If Steve Warren had to pin down one of the more impactful moments that led him to believe his quarterback son, Braylen Warren, might have what it takes to play college football, one would be the cover-2 hole shot Braylen completed during a 7-on-7 tournament the spring before his eighth grade year.

The ball hit its target behind the underneath zone coverage of the corner and in front of the safety playing the deep half. First down. Move the chains.

"He threw it, but it was the way he threw it and where he placed it and what he did for his receiver," Steve told Inside Nebraska. "He threw it in the spot where only his receiver could get it. The safety was coming over the top, and he threw it where his receiver could catch it, stop and make a move.

"He just had an early feel for the game. Just naturally knowing how to place and feather the ball in places.”

That was then. Fast forward the clock about four years, and Braylen doesn't look or throw like an eighth grader anymore. He's now standing 6-foot-1 and a sturdy 205 pounds as he prepares for his junior campaign this fall at Omaha (Neb.) Westside.

Along with Omaha (Neb.) Millard South's Jett Thomalla, a 2026 four-star Iowa State commit, Braylen Warren is one of the top high school quarterbacks in not only the state of Nebraska, but the entire Midwest.

With scholarship offers from programs in the Big 12 (Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Cincinnati), Big Ten (Illinois and Iowa), SEC (Arkansas, Missouri) and ACC (Cal), Warren is just getting started.

“It’s a blessing. I’m so grateful to have these opportunities. I can’t be happier," Braylen said. "Not a lot of people, especially from Nebraska, which is not a highly-recruited place, have these opportunities. I just want to make the most out of it.”

“Every dad wants to see their kid get opportunities," Steve said, "so it’s been fun to watch him pick up these opportunities and for him to get what we feel like is deserved of him.”

Football has always been a large part of Braylen’s life. Considering who his father is, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

Steve was a 6-2, 315-pound interior defensive lineman at Nebraska in the late 1990s who lettered four times on teams that won 45 of 52 games from 1996-99. He won a national championship in 1997 and was a first-team All-Big 12 pick in 1999 before being selected by the Green Bay Packers in the third round of the 2000 NFL Draft.

The position Braylen would ultimately end up at, though, was sort of in question at the beginning.

“I’ve always played quarterback, but I was a little bit bigger when I was younger," Braylen told Inside Nebraska. "My parents always thought I’d be a defensive player because I was a little chubby. Even my quarterback coach (local trainer John Teigland), he’s been around me my whole life, and he was even like, ‘Yeah, he’s about to be in the seventh grade, but when’s he going to change to D-tackle?’”

Steve remembers having discussions with Braylen's youth coaches about which position he should play. He would wonder when would it be time to have Braylen play a position other than quarterback.

It makes little sense to go all-in on becoming a quarterback when you're just going to end up playing something else.

“That was kind of my mindset, like, ‘Can he play the position? Is he going to be good at it? I don’t know,’" Steve said. "I didn’t want to force him to be a quarterback, but I also knew it was going to be tough because at that position, you just never know.”

Braylen eventually grew. He got taller and started losing whatever baby fat was hanging around. He never quit being a quarterback, the position he was drawn to from the start. He remembers watching prime Cam Newton in Carolina — the gigantic QB's liveliness and physicality stood out.

Right now, Braylen is a big fan of Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts.

“He’s a very good leader. The mental side of things with him is amazing, brilliant,” Braylen said. “He’s not that big, he’s 6-2, but he works hard, squats a house. He’s amazing.”

Have one football talk with Braylen Warren and you'll hear "leadership" several times. It's not a trait of his he tosses around because it sounds good to say.

Leading truly means something to the 16-year-old who will turn 17 on August 22.

“Having that leadership role, knowing the ball is in your hands every play and you’re really the person the team looks at when things get hard, that’s always been a role I wanted,” Braylen said.

Braylen thanks his father for hammering in that mindset early. Steve knows what strong leadership looks and sounds like. He saw it firsthand during his Nebraska paying days with guys like Mike Minter, Mike Rucker, Jay Foreman, Jason Peter, Grant Wistrom and Jared Tomich. At Green Bay, he learned so much from the late, great Reggie White among others.

“That was my whole thing — I was never around a player who was one of the best players in the country but was a real asshole," Steve said. "All those dudes are just good dudes, and they wanted to win and they wanted to help the younger guys be better. I had a long list of guys like that.”

Steve knew Braylen would need to learn to lead, even as he was younger and less experienced than the guys he was playing with. And that happened a lot growing up. Braylen always played the game with older players.

“I wanted to find ways to make him uncomfortable to lead," Steve said. "Because with his age group, it’s easy. You’re already one of the best athletes and you’re already going to be natural that way. When you’re not in your age group, how do you do that then? How do you lead now?”

Since he was around 13 years old, Braylen has been throwing routes to college wideouts who train in the offseason at his dad's Warren Academy in Omaha. Whether he was throwing to local athletes like Thomas Fidone II, Jaylen Lloyd or Micah Riley, their message was the same: stay humble, remember who you are, where you come from and who played a part along the way.

“Without that, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today or who I am today,” Braylen said of those throwing sessions at Warren Academy.

The 2023 season saw Anthony Rezac lead Westside at quarterback, which allowed a then-freshman Braylen to sit and learn before taking the keys to the corvette in 2024.

Rezac helped lead Westside to a 13-0 record while beating Elkhorn South 56-0 in the Class A state championship. The win cemented the Warriors as back-to-back state champs.

