Roger Carreon: Jal's Standout Son
Roger Carreon's hometown of Jal, New Mexico is made up of 2,000 people. But the small-town upbringing and belief in him by his mom has made him to be one of the toughest players on the Boise State football team.
Chris Kutz
Boise State offensive lineman Kage Casey once described his teammate Roger Carreon as “the most brutal guy on the field.”
Brutal, nasty, mean. Carreon doesn’t mean to make it personal against his opponents in the trenches. It comes with the job as an offensive lineman. It also stems from his on-field persona.
There’s a certain type of tenacity and toughness to Carreon when Bronco Nation sees him on a football field, which will once again be this Saturday when Boise State hosts New Mexico at Albertsons Stadium (7:45 pm, FS1 and Bronco Radio Network).
Carreon’s toughness is simple to trace back to. It comes from being Jal, New Mexico’s standout son - and a son who learned everything from his single mom who sacrificed plenty along the way to get him to where he is today.
Carreon’s hometown of Jal is 2,000 people and is the last incorporated city in the south-easternmost corner of the Land of Enchantment. It sits at the intersection of Highway 18 and Highway 128, located an hour from Odessa, Texas and four hours from Las Cruces, New Mexico. It has no stoplights, and no national chains of restaurants or fast food.
“It's kind of like the Wild West movies,” said Carreon. “The wind’s blowing, and it's just dirt, and then you see the tumbleweeds. I feel like that's a pretty good representation of what Jal looks like. There's not a whole lot of green there.”
Jal’s origins - and name – come from ranching. William Cowden bought a herd of cattle from his father-in-law, James Alonzo “Lon” Edwards, and brought them to the area around 1883. The cattle had the JAL brand - the initials of their original owner - on them, from the left shoulder to the left hip. The JAL cattle, tended by the JAL cowboys, gave a name to an arid, nondescript area.
Jal’s proverbial life comes from the oil and gas industry. The town’s presence on the Permian Basin and the deposits of oil and gas underneath the current-day 400 or so homes made it a boomtown starting in 1926. Jal’s population peaked 100 years ago, at 9,000 people.
What gave it life also keeps Jal’s future at the Basin’s own will. During the downturn in the oil and gas industry in the 1980s, Jal’s population dropped to as low as 1,800.
Jal’s tagline is “small town, big heart.” Imagine flat land with a horizon so plane the only breaks in the distance are cowboy hats, cattle horns and oil rigs.
Jal’s grit is in the recurrent dust that envelops the roads. The grit is also in the people. It is in Carreon.
Rogelio Carreon was born in April 2004 in Odessa, Texas. When he was in first grade, his mom, Alexandra (but known as Alex to friends and loved ones), took Rogelio - known as Roger - and his two younger brothers, Jesus and Alex, from Odessa to where she was raised: Jal. She wanted a simpler life for her three boys as a single mother, and her hometown is where her parents and the boys’ grandparents still lived. They settled in Jal nearly 40 years ago after growing up in Kermit, Texas, which is about 20 minutes south of New Mexico’s last town.
After sharing a home for a few years, Alex and the three boys moved out. And by moved out, it meant the family of four moved to the house directly next door. Jal was already small, but for Roger and his family, they wanted to keep it smaller.
“Everybody knows everybody,” said Carreon about Jal’s small-town feeling. “You can't go to the store without seeing at least 10 people you know. But I appreciate that small town. I loved growing up in a small town. I wouldn't have had it any other way.”
Jal High School is attached to the junior high. From grades six through twelve, you share the same grounds, which is not uncommon for small towns but a nice reminder of how close the town of Jal can feel.
Carreon’s graduating class at Jal High School in 2022 was around 30, which was also the same number of players on the varsity football team. He played in all three phases until towards the end of his high school career.
“We had enough (players) to be 11-man, but we were one of those schools right on the brink of being an eight-man team,” said Carreon. “Our 11 best played offense, defense, special teams, all the above. Up until my senior year, it was offense, defense, punt, punt return, kickoff, and kickoff return (for me).”
Jal High School is a 2-A school in New Mexico, which means it’s at the second-lowest level of football in the state as determined by school enrollment. Nonetheless, Carreon was a top–100 recruit at offensive line, according to ESPN. This was due to Carreon and his mom traversing West Texas to Dallas-Fort Worth to gain the attention of college recruiters and coaches.
A friend, Philip Blidi from Portales, New Mexico, told Carreon about the offensive and defensive line showcases that high school players would attend. Being from a small school, Carreon could not rely on his high school film to show his potential to the next level.
The first camp he attended was in Lubbock, Texas - two-and-a-half hours away from Jal. He stood out and earned MVP honors. He later got invited to another camp in Dallas and ended up attending around 10 camps to showcase his potential.
He had to travel to Dallas, Amarillo, Sweetwater and everything in between, with his mom at the wheel of the car to take him wherever he needed so he could go even further after that.
