Fate — in the form of an injury to Dalls Clark — gave Jacob Tamme an opportunity to start at tight end for the Indianapolis Colts. From there, it’s on him, and the former Wildcat star is clearly demonstrating that he was prepared to take advantage of the opportunity that came his way.
Sunday, in a loss at Philadelphia, Tamme caught 11 balls for 108 yards. And for the second week in a row, the one-time Boyle County High School standout caught a touchdown pass from Peyton Manning.
“I felt pretty calm. I felt really confident in what I was doing,” Tamme told www.tomleachky.com after his first-ever NFL start the week before. “You know, when you play with Peyton and the guys we have on our team, it is easy to go out there and play with confidence, so I feel like I can go out there and do some good things and move the ball. It all clicked.”
Tamme reflected on his days at Boyle County, playing for coach Chuck Smith, who is now the linebackers coach at UK. Tamme said he felt their teams there were always better prepared than their opponents. He said that focus on preparation continued at Kentucky and it is just the same with the Colts’ organization.
“Our walkthroughs (the day before a game) are very serious,” Tamme said. “It is getting in the right spot, taking the right steps, putting your body in the right position and it’s a lot of things. On defense, for example, we work on tackling. In practice, you can’t afford to tackle (for fear of injury), but we work on getting your body in the right position for game day. I think we have a lot of guys who take that very seriously and that type of preparation helps us a lot, the fact that we hone in on that and get our mind and body prepared for what it will be like on Sunday.”
Once Clark went down with a season-ending injury, did Tamme do extra work with Manning to develop chemistry between QB and receiver? It turns out, Tamme was already doing that.
“We have been doing extra work for several weeks now,” Tamme said. “We have been doing it a lot and I have been doing extra film study and we have been going over things. It is one of those things where, when your teammates have confidence in you to get in there and do the job — and especially with somebody like Dallas going down because you can’t really replace him — (it motivates you). I just go in there and be myself and do what I can do and I think that can help us. It is fun to be a part of it, and when guys have confidence in you to be a part of this offense, it makes it even better.”
Tamme had the chance to play in a Super Bowl last season and even made a tackle on kickoff coverage. But surely that first NFL TD catch was a special moment.
“Well, it felt like touchdowns did at Kentucky,” Tamme said of his touchdown in the Monday night win over Houston. “You have a euphoric moment where you don’t know what is going on and the guys come over and celebrate and it’s a good thing. It was nice to get in the end zone but even better to help us move the ball and get a big win that we really needed.”
Tamme’s opportunity to move up the depth chart at tight end also got him another first — having his picture in Sports Illustrated. The magazine’s section on fantasy leagues recently featured a large picture of Tamme, touting him as a valuable pickup because of how many passes the Colts throw to their tight end (former Wildcat wide receiver Steve Johnson was also mentioned given his emergence in Buffalo’s passing game).
“I heard more stuff about fantasy leagues than I ever had in my whole life,” Tamme said. “I told somebody that it’s an honor to be in Sports Illustrated but I wish it had something to do with actually playing. Hopefully, we have some more weeks like (the win over Houston) and I can keep getting catches and help us move the ball. Fantasy stuff is all fun and games for people like that. But hopefully we keep focused on the right stuff and those things will come.”
The week before his first NFL start, Tamme had the chance to return to UK because the Colts were coming off a bye week and he had a few days off. Coach Joker Phillips had Tamme address the current Wildcat team after a practice. There has been a steady parade of former Cats in the NFL who have been stopping by in recent weeks and they share one trait — a tremendous pride in what the UK program accomplished over the past four years.
“You hope we’ll be able to get back together one day and say we were part of starting the time when we believed we could win the SEC,” Tamme said. “There was a time not too long ago when that was completely out of the question. When we were trying to get things turned around, the main thing was we just believed. I know it sounds cliché, but we had a bunch of guys that did believe and had some talent, too.”
