Seven years earlier than he grew to become the successor to a future Corridor of Famer and a beginning middle within the Tremendous Bowl, the snaps and checks and protections that dot the job description of an offensive line’s most indispensable hyperlink by no means crossed the thoughts of Cam Jurgens.
As a substitute, offensive coordinator Travis Schuster schemed up methods to get Jurgens — the star tight finish and linebacker at Beatrice Excessive Faculty in Nebraska — the ball as a lot as attainable.
He’d line up as an outdoor receiver for leap balls.
He’d function the down block for “super power,” one in every of their greatest operating performs. He’d bump again outdoors to dam for jet sweeps, after which swap roles to execute one because the rusher.
There have been the jailbreak screens, the slot receiver routes, the fullback traps, the normal operating calls. Something and all the pieces labored.
And when Jurgens served as a blocking tight finish, Schuster and the remainder of the Beatrice workers assigned him a poor grade throughout movie classes if he didn’t knock the defender to the bottom or push him off the display.
On the time, most coaches seen Jurgens — given his mix of explosiveness and dimension — as a defensive lineman or tight finish past highschool.
However inside his first 12 months with Nebraska in 2018, then-head coach Scott Frost approached him a couple of swap that helped Jurgens blossom right into a second-round decide in 2022 and the Eagles’ eventual substitute for Jason Kelce, the legendary middle who retired in March.
It wasn’t precisely a linear path for the small-town Nebraska native who grew up on his household’s farm in Pickrell (inhabitants 185) and went to highschool in Beatrice (inhabitants simply over 12,000), however the emergence of Jurgens, who earned the primary Professional Bowl nod of his profession in 2024 and is simply 25 years previous, will proceed on the game’s most distinguished stage subsequent weekend.
“Sometimes it’s hard to think that it’s real,” Beth Jurgens, his mom, advised The Put up. “Sometimes it is hard to think that, you know, you’ll go to a bar or go to a restaurant with the TVs going and think, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s my kid up there.’ ”
At first, although, Jurgens “questioned the move” to middle, former Beatrice head coach Bob Sexton advised The Put up. When he referred to as Beth and Ted, his father, to inform them, they initially thought it meant going to the Nebraska defensive position. When Jurgens referred to as Schuster, his thoughts jumped to the same situation, too.
“No, I’m gonna touch the ball every play,” Schuster recalled Jurgens saying. “Well I knew right away there was no way he was playing quarterback.”
Jurgens wanted to make up for misplaced time. Different facilities had years of snapping expertise that Jurgens couldn’t replicate in a single day. He wanted to navigate any rising pains, reminiscent of with the shotgun flicks, and settle right into a rhythm. He’d observe together with his roommate at Nebraska, Beth stated, and finally, firstly of the 2019 season following a redshirt 12 months, he grew to become the starter.
“You go from a kid where you’re catching touchdown passes or making tackles or dunking a basketball to kind of the position where you’re not glorified in the offensive line,” Sexton stated. “But the fact that he had the ball in his hand every down, all eyes were on him. And any mistake you made with a bad snap was magnified.”
As a rookie with the Eagles, he served as Kelce’s backup. In his second 12 months, he slid over and have become their beginning proper guard. However when Kelce introduced his retirement in March, Philadelphia’s succession plan — which Beth stated they’d at all times anticipated occurring — thrust Jurgens into the highlight, although Sexton stated he wasn’t nervous or anxious about changing the most effective facilities in NFL historical past.
It has shortly change into a “dream come true” for Jurgens’ household, Sexton stated.
Sunday will mark Jurgens’ second Tremendous Bowl look, and he’ll have a minimum of 10 relations and pals in attendance. Jurgens contributed to a line that blocked for Saquon Barkley’s 2,005-yard season.
He even stunned everybody final weekend within the NFC Championship sport, when he didn’t play within the first half resulting from harm however then gutted by way of the second half as soon as Landon Dickerson — his substitute — exited.
“He can do some things in the NFL right now that there’s not a lot of other centers can do, especially when it comes to his pulling and getting out on the perimeter and stuff like that,” Schuster stated. “That’s just that natural athleticism he has. … And then like last week, just when he came in and you knew he was hurting, he’s done that before. You just kinda got that farm kid, Nebraska farm kid toughness. He’ll do whatever it takes for the team to win, and he showed that last week.”
The primary two years of Jurgens’ profession have been formed by studying from Kelce.
But when the Eagles anticipated a drop-off after Kelce’s exit, Jurgens ensured that by no means materialized.
