Indiana Mr. Football High School Career
To know the story of the hard-running, alligator-owning Carson Steele, you will need to travel back to Sept. 1, 2017. It was on that date when the then 14-year-old Steele jumped on to the Indiana high school football scene with a 238 yard, three touchdown performance in a 31-10 Center Grove win over Carmel.
After finishing his freshman campaign with 1,700 yards and 20 touchdowns, he would follow it up with a monster 2,270 yard and 29 touchdown rushing season as a sophomore.
This is when disaster struck for Steele as a pulled hamstring and then a broken ankle sidelined Steele after just three games. However, it was a magical 2020 season where everything went right for Steele and the Trojans as they plowed through the competition en route to an undefeated state championship run that was the catalyst to a 30 game win streak that lasted over the span of three seasons.
After winning the 2020 Mr. Football with an accumulation of 6,300 total yards and 85 total touchdowns over the span of just 42 games.
Due to missed junior season and injury history it was Ball State that was the only FBS program to give Steele an opportunity at the next level.
Ball State gave him a shot
It was in Muncie that Steele made an immediate impact with 891 rushing yards and six touchdowns as a true freshman en route to a six win season and winning the teams most outstanding freshman award. Following that up, he would explode onto the scene with a 1,556 yard and 14 touchdown season before transferring to UCLA where he saw a smaller workload with 847 yards on the season.
Carson's Move to UCLA
After just three seasons at the collegiate level, Steele felt it was time to move to the professional ranks as he declared for the NFL draft, foregoing his senior season.
Despite excelling at the collegiate level, Steele lacked the long-speed and overall quick burst agility that scouts look for in a typical running back. Come draft week, Steele sat through 257 names being called — including 19 running backs — before hitting free agency where he would sign a deal with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Image Via Getty
NFL Opportunity
While signing an undrafted free agent deal is a blessing for many football players, Steele still had a long couple months ahead of him to try and make the 53-man roster.
This time was broken up into three chunks: rookie mini camp, training camp and pre-season. At any given time Steele could be waived from the roster and have his NFL dreams crushed, but that would not be the case for the Greenwood native.
Making it through both sections of team camps, the 2020 Mr. Football had to put the work on the field during the pre-season. During the three games, Steele did what he does best and put on a show.
With 11 carries, 87 yards and two touchdowns, amongst running backs with at least 10 carries he ranked first in missed tackle rate, yards after contact per rush and first-down-plus-touchdown conversion rate. In layman's term, he made people miss and over half of his carries resulted in a first down or touchdown.
On Aug. 27, nearly seven years after the famous Carmel game, he would officially land on the Chiefs 53-man roster, listed as the starting fullback on the current depth chart.
Steele joins 2022 Rams draft pick DB Russ Yeast and 2024 Bears draft pick DL Austin Booker as current Center Grove Trojans in the NFL.
