Sam Roush

Sam Roush was born in Atlanta but calling him a Georgia kid would be selling his story short. His family moved seven times across three continents before he settled at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, with stops in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta along the way. In Indonesia, he played rugby for the Jakarta Komodo Rugby Club, and during high school he competed on a world championship X-Prize Ocean Quest Engineering team, the kind of resume detail that makes you do a double take. Football bloodlines run thick in this family, though: his father Luke played defensive back at Duke, his maternal grandfather Phil Olsen suited up for the Rams, Broncos, and Bills, and his great uncle is Pro Football Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen. Roush earned Tennessee Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors as a senior in 2021 and helped lead Lipscomb to a D2-AA state championship, drawing four-star ratings from ESPN (81/100), 247 Sports (90/100), and Rivals (5.8/95%). Stanford got a prospect who needed time to cook, and Roush never tried to rush the process. He appeared in all 48 games across his four-year Cardinal career, working his way from special teams as a freshman in 2022 to a full-time starter by his junior season. His sophomore year in 2023 produced 28 catches for 288 yards across 10 starts, highlighted by a seven-catch, 61-yard day against Washington State that hinted at what was coming. As a junior in 2024, he started all 12 games and pulled in 40 receptions for 344 yards and two touchdowns while picking up ACC All-Academic Team honors. The numbers climbed every single year, and by his senior campaign the arrow was pointing steeply upward. Roush's 2025 season was comfortably his best. He finished with 49 catches for 545 yards and two touchdowns, ranking second on the team in both receptions and receiving yards while leading all ACC tight ends in receiving yardage. An eight-catch, 104-yard performance against Pittsburgh made him just the eighth Stanford tight end to crack 100 receiving yards in a game since 1995, and a 69-yard catch-and-run touchdown against Boston College showcased a gear that his size would suggest he does not have. He became one of only five FBS tight ends with multiple 50-plus yard receptions during the season. The accolades stacked up accordingly: All-ACC Second Team from the coaches, the Go Bowling Military Bowl STEM Scholar-Athlete award, and both the Al Masters Award and Tommy Vardell Award as a senior. He closed his career with 34 starts, 30 of them consecutive, and earned a Senior Bowl invitation that gave NFL evaluators an extended look at the complete package.