Picture Steve Ensminger driving 240 miles from Denver, going over mountain passes and through canyons to get to the small, remote city of Grand Junction, Colo., to see a 6-foot-7, three-star tight end who maybe weighed 200 pounds.

Normally, talented athletes from this area move closer to Denver or Colorado Springs. That’s historically been the only way to really get noticed from Grand Junction — to make it. It’s four hours west of Denver. Another four southeast of Salt Lake City.

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“And there’s really not much in between,” Sean Taylor said with a laugh.

But Kole Taylor stayed. And colleges came to him. Even Ensminger, the former LSU offensive coordinator, flew across the country and drove over those mountain passes and through those canyons to see Taylor. Taylor was in on LSU before Joe Burrow and Joe Brady rocked college football. He committed before LSU landed the highest-rated tight end in the history of tight ends, Arik Gilbert, to start over him.

He was the no-name, under-the-radar freshman. He was the third-lowest-rated high school signee in his class. Nobody was talking about Kole Taylor.

Until his shoe got thrown in a blinding fog in Gainesville, Fla., and the entire college football landscape changed, knocking Florida out of the Playoff picture. Suddenly everybody in Louisiana could tell you who Taylor was. Suddenly he was on SportsCenter and his shoe was being playfully taken by the LSU equipment staff to be presented somewhere in the building. He’s part of LSU football lore at this point.

But who is Taylor? He’s gained roughly 40 pounds since high school. He’s going into his second spring at LSU. He’s no longer the afterthought and has a chance — if not an expectation — to become LSU’s starting tight end in 2021.

“He’s got the mindset,” LSU pass game coordinator DJ Mangas said. “Now he just has to build the frame.”

LSU fans may know Taylor’s name now, but he’s looking to prove he’s more than just a size 14 Nike Vapor Edge Pro 360 shoe.

A 10-minute conversation with Matt McChesney is like a TED Talk on masculinity. It’s a crash course on weakness and privilege and parents coddling their kids. You’ll hear expletives and promises of brutal honesty and a refusal to be these kids’ friends. You’ll hear talk of kids who think they like football until they play the big boys and can’t handle it. The six-year NFL offensive lineman who trains athletes at Six Zero Strength and Fitness in Denver lives by a mission of preparing athletes to actually succeed at the highest levels, not just to get there. So he takes pride in acknowledging when a kid doesn’t have the mental makeup.

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Ask him about Kole Taylor.

“He’s fucking different,” McChesney told The Athletic.

Kole listened to McChesney’s lessons and lived by them. He drove the four hours often to train with McChesney, because he knew that’s what it would take to make it. He showed up every day, approached it the right way and put in the work. McChesney loves him.

When Taylor first arrived at Six Zero, McChesney requested his friend and University of Colorado teammate Daniel Graham — a Mackey Award-winning tight end and first round NFL draft pick — to give his analysis. He asked Graham, “Is this kid a big offensive lineman or is he a skill guy?”

Graham put Taylor through the wringer while McChesney sat back and watched for about an hour. Graham walked up to McChesney.

“So, is he a tackle?”

“No, he’s Little Gronk,” Graham said.

“Little Gronk?”

“Yeah. that kid’s gonna be another Gronkowski if he keeps it up.”

OK, so he was clearly a tight end. McChesney could tell as he watched Taylor’s junior tape to see him blowing past defenders for 510 yards. But he was skinny. A twig. He was nowhere near being able to play SEC football.

Taylor and his father, Sean, went on an unofficial visit to Arizona State his senior fall the day after a game. Sean told him he should eat something, but Taylor wasn’t feeling great and declined. “What if they weigh you?” Sean asked, but Taylor laughed and said they weren’t going to weigh him on an unofficial visit.

Sure enough, they weighed him. 199 pounds. Sure, he hadn’t eaten. Normally he was around 207 in those days, but it was the firmest of wake-up calls. No 6-foot-7 Division I athlete should weigh that little. They later bought one of those ASU souvenir cups at the game, and Sean used a label maker and taped the date of the visit and that number — 199 — on the cup. So, anytime Taylor drank a protein shake or anything in that cup he saw his reminder.

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He had to put on weight, but also the right weight. McChesney played a part in making progress. “It’s pretty easy to help a guy like that,” he said, though. When he arrived at LSU, he weighed around 220 pounds.

Taylor enrolled early in the spring of 2020 with the hope of using that extra time to get a head start and begin filling out that frame. Instead, the pandemic hit by March and he was gone for much of the spring. By the time he returned, Gilbert was there, the five-star phenom who immediately became one of LSU’s top targets.

Still, his freshman year went how one would expect for an SEC three-star freshman. He worked behind the scenes. He learned. Plus, the Taylors are a tight-knit family, and his sister Jade decided to go to law school at nearby Southern University so she could be in Baton Rouge with Kole. She got a house nearby, so the Colorado natives could have a small oasis of family in South Louisiana. He goes to Jade’s house constantly, including Bachelor Mondays in which he and teammates like quarterback Max Johnson and long snapper Max Peterson go over for dinner and to watch The Bachelor. “He wasn’t a fan of this season as much,” Jade said.