“My mom said, ‘I'm going to take you everywhere,’” said Carreon about his mom’s commitment to help him get noticed. “She was like, ‘If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, we can go out saying that we tried everything we could.’”
Roger’s mom Alex was relentless in helping Roger achieve what was possible. She had already moved her and three boys to be closer to her childhood home. She worked multiple jobs to make it all work every day. Driving across the Permian Basin was nothing to her at that point, even if that meant sticking Roger and his brothers in the back of the car for up-and-back trips to camps or handing them off to the grandparents so Roger and her could bookend their days driving in the dark to and from what’s possible - and what’s next - in his football career.
“I was raised by a single mom,” said Carreon. “She made a lot of sacrifices. It was every other weekend, or almost every weekend, taking me to these camps because she believed in me and she saw the potential in me. She was like, ‘Son, I want you to go and pursue this.’ I had such a strong passion for football, and that's something that she saw. She made tons of sacrifices for my brothers and I growing up, and that's something that I'll be forever grateful for.”
Carreon was a stalwart for the Jal High School Panthers, earning all-state honors at both defensive line and offensive line. He was the entire state’s most sought after recruit in the 2022 class. He was heavily recruited by New Mexico, as the Lobo coaching staff at the time preached what his impact would be on the entire state as a “young man staying home.” He was also courted by Oregon State, UNLV, Air Force, Texas State, Army, and a few FCS schools.
But Boise State was his top choice - once they reached out late in his recruitment process. The first scholarship offer from the Broncos arrived in February 2021, in the middle of his junior year of high school. He verbally committed to the Broncos in June 2021, in between his junior and senior years.
Former Boise State offensive lineman John Ojukwu, now a Tennessee Titan, hosted Carreon on his official visit. He was struck by the foothills and the scenery of Boise. He remembers how caring and kind the people were. And he saw The Blue for the first time in person, something he did not know existed until he looked up Boise State once the recruitment process began. As a kid in Jal who did not play video games, he originally had no idea the Broncos played on the only blue turf in Division I football.
Carreon redshirted in 2022 as a true freshman, starting in his only game played at UTEP on Sept. 23 and even got to travel with the Broncos when they faced the Lobos in Albuquerque in early September.
He went on to start seven of his 14 games played at right guard as a redshirt freshman in 2023. In 2024, he entered the season as the full-time starter at right guard, but suffered an injury in the narrow loss at No. 6 Oregon. The setback affected his knee, fibula and ankle, and the original prognosis was uncertain on how long he would be out.
“There was definitely concern (about missing the entire season), because of the complexity of my injury,” said Carreon. “At first it was like, ‘We don't know (exactly how long you could be out). And then I heard one of the trainers say, ‘There's a possibility of returning this season,’ and that's all I needed to hear. I heard the word possibility, and I'm like, ‘Let's go to work.’”
The work entailed putting in four to six hours a day of rehab and working out. He lifted where he could and was relentlessly working with the athletic training staff. He ended up returning in the November game at Wyoming and finished out the season back in his starting role, blocking during the historic season.
“There was this obsession with me of coming back and more so because I love my teammates,” said Carreon about his desire to return to the field in 2024. “I wanted to be there for my teammates, and I saw the potential our team had. I wanted to be on that field with those guys. I just gave everything I had to get the opportunity to be back on the field.”
This year, Carreon once again began the season as the starting right guard. He left the game against App State with another lower body injury. He was assisted off the field and did not return, but nothing was going to stop him from staying off the field for long. He quickly returned last week at No. 21 Notre Dame, and played 52 snaps despite not starting.
“Roger is an absolute warrior,” said Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson after the game against the Fighting Irish. “He would give his all for this team. Injured a week ago, battling his way in the training room just to be available to play (last Saturday).”
Carreon’s toughness consistently shows itself. It was instilled in him by his family. His uncle and grandfather helped coach him in football growing up. They were hard on him on the field, but it made Carreon grittier.
The toughness also comes from the head of the household, his mom.
“Growing up, my family struggled, and so the struggle is something that's not new to me,” said Carreon. “My mom was a very strong woman, and she never gave up. I just saw how hard she worked to put a roof over our heads, put clothes on our backs, and food on the table.”
Carreon aspires to play in the NFL when his time at Boise State is up. He is also a construction management major, and he plans to return to Boise once his football career is over and work for a local construction company.
All of that is down the road. He is focused on helping Boise State remain undefeated in Mountain West play this Saturday. And he reminds himself every day of how good he has it, despite injury setbacks and anything else that rises.
“I tell myself, I'm blessed,” said Carreon. “I have it easy. This stuff's fun. I'm doing what I love to do. Seeing how hard my mom worked, it gives me this sense of, that's who I want to be. That's what I strive to be every day. And so, you talk about being tough. I'm going out and playing football. That’s not tough. Raising three kids by yourself is tough.”
