Matthew Coller: Vikings rookie Trey Knox is playing because his dad couldn't

Knox's father will be on his mind as he debuts for the Vikings in Saturday's preseason game

Vikings TE Trey Knox and his dad. They have built a special relationship around football. / Purple Insider

EAGAN — Last Saturday afternoon, Trey Knox kept getting the football. JJ McCarthy checked down to him, then found him over the middle, then hit him on an out-breaking route. Catch, catch, catch. The rookie tight end seemed to make the most of his biggest opportunity in practice yet with two experienced players Robert Tonyan and N’Keal Harry out due to injury.

Knox has a lot on his plate in his first NFL training camp. He only switched over to tight end three years ago after playing wide receiver in high school and during his first three seasons at Arkansas. It’s hard enough for a young player to stand out in a tight end room filled with veterans like TJ Hockenson, Johnny Mundt and Josh Oliver but doing so while still growing into the job is even harder.

Knox is also carrying the weight of his father’s health condition along with him as he starts his pro career in Minnesota.

During COVID lockdowns Trey’s dad William Knox suffered a stroke. The young four-star recruit from Murfreesboro, Tennessee was still able to go home on breaks to see the man who guided him along his football journey but it wasn’t easy.

“It’s just hard seeing a person and knowing who they were and then them being completely different,” Trey told Purple Insider.

The 6-foot-3, 240-pound tight end transferred to South Carolina for his final year of college in 2023 and caught 37 passes, putting his name on the map as a potential draft pick or priority free agent. In the run up to his first NFL camp, Knox spent three weeks in Tennessee working out with other tight ends, including Hockenson and George Kittle. While he was there, he stayed in his parents’ house where William is still recovering.

“It’s just hard man,” Knox said. “He’s doing physical therapy, which is a huge plus. He doesn’t walk the fastest or stand up the straightest, it’s the small things we’re trying to get back.”

The outlook for Trey’s father is positive as he continues to get back his motor functions. But it has been particularly difficult for Trey because he has always been driven by the fact that he excelled at football when his dad never had the chance to play.

When William was in grade school it was discovered that he had a brain tumor. Luckily he was still able to have a normal childhood and use his enjoyment for sports on the baseball field but he was not allowed to play any contact sports. Absolutely no football. Ever. At all.

So what do you think Mr. Knox’s favorite sport became? Football, of course.

“He’s the rebellious type,” Trey said of his dad. “He probably just liked it because his mom said he couldn’t play.”

When Trey was five years old, his dad got him right out on the football field with the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. William coached Trey from ages 5-10. He bounced back and forth between running back and offensive line depending on the age bracket. Sometimes he was too big to be a ball carrier, sometimes he was the best ball carrier. It wasn’t too long before it was clear that the coach’s kid was pretty good.

“When I was like eight, one of the years I could play running back, I had like five touchdowns in one game and I was like, ‘maybe I’m not so bad,’” Trey said.

Being the coach’s kid had its disadvantages, as you might expect. If Trey made a mistake, he was going to be running laps. The ride home after bad games would include full breakdowns of what went wrong.

Trey loved it though. William would spend his days working as an electrician and then pick up Trey from school and head to practice. That was their routine every day.

“He instilled the work ethic because he was hard-working man himself,” Trey said. “He put my needs above himself. I never had to work a job in high school.”

Once Trey reached middle school his dad was no longer his coach on the field but he never stopped coaching his son. Through a trainer that worked with Trey, William got to know former NFL cornerback Ray Buchanan. William would pick Buchanan’s brain — along with any other coaches he could connect with — to learn more about the game that he could pass along to Trey.

“I would walk in the house and he’d be like, ‘hey, Trey, draw up a cover-3 for me,’” Trey said. “I’m like, ‘bro, I just got home from practice, what are you doing?’ This is in middle school. But it helped me become a better football player. That’s what he was doing constantly. ‘Hey, draw up Tampa-2 right here.’ Alright, dad. ‘What does this guy have? What does this guy have?’”

When he started making noise as a wide receiver in high school with Division-I potential, Trey felt like he understood how defenses worked due to his dad’s X’s and O’s grillings.

“I was ahead of the curve,” Knox said. “That’s why I was able to go out there in my freshman year of college and produce right away. It was easier, you’re not playing slow, you can diagnose what’s happening on the back end. He did me a huge solid. At that moment in time I was like, ‘this is so annoying,’ but now that I look back [it helped].”

It definitely helped. Trey ended up being a four-star recruit and the fourth ranked player in the state of Tennessee by Rivals. He chose Arkansas but also had interest from Florida, Tennessee, Ohio State and Penn State.

Over four seasons with the Razorbacks, Knox caught 81 passes for 883 yards and nine touchdowns. He transferred to South Carolina for his final season in 2023. He was signed as a UDFA by the Vikings.

In hindsight Trey sees now that, amidst all of those random lessons and hard practices and drives home where they either celebrated victory or bemoaned defeat there was a lot of bonding time between father and son, a lot of lessons learned about how to navigate the world.

“To have a strong father figure is what also helped me to be the man I am today. Football and life have a lot of parallels,” Trey said. “They go hand in hand. He would teach me things in football that would also relate to life.”

As Trey gets set for his first preseason game, coincidentally against the Raiders, his dad will be in Tennessee continuing his recovery. He will be filled with pride as his son plays the game that they both love at the highest level.

“I do a lot of this stuff for him,” Trey said.