But then, one week in December, Gilbert shocked many by leaving the team with two games left in LSU’s season before ultimately entering the transfer portal. LSU’s greatest recruiting coup was gone. On top of that, backup tight end Tory Carter was suspended. Suddenly, as LSU stood 3-5 and traveled to top-10 Florida, Taylor was the only true tight end on the roster.

The biggest game of LSU’s season was also this teenager’s first start. It was also his roommate and best friend Johnson’s first start at quarterback. And somehow LSU was in it all night. Taylor kept quiet. He blocked and did his job and had fewer than 10 yards entering the final drive. But LSU was tied, 34-34, in a fog that made most of the field impossible to see.

The rest is history, or some bizarre version of it. Taylor caught a short four-yard pass in the flat. Two Gator defenders were waiting for him and quickly made the tackle, then Florida safety Marco Wilson accidentally ended up with Taylor’s shoe in his hand.

And he threw it. Inexplicably, Wilson launched Taylor’s size 14 shoe 20-some yards downfield only to be penalized for the automatic first down. A few plays later, Cade York made the game-winning field goal and LSU ruined rival Florida’s season.

Taylor was a celebrity. Or at least his shoe was. This nonsensical sports moment became an incessant meme. The highlights lived on social media and SportsCenter for days. Taylor had four career catches for 14 yards, and he was quickly one of the most beloved players on the struggling 2020 team.

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The Taylors were, of course, there for the Florida game. They couldn’t see what happened through the fog. They only knew once the announcer said something, and even then they didn’t know immediately it was Kole. Sean’s phone was blowing up with texts saying, “Get the shoe!” But LSU equipment staffers had already taken it as a piece of humorous but important memorabilia. The Taylors debated with each other whether Kole would find it funny or be annoyed by all this attention for not really doing much.

He did find it funny. He just had a lot more work to do.

Taylor tore it up as a high school junior, but his senior year his head coach left and so did his star quarterback. So his final year, Taylor essentially had JV quarterbacks attempting to throw him the ball. Even his senior year coach, Brandon Milholland, admitted to The Athletic they tried everything they could and just couldn’t get him the ball. It was brutal.

We bring this up because Sean remembers talking to Kole that season as Central High was forced to use him more as a blocker.

Kole told him, “Dad, I’m really liking this blocking stuff.” It was the first time Sean heard him say that. He was thin, sure, but he loved getting in there and driving people to the ground. McChesney said he more often had to tell Kole to take it easy and lay off kids than he did to be more aggressive. Kole, like Mangas said, has the mentality.

That’s what LSU loves to see from him.

Taylor may have already lived the most silly-but-famous play in his football career, but he’s still a young tight end with four remaining years of eligibility and plenty of potential left in front of him. While some, maybe rightfully so, see tight end as a large question mark on LSU’s 2021 roster, Taylor sees a chance to become a true SEC starter.

He’s gained the weight, making his way up to an impressive 243 pounds. He’s proven he’s willing to block. And yeah, he doesn’t have many catches, but that may prove to be his greatest skill.

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“I think Kole is going to be an NFL tight end,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said last week. “He needs to get more physical at the point of attack.”

Tight end is an open competition for LSU. Taylor is the only experienced option, plus the former baseball player Nick Storz who chipped in on special teams. LSU has two freshmen coming in — Jalen Shead and Jack Bech — who could try to earn a role, but neither is the kind of prospect with Day 1 expectations to contribute. It’s completely up for grabs if Taylor can impress.

McChesney caught up with Taylor a week ago, and like Taylor’s family, he said Taylor is more focused than ever. Jade said he’s stopped coming over as much because he’s doing extra work.

“He’s excited about the opportunity, but he’s not the starter yet,” McChesney said. “He just can’t wait to get to work and finish out spring ball and do a good summer and walk into camp with an opportunity to earn it.

“And that’s how I know he will. Because he’s not worried about having a job. He’s worried about earning it.”

McChesney recently did a podcast with his old teammate and 2021 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Alan Faneca, a former LSU great. As the podcast wrapped up and the two linemen talked off-air, Faneca brought up Taylor.

“I love this kid you sent down here, Kole Taylor,” Faneca said. “This kid is going to be a stud. He just needs to keep his nose clean and he’s going to be a draft pick.”

All the pieces are there for a good SEC tight end. But he’s also a three-star prospect from remote Colorado being asked to do a lot in just his second season in the SEC. There are plenty of ways this can go.

And yeah, it would be in the back of anyone’s mind, “Am I just going to be known for my shoe falling off?” It’s up to him what the rest of his story will be.

“He’ll have an opportunity this year to show he’s not just worth the reputation of a shoe,” Jade said. “He’ll make a name for himself other than a shoe, for sure.”

(Top photo: Stephen Lew / USA TODAY Sports)

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