The Colts on Tuesday signed undrafted free agent tight end carson towt, a move that pivots on an unusual foundation: carson towt most recently played college basketball, not football, and did not play football in high school or college.
What the Colts said about Carson Towt and what stands out immediately
The Colts announced the signing Tuesday, identifying carson towt as an undrafted free agent tight end. The most striking detail in the team’s description is not a highlight reel from a football season, but the absence of one: carson towt did not play football in high school or college.
Instead, the team framed the acquisition through carson towt’s recent athletic résumé on the basketball court. carson towt most recently played as a forward for Notre Dame Basketball in 2025. Prior to that, the 6-foot-8, 250-pound athlete played basketball at Northern Arizona from 2020–24. The Colts’ write-up also emphasized a specific benchmark from that period: while at Northern Arizona, carson towt set the Big Sky Conference single-season record with 423 total rebounds in 2024, a figure the team note described as leading the country, and recorded 20 double-doubles.
The club also indicated it has shared photos highlighting tight end carson towt following the signing.
Why the Colts are linking carson towt to Mo Alie-Cox
In positioning the signing, the Colts drew a direct line to an existing tight end with what the team characterized as a similar background in Mo Alie-Cox. The comparison is rooted in a shared starting point: Alie-Cox played basketball at VCU and was signed by the Colts as an undrafted free agent in 2017.
The team’s description added current roster context around that parallel. Alie-Cox is a 32-year-old veteran who re-signed with the Colts on Monday and became the second-longest tenured member of the Colts roster. With the Colts, carson towt will join that tight end room, creating an internal example of a basketball-to-tight-end transition that the organization has already made before.
What’s known — and what isn’t — about the plan for carson towt
From the team’s announcement, several elements are clear. The Colts are taking a chance on a player whose documented recent experience is entirely in college basketball, and they are doing so at a position that requires learning an NFL playbook and competing for snaps. The team’s emphasis on size (6-foot-8, 250 pounds) and rebounding production suggests the traits they are betting will translate, even though the announcement contains no football statistics for carson towt and states he did not play football in high school or college.
What is not specified in the club’s announcement is how carson towt will be deployed, how quickly he could be expected to contribute, or what benchmarks the team will use to evaluate the transition. The only explicit roster clue offered is the presence of Alie-Cox, whose own path provides a precedent the team itself chose to highlight when introducing carson towt.
The result is a signing that is straightforward in transaction terms yet unusual in profile: the Colts have added carson towt as an undrafted free agent tight end, leaning on an elite college rebounding résumé and a prior in-house conversion example rather than a traditional football development track.
