THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: The night Timberlake played against an eventual first-round NFL draft choice ...

When tight end Colston Loveland, who starred at Gooding High in south-central Idaho before going on to win a national title at Michigan, was selected with the 10th overall pick in the NFL draft in April, the pride was felt all the way in North Idaho. 

“I was super excited for the kid,” Timberlake High football coach Kelly Amos said. “It’s cool to see a kid from Idaho end up in that position. The fact he was the No. 1 tight end in the draft ... it’s cool for us to be able to say we’ve seen that.”

Amos and his Timberlake players saw Colston Loveland up close and personal on Nov. 5, 2021, when the Tigers played at Gooding in the first round of the state 3A football playoffs. 

AT THE time, Loveland was a senior at Gooding, and had verbally committed to Michigan and coach Jim Harbaugh, who made the trip to Idaho himself as part of the recruiting process. 

Loveland played a hybrid tight end/slotback/H back position on offense for Gooding, and also played defensive end. 

As you might expect, Timberlake focused its game plan on Loveland. 

“Offensively, we had a coverage that we called Wolverine, because he had already committed to Michigan,” Amos recalled. “We had three levels of coverage on him ... and in our stat book, he only had three catches against us, and all three catches, we had all three guys draped all over him, and he still was able to catch the football.” 

Loveland also carried the ball 12 times for 61 yards, all on fly sweeps. 

“And when he went into that fly motion, it was coming to him,” Amos said. “They had one auxiliary play off of it, and it wasn’t really a factor, so our whole plan was built around what he did. When he went in motion, we had guys flying to that corner on that fly. And he still got 61 yards, and he was dragging our little guys, and we were chewin’ on his ankle. 

“Offensively, he wasn’t really a huge impact,” Amos said of Loveland. “Their 250-pound quarterback was a bigger factor. He wasn’t a huge factor on offense, but they really didn’t need him to be a huge impact. They had a good running back, and their linemen were huge. He could have been a bigger impact if they’d given him the ball more. For us he would have been a fullback, and he would have carried the ball 30 times a game.” 

Quarterback Kurtis Adkinson ran for 143 yards for Gooding, and fullback Tayten Gillett ran for 129. 

“It was one of those things, we knew they could run the football really well, ... we kinda had to prep for one thing or the other,” Amos said. “And so we said, we’re going to take him (Loveland) out, we’re going to make them beat us with their next best thing. And they were able to run the football against us pretty effectively and truthfully, they were just really, really big. The other kid was a pretty good little running back — little on their team. He would have been a normal sized guy for us.” 

AS TALENTED as Loveland was on offense, Amos said he was a bigger factor on defense against Timberlake. 

“As we watched film, we thought that he overplayed stuff, and he was a little bit over-aggressive,” Amos said. “So we spent the whole week trying to influence him out, and run toward him but influence him away. And then we just realized that, no, he wasn’t overplaying stuff, he was just a really, really good football player.” 

After about a quarter and a half, Amos and Timberlake offensive coordinator Brian Kluss came to the conclusion: "We cannot run toward him at all.” 

“And so we started to do some pre-snap motion to switch our strength, and ran away from him,” Amos said. “And it kind of changed the game, because we would get 4 or 5 yards before he caught up to the backside of it and made the tackle.  

“And then we thought, he’s overplaying this ... so we tried to boot against him once. And he drilled our quarterback like 7, 8 yards deep. He was knifing really, really hard to get to our run, and so we thought, we got him. We’re going to boot this, and I had a good athletic quarterback, had good speed. And he put the ball out for the fake, and booted out, and Boom! — Colston Loveland, right there. 

“I was like, OK, we weren’t able to trick him.” 

STILL, TIMBERLAKE kept it close, thanks to an effective ground game that kept the ball away from Gooding somewhat. It was a one-score game at the end, with the Tigers misfiring on a fourth-down pass deep in Gooding territory, and the home team running out the clock for a 28-21 victory. 

"Where I really got my biggest impression of him was the spring before his senior year, because he turned out for track,” Amos said. “He’s a 6-4, 6-5 kid, not as big as he is now, and he threw shot and disc his junior year. He was a 48-foot shot putter and a 150-foot discus thrower. And he ran a leg in one of their relays and I was like, ‘That kid is legit.’ 

“So when we saw him on the football field, and started watching film ... Oh, my goodness, what an extraordinary talent. When the (recruiting) talk was going on, I couldn’t imagine Michigan and Alabama were going after this kid. I can’t imagine he’s that good. Then I saw him his junior year at (state) track, and, ‘Oh. I see what they’re seeing.’ They’re seeing a 6-5 kid that moves like a 5-10, 180-pound kid ... and just moved really well — super athletic, fantastic hands. The three catches he had, if he didn’t catch it, it was going to be PI. I had guys draped on his arms. We literally told our guys, if that ball’s coming to him, I want you to mug him. If we get a penalty, we get a penalty ... I wanted them to stop trying to throw it to him.  

“He was really a special talent, athletically.” 

LOVELAND JOINS Jonah Elliss (Moscow High) as eventual NFL draft picks Amos and his staff have coached against at Timberlake. Elliss, a linebacker, was a third-round pick of the Denver Broncos in 2024. When Amos was at Moscow High, he played against Pullman High quarterback Timm Rosenbach, who played for the Cardinals and the Saints. 

Loveland was drafted by the Chicago Bears. 

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t see (Loveland) as a first-round draft choice, because I’ve never seen one,” Amos said. “We’ve seen some elite-level guys, but I’d never seen a first-round draft choice. Now I have. Now I know what they look like.” 

And seeing one drafted from Idaho ...  

“Truthfully, stuff like that, it brings coaches into Idaho,” Amos said. “It just helps. Once you see a school get a legit guy, you start seeing these college coaches coming in and seeing if there are other legit guys. It’s good for us. 

“I’d like to see that kid (Loveland) do well.” 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.