From Ice Cream to a Ballroom Injury: How Grant Seagren Went from Nebraska Walk-On to Starting Tackle at OSU

STILLWATER — In just three years, Grant Seagren has gone from a walk-on tight end to a starting tackle of a Power Conference football team.

In looking at Seagren now (listed at 6-foot-6, 311 pounds), it’s hard to imagine him playing anywhere but the offensive line. When Seagren got onto Nebraska’s campus in the summer of 2023, he wasn’t sure what position he’d was going to play, and on that first day, they sent him with the O-line.

Seagren was a tight end and a defensive lineman at Oakland-Craig High School in Nebraska. Oakland is a city of about 1,400 people in northeast Nebraska. Being a smalltown kid, he also played basketball and participated on the track team. Although he might’ve not had the resources that some of the larger high schools do, Seagren said that diverse sports background is helping him as an offensive tackle.

“Playing something like basketball definitely helps with footwork on the edge,” Seagren said. “Or doing something like track teaches you how to stay stable and strong in lifts because that’s what you do when you throw. It’s like all those things progress and help you build into being a better player in your one sport that you do.”

Seagren said he was about 250 pounds when he got to Lincoln, so he started eating. He said he was putting down about a quart of ice cream every few days. The flavor? Whatever was on sale because he was a walk-on. He said he’d eat calorie-dense foods and then workout hard the next day “so you didn’t get fat.”

The method seemed to work. After being listed at 260 in 2023, Seagren was listed at 305 in 2024. He took part in seven of the Cornhuskers’ games as a redshirt freshman before hitting the transfer portal this offseason.

“Talking to one of their assistants at Nebraska when he was in the portal, and they said, ‘We didn’t particularly want to lose him,’” OSU interim head coach Doug Meacham said. “When we first got him, he was super raw, super green. He’s kind of developed into that with being thrown into the fire. You learn faster when you’re actually playing and watch yourself do it. You can read about it, talk about it, practice it, but when you’re actually doing it and seeing yourself do it, it expedites that process. He’s gotten a lot better pretty quickly.”

Seagren was thrown into the fire in a rather unusual way.

He played just five snaps in the Cowboys’ season-opening win against UT-Martin, with all of those coming on field goal or extra point tries, according to Pro Football Focus.

But his entire season changed in a hotel ballroom in Oregon. OSU starting left tackle Markell Samuel suffered a foot injury in the Cowboys’ hotel walkthrough. Seagren said he didn’t immediately know it was all that serious, but by the end of the walkthrough, he had been told that he was going to start the next day against the Ducks. Seagren started on the right side after Nuku Mafi flipped from right to left to cover for Samuel.

That’s a lot to take in, but Seagren, only a redshirt sophomore, recalled the situation with a level head.

“The expectation every week is that everybody that travels is ready to go,” Seagren said. “That week was just kind of another thing like that. You rotate, and everybody gets reps going through the same plays and getting ready for that situation. Getting to know the night before, you just gotta prepare yourself to know that you’re going into a big game, and you gotta do your best to perform and do your job.”

Opponents have had 121 pressure opportunities against Seagren since he took over, and he’s given up just six pressures, and no sacks, in that time. Seagren’s season PFF grade of 63.8 ranks second among OSU offensive lineman, trailing only guard Noah McKinney.

When Meacham spoke about Seagren on Monday, the interim coach couldn’t stop talking about how big the former walk-on is, and Meacham also mentioned that Seagren’s football career might not stop in college.

“He’s gotten so much better, and he is a massive individual,” Meacham said. “He’s got a bright future ahead of him. Really like what he’s doing. …

“I think he’s all in, and I think he knows what his future is and what he might could be doing in three years. And he’s got the measurables. He’s massive.”