Jamel Howse

Physical Profile

Measured 6-3, 215 with an 83-inch wingspan at the Carolina Coaches Combine (4/14/2024), and is listed at 6-4, 240 on App State's roster — a legitimate Power-conference frame at the position with the length to win outside the framework of his body. The testing from that 2024 session is the honest part of the file: a 4.68 forty is a real number for a tight end and confirms straight-line juice, but a 22.8-inch vertical and 9-8 broad are well below what you want and point to underdeveloped lower-body explosion. The 4.37 short shuttle is functional, not twitchy. Caveat those numbers heavily — they predate the weight gain, so the speed is likely down and the strength up from what's on that sheet.

Play Style

A flex/move tight end who played substantially as an oversized receiver at Newberry — split out, slot-aligned, and worked vertically down the seam or as a back-shoulder target on the boundary. He is a build-up strider rather than an instant-acceleration athlete; he covers ground once he's up to speed and separates late in the route rather than at the break. Ball skills are functional and he tracks the deep ball well over either shoulder, though he catches too many balls into his frame instead of extending. Not a run-after-catch creator — he falls forward for the extra yard rather than making the first man miss. On the rare in-line snaps he's a positional, get-in-the-way blocker who wins with length before he wins with strength.

Strengths

• Frame and length — 83-inch wingspan on a 6-4 build gives him a genuine high-point radius and a wide throwing window; this is why he was a red-zone problem in high school (20-plus career touchdowns).
• Vertical speed for the position — 4.68 at 215 is seam-stretching speed, and it's the trait that drove the early four-star composite and offers from Louisville, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Cincinnati and South Florida.
• Production at volume, not just on splash plays — roughly 52 catches for 686 yards and six touchdowns as a senior (some outlets list 46-613-5) on top of 2,000-plus career receiving yards; he was the offense's featured target, not a play-action bonus.
• Demonstrated body-development trajectory — adding close to 30 pounds between his junior and senior years while remaining the primary pass-catcher shows he can take on mass without the game getting slower on him.

Areas to Improve

• Lower-body explosiveness — a 22.8-inch vertical is the single weakest number in the file and shows up as an inability to win contested balls he should win on length alone, and as a soft first step off the line. This is a straightforward college strength-program fix and should be the priority.
• In-line blocking at the point of attack — he was used as a slot/flex receiver in a high school offense that fed him targets, and the 215-pound version of him was not asked to hold an edge against a college defensive end. At 240 he has the mass to develop here, but hand placement, leverage and finishing are all projection right now, not film.
• Route detail underneath — the vertical stem and the boundary fade are established; the option, stick and shallow-cross work that gets a college tight end on the field on early downs is where his tape thins out.
• Consistency of evaluation across services — 247's own scouts had him at 88 (three stars, #37 TE) while the composite floated him to four stars, and his composite slid from a top-175 national number to roughly #342 over the course of his senior cycle. That gap is the market telling you the traits outran the play strength.

College Projection

Realistically a redshirt-year body in 2026. The App State staff signed him as a developmental Y/H with a Power-conference frame at a Sun Belt price, and the honest path is: year one in the weight room fixing the lower half and learning to block in-line, year two as a two-tight-end package and red-zone specialist, and a starting job by year three if the blocking comes. If the vertical and broad numbers move meaningfully in a college program, the receiving ceiling is higher than the recruiting slide suggested — a 6-4, 240 tight end who ran 4.68 at 215 is a matchup problem in the Sun Belt. If they don't, he's a rotational, situational pass-catcher. Portal risk is real in both directions given he was a Power-conference-caliber recruit who ended up at the Group of Five level.

NFL Outlook

Late-round-to-priority-free-agent range if the development curve holds, and that is a genuine 'if.' The frame, length and timed speed are the NFL-relevant traits and they are real. What is missing is the explosive-athlete profile — a sub-30-inch vertical at the tight end position is a hard filter at the next level, and no NFL team is drafting a move tight end who can't block in-line without elite separation ability to compensate. The most likely outcome is a productive Sun Belt career that draws a camp invite. The one scenario that changes the math is a full physical transformation in a college strength program plus a portal move up to a Power conference for a proven-production season — that path exists for him, but it has to be earned, not assumed from the four-star composite.

Best Fit

A spread offense that flexes the tight end out and attacks the seam — 11-personnel with a Y who is functionally a big slot, not a fullback with hands. He needs a program with a serious strength staff and a position coach who will teach him to block from the ground up rather than hiding him at receiver, because the blocking is the only thing standing between his frame and an every-down role. App State's system, which has historically used tight ends in the pass game, is a reasonable landing spot; a heavy 12-personnel, gap-scheme, in-line-first offense would be the worst possible fit and would likely bury him.