Byron's Carson Heimer is Post Bulletin All-Area Football Player of the Year

Dec. 2—BYRON, Minn. — What might have been.

Byron do-everything football player Carson Heimer can't help but wonder.

"It was a struggle just watching my teammates," said Heimer, Byron's ultra-dynamic running back and safety, who missed his team's final three games with a foot injury. "It was just that feeling that you can't do anything about the game."

Heimer had become oh-so-familiar with the opposite feeling through his team's first seven games of the season. Then, he was carving his name into every outcome, the 6-foot-1, 195-pound senior with sprinter's speed and snapping strength continually jolting teams on both sides of the ball.

There was a 262-yard rushing game with three touchdowns against Kasson-Mantorville, a 288-yard rushing game against Hill-Murray, and a 131-yard rushing effort with four touchdowns— in the first quarter — against Faribault, to name just a few.

And there was one crushing hit after another from his safety position, including one that is still echoing in Stewartville.

Through their first seven games of the season — all of them wins — Heimer was the resident Superman on a team flush with talented players. He rushed for 1,321 yards, 18 touchdowns and an astounding 9.1 yards per carry on offense, and on defense was good for 52 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, two pass interceptions, six pass breakups, and one forced fumble. And he did that against some of the best competition in the state.

All of it led to Byron being on top of the world and the state rankings, No. 1 in Class 4A with a perfect 7-0 record with one regular-season game against Totino-Grace to go.

Byron looked to be the best team with the best player in Class 4A, one seemingly set up to win its first football state championship in school history. They were doing it behind the guy who is the 2025 Post Bulletin All-Area Player of the Year, Carson Heimer.

And then it happened.

In Week 7, against rival and fellow powerhouse Stewartville, Heimer ended up with severe pain in his right foot, at the base of his big toe. He played through it and finished with 111 yards rushing despite being unable to make his usual cuts. He was a terror on defense, though, and registered a tackle that was so loud it sent a chill through the Stewartville crowd.

"The pain was pretty bad, but in the moment, I didn't know what it was," Heimer said of his injury.

Later, after two weeks of being sidelined, Heimer got definitive word of what he was dealing with. An MRI revealed he had completely torn his Lisfranc ligament, a band located mid-foot that plays a crucial role in maintaining the stability and alignment of the foot.

Surgery, which was recently done, was required with a long layoff to follow. Heimer is hoping to be back for the end of the track and field season in late May and early June. He longs for that, as he is one of the premier sprinters in the state and someone who missed the final two-thirds of last track season with an injury.

But the finality of being told his football season was done was almost too much.

"When I found out, it takes a second to sink in to realize that my season is over," Heimer said. "I tried to have a positive attitude about it, but watching was tough. But I'm fortunate that I'll be playing at the next level, so I am thankful for that."

Indeed, Heimer will play next season at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he's projected as a safety. Heimer also had an offer from Division I University of South Dakota.

"I'm very excited to get to the next stage of my football life," Heimer said. "I can't wait to come back from my injury and work even more."

Byron went on to beat Totino-Grace in its final regular-season game, get a bye in the first round of the Section 1, Class 4A playoffs, then romp past Winona 40-0 in the semifinals. But in the championship game, with seven Byron players out with injuries, including their main man, Heimer, Byron dropped its only game of the season, losing to No. 3-ranked Kasson-Mantorville 31-28.

It ended a season that had had so much hope. It was one that had been built in the summer with Heimer and so many on this senior-dominated Byron team having worked out endlessly together in order to have a championship year.

What they were left with instead were some glowing memories of what was shaping up as the best season Byron had ever had.

So many of those memories involved Heimer, who was playing at a level no one had seen before.

"I credit our offensive line," said Heimer, also a standout student who will pursue aviation at MSU, Mankato. "There was not a weak spot on it, and that was the big thing about it. It's hard to fill those positions as well as we did. All season, those guys were technique-driven and focused on the little things, which is what made them great. We had four seniors on our line, and all of them were leaders."

They helped take Heimer, who had been steadily working out at ETS since he was in seventh grade, from very good to a class by himself.

"Offensively, you miss him because he is a home-run threat," Byron coach Ben Halder said. "As a defense, you worry that if he breaks a tackle, he is gone. He is a verified 10.8 seconds in the 100-(meter dash), and that makes you nervous. Defensively, he closes on the ball really well and is super violent when he gets there. The dude just loves contact. It's wild. His best position in college I think is going to be defense; he has so much upside there. He is so fast and if he can gain a little bit of weight he's going to be a 215-pound outside linebacker/hybrid safety who can cover anybody."

The Byron football team will not be without a Heimer next season. Younger brother Jordan, a junior who also stood out at running back this season, will be set to try to fill Carson's shoes.

He knows it won't be easy. Jordan knows better than anyone how special his brother is. And it goes beyond football. It's who he is.

"We have a close friendship," Jordan said. "I like his confidence and he's fun to be around. He's always supportive of me and our friends. He's not cocky about his obvious talent and he never brags about himself. He's just a role model, the way he goes about his daily life."

And he can really, really play.

"It was tough not having him in that last game, knowing the outcome would have been different if he'd played," Jordan said. "Just knowing what we could have been."