Cerni ready to embark on American Football journey at Nebraska

Until the last 18 months, American football wasn’t even on the radar for Nebraska’s latest 2020 scholarship punter recruit, Daniel Cerni.

The Canberra, Australia, native spent most of his life training to be an Australian rules professional football player. In fact, Cerni (pronounced Cher-ni) signed with a professional organization called the GWS Giants, playing for their developmental teams since the age of 13 hoping to one day get the call up to the prestigious AFL - the highest level of professional football in Australia.

The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Cerni played both centre and centre halfback/fullback over his Australian rules football career, making it all the way up to the NEAFL (one step below the AFL) and was a part of the GWS Giants 18 and under academy - featuring the best 18 and under prospects in Australia.

Playing punter in what Cerni refers to as “gridiron” was never a thought until a trip to the United States to visit a friend that played basketball at Idaho State.

That is when the 20-year old Cerni realized his potential as a punter in American football, and the next thing you know, he linked up with Prokick Australia. Less than a year later, he became a Division I scholarship punter recruit at Nebraska.

“It's actually quite an honor and privilege to sign for a school like Nebraska,” Cerni said. “It's something that obviously hasn't been on my mind for the last 10 years, but for the past year-and-a-half or so, it's been an aim of mine to sign to play at a college program. I'm very excited for the future and what I can do there. The whole journey started around a year ago. I was playing AFL football for a local team called the GWS Giants, playing for their second division team to the full team, which was called the AFL.

“I just needed a change up. I just was a bit over it. I was playing for around eight or so years and just wanted something different. This is when I traveled to America to see a friend and ended up coming back, watching quite a few documentaries, reading up on the whole game and how it worked.

"The next thing I know, I'm sending a message to Nathan Chapman and John A. Smith at Prokick Australia and telling my mom that I'm pretty much moving to Melbourne to punt. It was a bit of a challenge to tell the whole family, a big Croatian family in Canberra, that I was moving away. They've all gotten behind me, and I'm loving every minute of it. It's fantastic at the moment.”

Linking up with Prokick required Cerni to move from Australia’s capital city of Canberra to Melbourne, about 8 to 9 hours from his home. Cerni attended the University of Canberra, but will enter Nebraska as a true freshman will full NCAA eligibility.

Signing players from Prokick Australia has become one of the hottest trends in college football, as both Michigan State and Ohio State recently received commits from there as well. Prokick Australia has produced 17 All-Americans and five Ray Guy Award winners since 2007, and they currently have multiple punters starting in the NFL.

“The training regimen is pretty intense,” Cerni said. “It pretty much kicks off as soon as I got down there. It's Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. We train on-field around a two-and-a-half hour session pretty much just kicking the ball - not the whole time, but working on technique, working on ball drop, a bit of everything, and breaking down each component of the punt.

“Then, every second day, we add a gym session in the morning at a gym called Congress Gym. This is where we get the mental toughness side of things and start getting a real taste of what college workouts are going to be like and how to deal with them stress-wise. Then, every other day, I was either working or doing my own gym session to just try and get that extra advantage before I come over. That's pretty much the rundown of how we worked around training.”

So, what about Nebraska? How did the Huskers come into the picture?

Cerni credits NU senior special teams analyst Jonathan Rutledge, who worked with Australia native Arryn Siposs at Auburn the last two seasons. That connection helped Rutledge become familiar with the organizers of Prokick.

“I was pretty much at training one day, and one of the coaches came up to me and said, ‘Look, Daniel, we’ve got a school. They're interested in you,’” Cerni said. “We put a little film together to show them, and the next thing I know I'm talking to Coach Rutledge on the phone, and he walked me through his former track of who he's coached and where he's been, and that seemed to me like a great way to get into the game, and he would be able to help me a lot in transitioning from a sport like AFL, to gridiron, which is very self-starting, in a sense.

“After that one session about a month or so ago, I pretty much said, ‘Yes, this is where I want to be. This is where I want to go.’ It just seems like the most historical program in college football. I love the idea of playing under Coach (Scott) Frost. The team chemistry, the team vibe was just amazing to me seeing all the Instagram posts and the Twitter feed, and just where I wanted to end up. We finally made it happen a couple of days ago, and I'm very, very excited.”

It also didn’t take Cerni very long to figure out the passion of Husker fans. He had no idea the type of attention his commitment was going to draw on Monday.

“I put it out before work on Monday morning, and then my phone died at work,” Cerni said “The next thing I know, I get back in the car to charge it, and my phone just blows up. I was a bit surprised by that and taken back by it. It's definitely something that's made me more excited to see, and it's just showing how actually passionate these fans are and how fantastic they are at the end of the day in supporting and welcoming new arrivals. It makes me that much more excited to go down and play.”

As for his abilities, Cerni showed he could hang his punts up in the air as long as 5.28 seconds and drive the ball through the end zone.

However, he didn’t want to get into his personal numbers. He will let people decide for themselves what he can do. He did share though he would like a shot to handle kickoffs, as well as punts – two areas where the Huskers have struggled in recent years.

“I believe it is good to just let my own work do the talking,” Cerni said. “I don't think I'll go into depth on what I think my abilities are, but I am capable of doing the rollouts and the spirals. It depends on the weather and what situation is at hand. That will pretty much determine what I'm going to be doing and seeing as I can do both rollouts and spirals, I do think I'm pretty versatile.”