Caiden Abbs played basketball and baseball at Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Carroll High School in addition to starring as a football lineman. He was a rare three-sport athlete in a school of 2,700 students.
What kind of basketball player was he?
“I was like a Dennis Rodman type,” Abbs said, smiling. “I was the dirty guy in there, just getting the rebounds. I was trying not to foul out.”
And baseball? Abbs was primarily a designated hitter, taking a healthy cut at every opportunity.
“I’m too slow to do anything else, so I had to swing hard,” he said.
The aggressive approach carried over to football, where Abbs was an all-state pick in Indiana’s highest division, Class 6A.
Abbs was in attack mode in the classroom as well, earning straight A's. And now, the redshirt freshman offensive lineman is majoring in engineering at Illinois State, posting a perfect 4.0 grade point average as a freshman.
“The smartest guy on the team?” a reporter asked Coach Brock Spack.
He’s more than that, Spack said.
“I ran into the Dean of the College of Engineering and he said, ‘You know, the top student in our engineering school is your guy, Caiden Abbs,’” said ISU’s 18th-year head coach. “I said, ‘Yeah, he’s pretty smart.’ He said, ‘He’s REALLY smart.’”
In an era of NIL and the transfer portal, Abbs is a throwback … a student-athlete as invested in academics as athletics.
It was a deciding factor in the recruiting process.
“The thing about football and engineering, it doesn’t mix too well,” Abbs said. “A lot of schools were saying, ‘Hey, we can’t really fit if you’re going to do engineering.’ Coach Spack was very welcoming and with the new engineering facility here, it was a perfect fit. I was so excited to come here.”
Listed No. 2 at center on the depth chart, Abbs hopes to play an expanded role in getting ISU back to the FCS national championship game. The 6-foot-3, 310-pounder played in one game last year, a start in an overtime win over North Alabama. He is excited about the talent and potential of this team.
Yet, he is just as pumped up about the new home for ISU’s College of Engineering opening this semester at 1711 General Electric Road, Bloomington.
“I’m so excited to go to a building that’s specialized for engineering. There are so many new resources that we’re going to be able to use for our semester-long projects,” Abbs said. “Even though it’s a bit of a ways off campus, we’re going to be able to get in there with a key card whenever we want.
“I’ve been able to look at it a little bit, see some pictures and some virtual tours. It looks great and there is a lot of space to collaborate with my classmates.”
On the field, Abbs feels better equipped to play after getting “stronger, more explosive” in the offseason under the guidance of strength and conditioning coach Matt Nicholson.
He said he also is more familiar with the offense and has learned to “keep going to the whistle” on every play.
“He’s come a long way,” ISU offensive line coach Harold Etheridge said. “He had a good spring, he’s having a good camp. He’d be a guy who if my starter [senior Brayden Jellison] went down, I’d be very comfortable sticking him in there.”
Etheridge has coached at Kentucky, Indiana State, Army, Georgia State, Washington State, Northern Illinois and North Texas in addition to two stints at ISU. Asked if he’d coached an engineering student, he replied, “I think this is my first-ever in 40-plus years.”
“He has football smarts, he’s academically smart, he’s a coach’s son. He gets it, you know?” Etheridge said. “He’s been brought up the right way. He’s a quality kid.”
Abbs also is “nasty” on the field, Spack said.
“As nice a kid as he is, when he gets on the football field he’s a finisher,” ISU’s head coach said. “He’s that guy … one of those who’s really smart, but he has some edge to him. It’s hard to find those guys. Most of them aren’t that physical and tough. But he’s got it, man.”
Abbs’ father, Troy Abbs, is head football coach at Division III Trine University, located 42 miles north of Fort Wayne. Troy Abbs played football and baseball at Hanover College and won a scholar-athlete award.
Football is a family passion. And Illinois State is the ideal place to play, Caiden Abbs insists.
“I think ISU is very unique in the fact they’re going to let you study what you want and let you play football the way you want,” he said. “There’s not many schools like that.”
