Another punch in the nose for Husker fans. Another reason for Hawkeye fans to thumb their noses at their Big Ten rivals across Missouri River.
The roles have reversed in the quarter century since Clester Johnson was making big plays as the leading receiver his senior season at Nebraska in 1995, when the Huskers compiled the most dominant national championship season in the history of modern college football and Iowa squeaked into the final Top 25 poll.
Clester’s son Keagan, a three-star wide receiver from Johnson’s high school alma mater of Bellevue West in the Omaha area, announced he is choosing to play at Iowa over Nebraska on Wednesday. He’ll be a senior this season and was ready to put recruiting behind him.
The father told KWSN’s “Sports Talk with Craig & John”in a Wednesday interview that Keagan’s decision had a lot to do with the last five years, when the Hawkeyes have averaged over nine wins per season and reached a bowl game in all of them, while the Huskers have averaged five wins and reached one bowl.
Iowa has beaten Nebraska in each of their last five matchups.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to winning,” Johnson said. “This is not my Nebraska. It is not the same. They’re not winning and not going to bowl games.”
Stability had a lot to do with it, too. While Kirk Ferentz has been patrolling the sidelines in Iowa City for over 20 years, Scott Frost is the Big Red’s third coach in the last five.
“(Keagan is thinking), do I want to be a part of it? When do I I think things will get going again (at Nebraska)? We don’t know.”
And Keagan didn’t want to wait find out if the Huskers would start winning and if Frost and his staff will still be around the next five years.
Clester Johnson told KWSN after the interview the firing of offensive coordinator Troy Walters played a part in straying Keagan away from Nebraska. Meanwhile, Iowa’s offense is comparatively stable and humming (Clester pointed out the Hawkeyes receivers caught more passes for more yards than NU receivers last year).
Iowa receivers coach Kelton Copeland, who has been there since 2016, played a main role, Keagan told the Omaha World-Herald.
And Clester told KWSN Keagan’s first recruiting visit to Iowa City to meet with Ferentz and his staff reminded him strikingly of his recruiting visit to Lincoln circa 1990 to meet Tom Osborne and his assistants — Both coaching staffs seeming so “calm, cool, and laid back.”
Clester said Keagan’s commitment to Iowa doesn’t hurt him as much as most Husker fans would think. He got to see each of his three sons play for his high school alma mater of Bellevue West, which was fulfilling enough, and it is hard for him to disagree with Keagan’s decision.
Nebraska did not recruit C.J. (who went to Wyoming) nor Cade (who is a senior-to-be at South Dakota State).
Cade was a Walter Payton Award semifinalist as one of the FCS’s Top 25 offensive players last year. Within a couple months after the season, remnants of his identification as a Jackrabbit football player vanished from his Twitter profile and cover photos.
Asked if Cade looked into other colleges for his senior year, Clester cited North Dakota State All-America FCS national championship linebacker Jabril Cox, who is transferring to FBS national champion LSU. Perhaps Cade was seeking a bigger platform to showcase his talents for the NFL.
Was Nebraska a school going after Cade? What were the others?
Clester declined to comment, only saying that Cade “loves SDSU no matter what he does. SDSU will always be loved,” that the coronavirus pandemic may have immobilized Cade’s opportunities, and that at this point, Cade is committed to being a Jackrabbit.
Clester also had some stories to tell about beating Miami for the 1994 national championship in the Orange Bowl, the Hurricanes home field, and about how close he came to having to play at quarterback for the Big Red in a massive Top 10 showdown at Kansas State in 1994, when both Tommie Frazier and Brook Berringer were hurt.
To hear the full interview with Clester Johnson, click here.
