A dunk-tastic return of the Huskers' dunk contest
The Nebraska football team hosted its second annual dunk content on Sunday, this time in front of a bigger audience than its first at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
It all began on Day 4 of Nebraska’s inaugural Husker Olympics in early 2023.
“Last competition, you have one representative and it will be a dunk contest,” special teams coach Ed Foley yelled out to the group.
Five Huskers participated in the inaugural dunk contest at the Hendricks Training Complex, with quarterback Heinrich Haarberg seemingly taking the honor of top dunk for the year based on the reactions in the shared video. Here’s the thing about the dunk contest though: it wasn’t just for fun. It showed coach Matt Rhule — who was still new to his team — what he had on the roster. Running back Emmett Johnson, for example, highlighted a level of explosiveness during the dunk contest that eventually led to him being named as the Huskers’ starting kick returner for the 2023 season.
Offensive lineman Ethan Piper caught Rhule off guard too, highlighting improvement through winter conditioning in an unexpected way.
“I mean, we had a dunk contest and I have Ethan Piper at 330 pounds dunking a basketball,” he shared with me last spring. “I'm like, ‘OK, well he's pretty explosive, right?’”
Since then, there was only one question left unanswered: would the dunk contest return for a second year? The answer was yes, but the Huskers shared in mid-January that it had been postponed. The additional details later came on Sunday, Feb. 25, three hours before Nebraska basketball’s matchup with Minnesota at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
The Nebraska football team would host its second annual dunk content that evening during halftime, and the five contestants had been selected:
Haarberg
Johnson
Tight end Thomas Fidone
Defensive back Jeremiah Charles
Defensive lineman Kai Wallin
Who would take home the honor for 2024?
(Full transparency: I took Haarberg to keep his title, while Brandon selected Wallin because “people can’t resist big guys.” We were both wrong.)
Your 2024 dunk contest champion is Charles, who showed off this impressive dunk to take the win. Seriously, it was impressive. As for his approach to the event?
“I’m going to win,” Charles told Nebraska’s Jessica Coody. “(The dunks) just came. I didn’t even plan them.”
While Charles’ dunks were unplanned, Johnson’s appeared to have some planning considering they included Rhule. Coach was definitely a good sport through the whole thing, especially considering the moment is now football’s profile image on Twitter.
The dunk contest may be new at Nebraska under Rhule, but it’s not necessarily new to the group participating. In fact, the whole thing feels a bit serendipitous when you look back at May 2020. Haarberg — who had just committed to play for Nebraska a couple of weeks prior — decided to create a dunk contest among his fellow commits to bond as a group when many hadn’t met in person yet. O-lineman Teddy Prochazka submitted his dunk. Fidone did too.
“I think it all shows what this class is about,” Haarberg told the Omaha World-Herald at the time. “We’re all athletes. Even the linemen, Teddy did a freaking 360 dunk. I think that shows the type of camaraderie we have. What we can develop to be is an elite-level class of athletes.”
Rhule likely didn’t know about that 2020 contest when he created the 2023 version for the inaugural Husker Olympics. However, it’s fun to consider how the coach and the quarterback were thinking alike before they ever met.
When I spoke to Rhule last spring, he shared some of the ways the Olympics — dunk contest included — showed him the players he had and what they were capable of. He got to see them have fun while working together in groups. He got to see linemen jump in ways he wouldn’t normally, and players show off skills that may not always surface on a football practice field.
Camaraderie and athleticism. That’s what Haarberg was thinking about in 2020. It’s what Rhule was thinking about in 2023.
And now we’re here in 2024, with a new dunk champion, and the next step in the evolution of the Huskers’ annual dunk contest. This time everyone is just a little more familiar with one another, and the stakes are clearly getting bigger every year.
So, who’s coming out on top in 2025? Time to start placing those bets.
In other news . . .
The college football early signing period is going to get even earlier starting this year. Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic reported the news last week, sharing that Big Sky commissioner Tom Wistrcill — who chairs the National Letter of Intent subcommittee of the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA) — said “the group has had advanced discussions to move the December signing period up to the Wednesday before FBS championship games, which this year is Dec. 4.”
As for how long the early signing period will take place, it’s expected to last anywhere from three to seven days. The portal, of note, opens the day after the College Football Playoff selection takes place, so a shorter window for the early signing period would prevent the two from overlapping.
“The biggest reason we’re doing this is to clear up the football recruiting calendar so the signing period and the transfer portal don’t overlap,” Wistrcill told The Athletic. “The feedback we’ve received from all coaches is that December is a mess. Especially with the expansion of the CFP coming next year, that just creates more chaos in December. This should help.”
There is also discussion of potentially adding a summer signing period, meaning we’d see three in one year — December, February and a to-be-determined summer month. All of the potential changes and proposals will be discussed this week at the FBS Oversight Committee scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Should be an interesting one to watch.
The NCFL is coming. (National College Football League) Next we will have coach to helmet radios and tablets on the sidelines.