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Video: Get to know Jordan Westerkamp

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Bo Pelini had his jaw set, voice rising. That look.

"Notre Dame's got nothing on us," he said to Jordan Westerkamp.

By all accounts, Pelini is a low-pressure recruiter. And throughout Nebraska's courting of the most prolific receiver in Illinois state history, he'd been just that. But on the night of Dec. 15, as Westerkamp chewed on whether to visit the Fighting Irish, Pelini was animated in Westerkamp's house.

"It was the head coach coming out in him," said Jordan's mother, Kim. "Which is good."

Pelini brought allies. Offensive coordinator Tim Beck. Receivers coach Rich Fisher. And offensive line coach John Garrison, who'd handled Jordan Westerkamp's recruitment.

This was Garrison's guy since he'd taken the assistant job — especially since Jordan's May 2011 commitment to NU.

And now, after a sterling senior season and eye-popping state title game — 12 catches, 353 yards and five touchdowns — Notre Dame, which had largely ignored Westerkamp's career, swooped in, offered and figured that a Catholic kid from suburban Chicago wouldn't, couldn't and doesn't say no to Touchdown Jesus. Not even now, 20 years after the Irish's prime.

None of the Husker coaches came right out and said it, Kim recalled, but they didn't want Jordan to take that visit.

Pelini played the closer, comparing every aspect of NU favorably to ND. Beck? The good cop. "I understand where it's all coming from," he told the 6-foot-1, 195-pounder. The confidant was Garrison, whom Kim pulled aside afterward for words that would seem prophetic later.

And Nebraska fans should know it worked. Notre Dame coaches called that night and, after 20 minutes, Jordan told them he couldn't come. For a few seconds, the four-star prospect ended his recruiting process.

He turned to Kim with tears in his eyes.

If I don't take that visit, he said, I won't sleep another night in my life.

Pass-catching lineage

In his sophomore year at Lombard (Ill.) Montini Catholic High School, Westerkamp got a package from Nebraska. It contained a zip drive he plugged into his computer.

NU's first pitch for the kid — a video about Husker football — worked.

"I saw the facilities and just said 'Wow,' " Westerkamp said. "This is my dream school. It was unbelievable."

This is where I want to play, he said to his dad, Bob.

By then, Westerkamp had already been on Montini's varsity for two years, won a state title and was on his way to breaking all the school records his father set back in the early 1980s. The elder Westerkamp was Montini's wide receivers coach and Jordan's mentor. Bob saw his son's gift for catching passes in grade school. Jordan did, too.

"It's been in my blood for years," Jordan said.

That's no surprise. In 1983, Bob spurned a Notre Dame offer to play wide receiver at Illinois — where West Coast offense practitioner Mike White employed both former Nebraska coaches Bill Callahan and Shawn Watson — before a knee injury suffered his freshman year finally forced him to transfer.

Bob became an NAIA All-American at Benedictine (Ill.) University. He tried out for "six or seven" NFL teams.

"I could do the running and catching part just fine," Bob said. "But I couldn't pass the physical." The knee.

Bob returned to Lombard and Montini. The school is to the Westerkamps what Youngstown (Ohio) Cardinal Mooney is to the Pelinis. According to the Chicago Tribune — which named Jordan its 2011 Football Player of the Year — 30 Westerkamps have gone to school there since 1972 and 11 have played football.

Montini is a pass-first team. Has been since coach Chris Andriano — himself a former wide receiver — took over in 1979, when Bob was a freshman. Wide receivers are some of the stars in that Class 5A school, which has won four state titles since 2004. "Spread" hasn't been a foreign term for years.

Still, Jordan was different. A little better. Caught everything. Rarely lost his balance. And he could jump. Bob let the kid have fun in elementary school, drilled down a little deeper in junior high, and really went to work with him in that freshman year while Jordan's brother, Christian, was also playing wide receiver.

"I never had to make him do work," Bob said. "Never felt like I was dragging him out there. It got to the point where I'd have to say, 'Jordan, we've already caught 1,000 balls today.' "

Bob taught Jordan the route tree. How to break press coverage and read zone defenses. He taught him problem-solving. When teams sent three guys at Jordan — and they did — how did he beat it?

Zero-to-skinny. A riff on the out-and-up. Jordan's favorite route.

A hard 12 to 15 yards up the field to keep the safety thinking it was a fade or go route. A head fake and jab step toward the sideline that forced the corner to break down. Then a sharp move to the skinny post, where he'd have to beat another safety to the spot.

Once Jordan thought the defense was set up for it, he'd tell his dad: Zero-to-skinny.

"I don't know how many touchdowns he scored on that route," Andriano said.

Enough that Illinois and Northwestern verbally offered in Jordan's sophomore year. Nebraska, like most schools, offered after Jordan's junior season.

Prompted by that initial video, he had to see NU for the spring game.

