Nebraska football fans certainly can't fault tight end Nate Boerkircher for leaving the Huskers and heading to Texas A&M a few years back. That move translated into a man who started just six games in his final college season, becoming the second-round selection of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Boerkircher certainly has the kind of talent that made analysts believe he could play in the NFL. The surprise, which might have been a bit bigger for the analysts if any of them had done research on him, is that a tight end who started just 6 of 13 games before heading to the NFL was taken so high. It certainly seems like the Jags could have used someone like Emmett Johnson, a block-first TE who couldn't steal the starting job away from his Texas A&M teammates.
Former Nebraska tight end Nate Boerkircher gets a very early NFL Draft call
How surprising was a second-round selection for the former Nebraska player? Of the NFL Mock Drafts I could find that actually mentioned him, the highest any of them had him going was in the 5th round. And considering that it was to the Dallas Cowboys, it looked like it might just be because they knew Texas A&M players well.
Boerkircher started his career in Lincoln under head coach Scott Frost and saw his first action in 2021 where he caught two passes for 14 yards. The next season he played in all 12 games while starting four and hauling in 6 catches for 52 yards and a touchdown. In 2023 and 2024 he played in every game for Nebraska and started 13 of those games.
Nebraska native makes an early jump to the NFL
The Aurora native then decided to move to Texas A&M for his final season, where he posted a career-high 19 catches for 198 yards and 3 touchdowns in 13 games, starting 6.
Nate Boerkircher certainly has talent that NFL teams believe translates well to the next level. It's still a bit of a surprise to see someone who never had more than 7 starts in a season in his career being selected in the second round.
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