Go to X, or TikTok, or Facebook, wherever you’re comfortable on social media, and search for “Jacob Bower.” You’ll easily find the post-football-practice session during which Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule announces Bower will be placed on scholarship.
After a build-up, Rhule reveals the surprise: “Now, I’ll pay for your school next year, all right?”
Rhule kindly taps Bower, who is beside him, on the side of the face.
Bower is swarmed in celebration by his teammates.
“Hey, man, it’s a blessing to be out here, boys,” Bower says. “I love you all.” He concludes, with everyone joining in: “Win on three: one, two, three.”
During a recent news conference, Rhule talked about putting Bower on scholarship. “It wasn’t planned ahead of time,” he said. “I didn’t tell (Dr.) Susan (Elza).”
Elza is Nebraska football’s Chief of Staff.
Bower is the epitome of the attitude Rhule wants from players. What he saw was, “he didn’t complain. He didn’t worry about what he doesn’t have,” Rhule said. “Every day he compares himself to what he was yesterday and … ‘OK, am I better than I was yesterday?’ To the point where he’s a straight-running dude, he’s a good football player.” Scholarship worthy.
Bower is a 6-foot-1, 220-pound sophomore linebacker from Rancho Santa Margarita, California. He came to Nebraska because of what his mom calls a “God moment.”
He was in a boys choir and “we toured Nebraska when I was, like, 10 years old,” he said. “We would sing around all of Lincoln, we would go to Colorado, and it was a big tour.”
While in Lincoln, “we toured this facility,” Bower said, speaking to the media in the Hawks Championship Center. “We had photos of me running onto the (Memorial Stadium) field when I was a kid. It was like a ‘God moment,’ (a) ‘how could I pass-this-up?’ kind of thing.”
He could have passed it up and gone to Army to play rugby, without the cost of tuition. Before Nebraska contacted him about walking on, Bower was an outstanding rugby player at Santa Margarita Catholic High. He was also an outstanding football player. His senior season he had 116 tackles, 4.5 sacks, three pass break-ups, an interception and a fumble recovery.
His choice was based on his love of football.
Bower redshirted his first season at Nebraska and played in six games last season. At the beginning of fall camp there was a “mix-up” and Bower was briefly taken off the 105 list. “I had an injury one day and I got kicked out,” he said. “And there was a mix-up between who was going to be taken out of the 105 because another teammate also got hurt that day.
“And so they mixed up me getting kicked out of the 105. And, like, 24 hours later, they figured it out and I was back in it. At that moment I was taken out, I was heartbroken. I was definitely really scared about my future with the team, not being in the 105.”
But Troy Vincent, Nebraska’s Director of Football Relations, “was there with me when he told me the news it was just a mix-up, and I was still back in it. He was really supportive and helpful.”
On the field, teammates such as John Bullock, Nick Henrich and Garrett Snodgrass were helpful. Bullock “was somebody I looked up to since day one,” said Bower. “He was also a former walk-on, and he’s just a gritty, gritty guy. He was also a really great guy. He and Snodgrass and Nick Henrich were always helpful with me. I was always asking them for something.
“I had to ask them separate questions because I didn’t want to seem like I was, too, like, annoying to them. But John for two years was always like a mentor to me, and I always looked up to him.”
Dr. Michael Stout, Nebraska’s Director of Football Mental Performance,” also has helped Bower’s development. “We just talk about mentally attacking everything,” Bower said. “We use, like, those trigger words between us, like ‘What’s next,’ obviously, is a team one.”
Then Stout sent Bower to the Bible book of Isaiah, Chapter 6. “It’s like for me to realize that I’m capable of doing this, and I’m meant to be here for a reason, so send me, I can do anything through God. That’s just kind of how I view things and I prepare myself mentally before each practice,” said Bower.
“I remember that this is a blessing, and it’s a blessing to be up here.”