He hung out with wide receivers Kenny Bell and Jamal Turner. Chatted with quarterback Taylor Martinez. Met Athletic Director Tom Osborne, Pelini, the academic team and the rest. Fans, of course, knew his name.

"It felt like our home on the road," Bob said.

"Like we were going right over to our high school," Kim said of the familiar atmosphere.

"The whole package," Jordan said.

He committed less than one month later. He'd visit Lincoln several more times during the summer and fall. He geared up for a strong senior season. He'd certainly have one — then get the toughest decision of his life.

Is this a movie?

Jordan holds the Illinois state record for career catches (235), yards (4,618) and touchdowns (68). But his state title performance — in a 70-45 shootout win over Joliet Catholic — made the biggest waves. A 12/353/5 stat line? That's more than a dink-and-dunk routine.

"That's the stuff movies are made of," Andriano said. "C'mon. That's off the charts."

For Montini even to reach the game, it had to overcome a 10-point deficit in a 35-31 semifinal win over Kaneland. Jordan spent most of the game as a decoy, bottled up, frustrated. But he caught four passes in the fourth quarter, including the game-winning touchdown. Zero-to-skinny, 19 yards. The proudest Bob's ever been of his son in a game. He grabbed Jordan.

I knew, Bob said to him, that when the game was on the line, you'd make the play.

Before the state title game, Bob's message was different: This is it, Jordan. Your last game. What mark do you want to leave?

"That really, really pumped me up," Jordan said.

His last career catch was arguably his best. The "nail-in-the-coffin" touchdown, Andriano said. A 94-yard, zero-to-skinny route. Jordan ran to the end zone thinking this is crazy. This is really happening.

And, then, well, it was really happening. USA Today named him first-team All American. Ohio State inquired. So did USC. And so did Notre Dame. Westerkamp didn't bother with the first two. But the Irish?

As Kim would say: "Love them or hate them — and there's no in between — Notre Dame is Notre Dame."

The decision

Mom admits she is an ND fan.

"But it wasn't like 'rah, rah, go Irish,' " she said.

And Notre Dame hasn't exactly produced a "rah rah" last two decades. Since 1993, when both ND and NU were in the national title hunt (Florida State won it), the Irish's record is 130-89-1. The Huskers' mark is 172-59. Since Pelini's arrival in 2008, NU has nine more wins and six fewer losses.

Statistically, Pelini is right: Notre Dame's has nothing on Nebraska. In fact, it has less.

But the Irish offered, Jordan wondered, and just about everybody pressed him for a visit.

Cover every avenue and street for your own peace of mind, Bob said.

Take the visit and interview the people, Andriano said.

Tell them your mom wanted you to do it, Kim said.

They all had a hunch Nebraska would win. NU was too far ahead, really, having set the relationship nine months before. Beck had been crucially persuasive in a few meetings with Jordan, selling him on the future of the Huskers' offense.

"Beck told me where the offense is going — and how they're going to institute throwing the ball a lot more," Jordan said. "And where I can fit in — I can play all over the field. X, Z, whatever. Inside or outside. It was a great opportunity. Everything Coach Beck and I talked about made me feel more comfortable."

Still, Nebraska's coaches piled into the Westerkamp home that December night to make their case again. They lobbied, but they never threatened.

"They never exactly drew a hard line in the sand," Bob said. "And we liked that they didn't."

As Garrison was leaving that night, Kim pulled him aside. Let this all play out, she told him. Don't worry.

Jordan changed his mind and visited Notre Dame. He came back. He hunkered down. And he started to think. Nebraska fans, attuned to recruiting disappointment from reneged commitments in recent years, prepared for a flip.

The giant Westerkamp family — Bob has dozens of cousins — weighed in. At Christmas, Kim recalled, half of the family wore Husker red and half wore Notre Dame gold. A favorite uncle of Jordan's — perhaps the biggest Irish fan of the bunch — asked if he should take down the Golden Dome he'd erected overnight.

Jordan chose to delay his college choice until after the Jan. 3 Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl. He came back to Lombard.

Kim thought he was torn. On Jan. 8 at Sunday dinner, she thought he was leaning toward the Irish "for all the reasons he thought he should. Not because of his heart."

Later, around midnight, Jordan came to ask Kim a question.

Mom, he said, would you be mad if I picked Nebraska?

I'll be mad if you don't make your own decision, she answered. So go with your heart.

Monday, Jordan went on Twitter, typed "GBR" and settled it.

Notre Dame was Notre Dame, Jordan said. A "cool place."

"But it wasn't Nebraska," he said. "I didn't have the same feeling. My heart's in Nebraska. I love everything about it.The people. The fans. The game-day atmosphere. The facilities. The coaches. The campus. Everything clicked. And the gut feeling. I just knew when I was at Nebraska: This is it."

Contact the writer:

402-202-9766, sam.mckewon@owh.com twitter.com/swmckewonOWH

Video: Get to know Jordan Westerkamp

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