When it came time for Warren to be the starting quarterback at one of the top prep programs in the Midwest, yeah, there were definitely nerves. Especially for a sophomore.

After Warren's first game as a starter, a 22-7 win over Omaha North, those nerves started fading. He earned an MVP honor after throwing two touchdowns and rushing for another. That provided confidence and the all-important I-can-do-this feeling.

“It kind of made me realize, I am the guy, I can go out and do this all the time,” Warren said.

In his first season as a starter, Warren led Westside to a 12-1 record and runner-up finish in the Class A state championship game. He completed 67% of his passes (147-of-219) for 2,105 yards and was responsible for 32 touchdowns — 30 passing (8 interceptions), 2 rushing.

Warren credits Rezac for teaching him how to be a starting quarterback on and off the field at a big-time high school program, where there's intense pressure to perform and keep the winning standard. Many of those lessons came while watching film, an important part of Warren's week during the season.

Warren said he starts film prep of his next opponent on Tuesdays during the season. He does it himself on Wednesday and Thursday nights, plus sessions during school hours. Don’t worry, the grades have stayed steady — he owns a 3.2 GPA.

What does Warren look for during film prep? Defenses usually have tendencies. He tries to find them.

Are the corners’ eyes looking at me? If they are, it might be a zone. If they’re not, it might be man.

Is the corner baiting the quarterback, showing man but dropping into zone after the snap?

Are the linebackers blitzing? If they are, how often and on what down and distance?

OK, I’m on the boundary side of the field, is the corner to that side blitzing?

There's a routine after each game during the fall. Warren watches the fresh game film with his dad — the two connect a laptop to the TV and watch it on the big screen — and Teigland, looking at what he did right and what he did wrong.

“Did I get the ball out on time?"

"Was my footwork right, or was it off?”

Along with Thomalla, Warren attended the Elite 11 Regional in Nashville on April 27. It was quite the successful trip — Thomalla earned an invite to the Elite 11 finals while Warren won the accuracy challenge among underclassmen.

The accuracy challenge involved a handful of rapid-fire throws: a bubble route to the running back, a deep out, a five-step seam, a hitch, a dig in the back of the end zone, a comeback off a rollout and a comeback from the pocket.

Warren’s favorite route to throw?

“Gotta be the deep out,” he said. “I feel like I throw it the best. It’s always cool watching it hit them in the hands, right in front of the forehead and getting that toe-tap in.”

While arm strength would seem to be the top trait to make those long opposite-hash throws, Warren knows there's more to it.

“A lot of it is your hips, your hips and your leg movements,” Warren said. “Just trying to get your hips through.”

Warren has a hip warmup he does before throwing — similar to what Dallas' quarterback Dak Prescott went viral for in 2019.

Yes, it looks funny, Warren said. But it works:

It's Warren's accuracy and potential that led Iowa State to be the first program to pull the trigger on an offer. Warren will never forget that moment in Ames. He knew he threw well at the camp, but he wasn't expecting an offer before his sophomore season.

Iowa State quarterbacks coach Jake Waters, a Council Bluffs native and former Iowa Western and Kansas State quarterback, was the one who broke the news.

“I was so happy. I didn’t process it at first, so I was just kind of standing there like, ‘What’d he just say?’” Warren said.

Warren will be a busy kid this spring and summer, which is full of planned camps. Several programs are scheduled to or already have stopped by Westside to watch Warren throw, like Ohio State, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Michigan State, Iowa State, Minnesota and Arkansas.

The message from the Ohio State coach who dropped by Westside — that'd be quarterbacks coach Billy Fessler — resonated with Warren.

“He was telling me how they like a guy who’s smart, like Will Howard," Warren said. "He was talking about how there are two guys who won championships at Ohio State — RJ Barrett and Will Howard. They have a bunch of guys, like CJ Stroud, Justin Fields, everybody. But those were the two smartest guys on the team. If you wanted to rank them talent-wise, they’re probably the bottom two. That’s something that kind of stuck with me.”

While his recruitment is in the early stages, Warren said a few programs have stood out.

"Kansas State and Mizzou, they’ve talked to me a lot, I know they’re big on me," Warren said. "Illinois, too. They’ve really put in the time and work to get to know me.”

There is not a Nebraska offer for Warren, and one won't come as the Huskers just picked up 2027 Mundelein (Ill.) Carmel Catholic four-star quarterback Trae Taylor. Warren was invited to last fall’s season-opener against UTEP.

“When I was younger growing up, I always wanted to go to Nebraska because my dad went to Nebraska," Warren said. "But as time went on, the less they talked to me."

Warren is excited about his junior season this fall. He's been working on his pocket mobility and footwork, areas he wants to make the most progress in. There's also the playbook factor.

Warren will have more freedom in the pass game than he did as a sophomore. Last year, the coaching staff wanted to ease him into the starting role as a first-time starter.

"Last year I didn’t have many reads in my playbook, it was just kind of simple stuff because I was a sophomore," he said. "They wanted me to get used to playing.”

With a season under his belt and entering Year 2 as the starter, Warren is definitely used to and comfortable playing. He looks forward to showing he can execute full-field reads and put it on film for college coaches to see.

“That’s really my next step for him, where I want him to take a huge leap, is knowledge of the game and seeing the game," Steve said. "When he gets on the field, being able to diagnose coverage and diagnose where to go with the ball. Athletically, he can put the ball anywhere, but now it’s being able to know where to go with it early. I always tell him he needs to be an extension of his head coach and coordinator on the field.”

In other words, Braylen Warren is ready to let it rip.