2019 lineman Piper nabs Nebraska offer, decision could come next week
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and his staff are wasting no time making their presence felt across the state with local prospects.
On Wednesday, NU made their fifth known in-state offer to Norfolk Catholic lineman Ethan Piper.
The 6-foot-4, 280-pound Piper tells HuskerOnline.com his latest offer from the Huskers is a somewhat of a game changer for him.
"Yes! I am humbled, honored and ready to do whatever it takes to make our state proud," Piper said about the offer.
Piper joins Scottsbluff's Garrett Nelson, York's Garrett Snodgrass and Omaha Burke's Chris Hickman and Nick Henrich as 2019 prospects Frost and his staff have already offered. They also have made a 2020 offer to Bellevue West wide receiver Zavier Betts.
The talented two-way star says he had been communicating with Nebraska inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud over the last month but learned about the offer Wednesday from defensive coordinator Erik Chinander and Coach Frost.
"Coach Ruud and I had been talking over the past month, but he has also been really busy back and forth to Florida," Piper said. "Today, Coach Chinander DM'ed me and asked me to call him. We visited for quite awhile, and then I did get the chance to talk with Coach Frost."
According to Piper, the Huskers see him as a defensive lineman at the next level and were motivated to offer based on what they saw from his game film and overall character assessment from a former Nebraska player close to Frost.
"Yes, (they offered as a) defensive end," Piper said. "Coach Frost said that he really liked my game film, that I had a great drive to never give up on a play. He said that strong, hard-working Nebraska kids are what they want to build their program on.
"Generally, he likes to meet recruits before he makes an offer, but I attend Norfolk Catholic, and our Elementary Principal is Bill Lafleur who punted for the Huskers with Coach Frost. So Coach Frost trusted Mr. Lafleur's character assessment of me.
"(Frost) teased me that he heard that I dunked the basketball in an 8th-grade game - which is true - and he was never able to dunk it until he was a freshman. But he quickly pointed out that his shot put record beats mine right now, so I take that as a challenge for the upcoming track season!"
Piper had plans to attend Iowa's Junior Day this weekend and will still visit Iowa City before likely finalizing his decision sometime next week.
"I had a visit planned this weekend out in Iowa City, so in respect to their coaching staff, who have been outstanding to me over the past many months," Piper said. "I am still going to travel out there this weekend but hope to make things official next week."
HuskerOnline will have more from Piper, including our In-State Tour interview with him from Wednesday afternoon, just hours before his NU offer became official.