FBS schools weren’t exactly beating down the doors of Quinn Clark and Jeremiah Charles when the Huskers came calling for the 2024 and 2023 classes respectively.
Clark, a Husker legacy had only offers from home-state FCS schools Montana and Montana State over which to mull. For Charles, the only offer came from North Texas, but, to be fair, his lone season of high school football had come in 2022 as a senior at Arlington-Martin in Fort Worth, Texas.
2026 may be the season they begin to reward the faith
the Husker staff showed in them when they made their only offers from a P4 school.
Quinn Clark appealed to the staff likely for two reasons:
- The athleticism and sure hands of the 6’5” receiver caught the eyes of a staff who thought they’d scored by taking a look at the Montana receiver in a summer camp where other programs probably took a pass on a player with only a 3-star rating against competition they probably found lacking.
- Clark was a Husker legacy, his father being former Husker running back Ken Clark. Was that the reason for the visit? Well, yes – on Quinn’s end to start.
For Clark, playing for Nebraska was the dream. He got himself to a Nebraska summer camp and after the one-on-one drills, Rhule offered a scholarship immediately. Always in the hunt for athletes, it can be assumed he already knew of his 6’4” high jump and 21’5” long jump in HS track.
And then there’s the Husker legacy part.
Ken Clark was at Nebraska from 1985-1989. His 3,037 rushing yards currently ranks 8th all-time at Nebraska. The day for which most fans probably remember him is in 1988 against Barry Sanders and Oklahoma State when Clark exploded for 256 yards and 3 TD’s in a 63-42 defeat of the Cowboys. That effort still ranks as 4th all-time for a single game rushing as a Husker.
Tragically, the elder Clark died of a heart attack in 2013.
Quinn Clark likely had him in mind when saying, “Just being from Montana and getting the opportunity to go to a big school and go to where my dad went, I don’t take that for granted. So it means a lot, and I remember it every day.”
When Dana Holgorsen arrived mid-late in 2024, he immediately saw what Rhule and others had seen and placed the true freshman on the travel squad. But coming in at 6’5” 190 and running around a 4.7, there was still some work to be done.
Consider work done, even if it’s ongoing and not completed.
As Matt Rhule said recently when talking about team strength and conditioning gains, ““Guys like Quinn Clark came to our camp and ran 4.7 are now in the low 4.5’s, high 4.4’s.”
And Clark himself when asked how much he’s gained since hitting campus for the first time? “I got here. I was probably 190, so probably a good 20-25 pounds.” He was also quick to give credit to S&C Coach Corey Campbell and Asst AD for Performance Nutrition Kristin Coggin for their off-season assistance in adding weight while increasing his speed.
When I asked him if he really felt that speed increase in his current route-running, he was already smiling when he said, “Yes, definitely. I definitely feel faster and feel like I can get to the spot faster.”
In Dana Holgorsen’s last press appearance, he was mentioning Clark quickly – ““You got… young guys like Quinn Clark and Keelan Smith and Cortez (Mills) that are that are coming along. So that’s probably the most encouraging, exciting thing is just being able to roll guys and not have to play guys (at) multiple positions.”
I followed up by asking if Clark was playing his way up with the top three experienced Huskers at WR – Jacory Barney Jr, Nyziah Hunter and UCLA transfer Kwazi Gilmer. Holgorsen didn’t even wait for me to finish.
“Yes. yes. yes. He’s made as many plays as anybody. (Smiling) He looks GOOD. I guess I gotta go 10 personnel, because he deserves to be on that field – a lot. So how much 10 will I do? I don’t know, but there will be some, just based on what you just said.”
Clark confirmed this a few days later – “The coaches got me running with the ones and twos, and just getting reps against the best players on the team to make myself better. One-on-ones, I’m trying to go against the best guys.”
And before we move on to Charles, here’s who Quinn Clark said challenges him the most when they go one-on-one: “Jeremiah Charles and Andy Marshall. I try to take reps against them because you know those are really the guys, and you know I want to be competing against the best player possible to make myself better in the long term.”
Jeremiah Charles’ football inexperience was mentioned above, but he did have the advantage of playing for future, if short-time, Husker assistant Bob Wager at Martin. But it was also his athleticism which drew the interest of the staff by triple-jumping 47’4” (and reportedly 50’ -plus in practice) while owning a 40-inch vertical jump. A receiver in his lone high school season, he switched to defense while redshirting.
He had to know learning the corner position would not happen overnight but found himself a regular on special teams. How did that help in the transition to the secondary? Per Charles, “I would say, running down on the kickoff, running down a point-it’s like one-shot opportunities, which is how you get to actually play at the speed of college football. So I think it just translates into playing on defense.”
Size was also an issue for Charles who arrived at 6’ 160 lbs. Coggins’ Husker nutrition staff tried to do their part o put the weight needed for him to stand up to being shoved aside by much thicker Big 10 receivers. His battery and metabolism made that difficult and he described the final solution as eating six meals a day. He tried calling the three extra ones “snacks”, but admitted the snacks would be something like a whole quesadilla.
The result? They now list him at 180 lbs., while his team dunk contest exploits show he’s lost none of his explosiveness. And his coaches have noticed the improvements.
Said Defensive Coordinator Rob Aurich, ““You know it’s early in camp, and I won’t pump anybody up too much, but I’ve been really pleased with with JJ, our corner number 25, Jeremiah (Charles), competing every day. Really like the way he’s going about it, and for a for a player who hasn’t had traditionally a ton of game reps at that position, he’s out there flashing like he has a chance to be a really, really good good asset to the team – man, (he’s) doing a good job.”
Secondary Coach Addison Williams has also noticed, calling his name first when asked which corners were performing best after room leader Andrew Marshall. He also talked about Charles’ improvement since a subpar performance in 2024 after getting a shot against UCLA, a 27-20 loss.
He apologized to Rhule post-game for letting him down, but Williams said he immediately set about improving saying, “Cycle of a snap reset is something that we always talk about…And so, (it’s about) just getting Jeremiah to reset and just have that confidence because he is a really good player. He’s a really athletic guy… but he’s done a really good job of working his tail off, whether it was in the weight room or getting his weight up or on the field and on his craft. And I think he’s a much more confident player, not even from two years ago, but also even from a year ago when I first got here.”
Charles now finds himself with a chance to come full circle and start 2026 with a Blackshirt – “BIG opportunity. But, honestly, I just really try to focus day by day, not get too far ahead of myself.”
Should he earn one, take a wild guess who he credits or pushing him the hardest to get there:
“I would say Quinn Clark. They’re all just – iron sharpens iron when we go at each other every day in practice.”
If their coaches and teammates are to be believed, we’re going to see plenty of both these guys in 2026.
