Carter Fouty is a senior offensive lineman who started all 13 games last season. A mechanical engineering major from Oregon, Ohio, Fouty earned Academic All-MAC honors in 2024.
 
On his family and growing up in the Toledo area
I grew up in Oregon, about 20 minutes east of Toledo. My mother and father are Carey and Cynthia Fouty. I have a little sister, Sophia and an older sister, Olivia, who played college hoops at Eastern Michigan. She went into coaching and is now the director of operations for women's basketball at Tulane. Growing up, we were real close with my mom's side of the family. They all live within 30 minutes of each other. There's a lot of cousins. It was about 30 of us in total.

Did you play a lot of hoops growing up?
My mom and dad tried to get me to play, but I didn't like it because I always fouled out. My dad played at Owens Community College. He won a national championship there. My mom played at Owens too. That's how they met.

When did you start playing football and when did you get big?
I started playing tackle football in the East Toledo League in the third grade, and I've been playing ever since. My freshman year of high school, I was 6-2, 160 pounds. Then I gained 40 pounds a year, every year after that. My junior year is when I finally started on varsity. I was like 6-4, 240, and then I was 300 pounds for my senior year. I was a very late bloomer.

You started your college career at the Air Force Academy. What inspired you to go there and what was that process like?
They were my biggest offer out of high school. They wanted me to play defense. There were MAC schools interested in me but they wanted me to play offense.  I didn't want to give up on the idea of playing defense. So I went out there in June of 2020. I graduated basic training, but I didn't like it out there. It was too far from home. And then my grandmother got sick. So I decided I'd rather be close to home should anything happen. I came home that September because during COVID they were allowing you to leave and come back either after a semester or a full year with no repercussions. So I came home and I decided it was better if I just stayed here.

How did you end up playing for the Rockets?
When I came home from Air Force, I didn't think I was playing football again. I enrolled at UT as a regular student. That spring, around February, I decided to try to walk on. So I reached out to my high school coach, Coach (Greg) Dempsey, and he talked to Coach Candle and Coach Hallett. They said they'd let me walk on here. I started as a walk-on in the summer of '21.

In that time when you weren't playing football and still kind of figuring out what to do, was that a hard time for you?
That was tremendously hard. Before that, I felt like I never quit anything, and it took a long while to grow and learn that I wasn't supposed to be there (Air Force). I'm very happy for where I'm at now. I never would have had anything happen in the last five years if I didn't come home.

So you started as a walk-on. How did things progress for you in the first year and going forward?
That first year, I was figuring out a whole new side of the ball. I played a little offense in high school, but I never focused on any of the footwork or the steps. So I was like a clean slate, trying to learn all the plays, where to go, how to move. I was pretty far down the depth chart. I didn't travel. I think I only dressed for like three games in my freshman year. Then I got better that following spring. I worked my way up to the two-deep that next fall. I made the travel squad every week. Then last year was my first year as a starter.

How do you see the offensive line being different this year?
Just more experience. Now we have three guys that started all 13 games last year and Stephen Gales also started a couple games. Last year, we didn't have a single person on the line that started an FBS game. It's really hard to compare, but I'm very excited for how this year's going to go.

What are you studying and why?
I'm studying mechanical engineering. I started off studying bioengineering. My original plan was to be a bio engineer and then go premed. And then I did an internship over the summer at NSG. They're a glass-making factory over the river, right by the casino. And I really loved the process engineer and the mechanical side of it. So I decided to switch two years ago. My dad owns a shop in Oregon, where they do water-jet cutting. My great grandfather started it in 1966. And now the plan is for me to take that over.