiring him to be part of the Orem High football coaching staff. Perched in a cart as a starter at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course now that he is retired, Sheide says Downey changed his life. "Steve has been a mentor and friend to me. You talk about heroes, he's been one for me."
BYU tight end Carsen Ryan poses with his mom and dad, Chas and Danielle Ryan. | Courtesy Ryan family
In December 2023, Chas and Danielle Ryan moved into Steve and Michele's Orem home. Danielle remembers how they gathered their family around and made a decision to move from American Fork to her childhood home to help with her father.
It was a big decision, but everyone agreed to move. It was a no-brainer.
Carsen is their oldest at 21, followed by Gabi, 16, Collyns, 13, and Rockwell, 11.
With tears, Danielle explained that because of her love for her father and all he has done for them, it was an easy decision. "It made sense we be here for him," said Danielle.
This act of returning home and uprooting school and friends in American Fork wasn't just a simple act of a daughter.
It was also a professional move. Danielle is a nurse at Orem Rehab. She brings her skills and knowledge of caring for the elderly and bed-bound patients to the home of her youth.
"She has been wonderful. Having her here, well, I believe it's extended Steve's life," said Michele.
Carsen sees all of this and wants his grandpa's influence to continue.
"It's just so easy to see how much of a difference he makes in people's lives," said Carsen. "And it's even in just little stuff that makes an impact that others may not see. It's just something I've always looked up to.
"I'm so grateful I've been able to have him in my life to kind of guide me through things and be that example in my life. He's the greatest grandpa, and I love him a lot."
Carsen's decision to transfer to BYU came after a frustrating time at Utah, where star quarterback Cam Rising was injured in a season he was counting on playing with him.
His transfer last December came on the heels of discovering more about BYU that he did not know out of high school when there was little communication.
Utah tight end Carsen Ryan hugs his mother, Danielle Ryan, after the Utes fell to Iowa State in Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
He was impressed with both the fit and the opportunities with alumni and resources this time around. The NIL money at BYU and Utah for Carsen was the same, and it was not the deciding factor, said his mother Danielle.
"We went to the Oklahoma State game because my brother-in-law Beni Tonga coaches for Oklahoma State.
"We were impressed with the fans, the setting, and my husband and I looked at the BYU roster. There were at least 20 to 25 BYU players Carsen knew, many of them were his friends at American Fork and Timpview, and guys like Cody Hagen, who Carsen knew from seven-on-seven camps and worked out with under receiver guru and coach Ross Apo with current LA Ram Puka Nacua ."
Carsen's mother said that BYU membership in the Big 12 was a game changer.
In short, since transferring to BYU, his mom says "football is fun again" for Carsen.
And for Steve? He just has to stay healthy enough to see Carsen play in LaVell Edwards Stadium.
As the lyrics to that Beach Boy song go, "Wouldn't it be nice."
BYU tight end Carsen Ryan, right, poses with grandpa, Steve Downey, and his grandma, Michele. | Courtesy Ryan family
