Luke Musgrave isn’t the only player who will be selected in this week’s NFL draft with a multisport background, but no one besides the Oregon State tight end was a competitive skier, in addition to playing football.
“I’ve been skiing since I could walk,’’ Musgrave said at the NFL combine. “It’s my mom’s big sport. It definitely helped me a lot.”
And it’s something Oregon State tight end coach Brian Wozniak said made Musgrave a unique talent to recruit out of high school.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever recruited a guy that had that deep a background of [skiing],’’ Wozniak said.
Wozniak believes some of the attributes Musgrave has that made him excel on the slopes translate to football.
“I’ve seen him skiing on Youtube and I said, ‘Luke’s hips move like that all the time,’ ’’ Wozniak said. “He’s so fluid and can step laterally 2 feet and he can step vertically 2 feet.”
So how does that translate to being useful when playing tight end?
“It’s harder to keep him at bay or jam him up,’’ Wozniak said. “He’s so explosive and can gain ground really quick.”
Musgrave’s mother, Amy, was on the U.S. developmental ski team in the 1980s, and Luke won several events as a teenager both in the U.S. and in Europe after starting to ski at the age of 4.
“I can attribute my big legs to it,’’ said Musgrave, who credited Amy with getting him into the sport. “It really did help me.”
Musgrave focused on football in the summer and fall before switching to ski racing in the winter in Oregon.
That skill set, combined with Musgrave’s size at 6-foot-6, 250 pounds, makes him one of the most intriguing tight end prospects in this year’s draft — even though injuries have impacted his career.
Musgrave was limited to just two games before a knee injury ended this past season.
He was able to rehab in time to take part in the combine and is expected to be fully healthy after appearing in the Senior Bowl.
In his one full season with Oregon State, Musgrave finished with 22 catches for 304 yards.
Even though Musgrave appeared in just those two games in 2022, Wozniak said, his presence was felt.
“He was our leading receiver through those two games and was a huge mismatch,’’ Wozniak said. “No one could cover him, which made him a pretty lethal threat. Game-planning became a lot less fun when we lost him because we maybe weren’t as creative as we could have been.”
On the other side of Musgrave’s family, his father, Doug, played quarterback at Oregon, and his uncle, Bill Musgrave, appeared in a dozen games at QB over a five-year NFL career and has coached in the league for most of the past two decades.
He’s now a senior offensive assistant for the Cleveland Browns.
Like his father and uncle, Musgrave spent much of his youth playing quarterback before switching to tight end in high school.
And if he can stay healthy, Musgrave could end up making an impact at the position on the next level, though he needs to improve his blocking.
He’s projected to go in the second or third round.
“He’s got natural athletic ability,’’ Wozniak said. “And with his speed, he can stretch the field. He’s quick, can get out of his stance, get out of press man, and he gets on defenders quick. He does a nice job with his body control. He’s a big dude with some slippery hips.”