Sam McKewon and Evan Bland each talk their key takeaway from each of the new Nebraska football staff members.
Dan Jackson showed up at sunrise with coffee.
An "open turf" spring football workout at Papillion-La Vista South was no big event for a college recruiter. This was an informal 7-on-7 pickup session run by sleepy area players, not a talent showcase.
Rarely did any college coach attend. Rarer still did one who had closed down a Village Inn the night prior talking with high school coaches to cap a metro recruiting fair. But there was Jackson, a South Dakota State assistant with a round of caffeinated drinks and a smile for the adults watching in the press box.
Bellevue West coach Michael Huffman recalls that scene a decade ago as less surprise and more validation that Jackson -- who once played for Huffman at Omaha Burke and later coached with him there -- had a bright football future ahead.
"That's what you get with Dan," Huffman said. "He ain't gonna get outworked."
Jackson became the head coach at FCS power South Dakota State in late December, hired during a whirlwind stretch in which he went from Idaho defensive coordinator to New Mexico D.C. to the lead job at SDSU in the span of two weeks. He's on the short list of former Omaha prep football coaches to run their own college program.
Jackson last called offensive plays for Burke in the 2011 Class A state title game. Yet he never really left Omaha, recruiting dozens of under-the-radar area prospects and providing a talent-mining template that teams like North Dakota State and South Dakota have since adopted.
Now the "Nebraska Jacks" are primed for a revival. And the guy who once coined the term as an SDSU assistant hasn't forgotten about his roots as the Jackrabbits head coach.
"To me, Nebraska Jacks can be rebranded a bit -- I just haven't had time yet," Jackson said. "But if kids start using it again, it might not change much."
As Jackson works to keep South Dakota State a perennial championship contender, he'll be back often around Omaha. The place where he learned to grind.
Rising up in Omaha
The 402 area-code phone number Jackson has used to make thousands of recruiting calls during his career is the same one coaches once dialed to pitch him.
Jackson's first decision came after rising through Sunny Slope Elementary and Beveridge Middle School. People already knew he had talent.
"Almost went to Millard North or Westside," Jackson said. "There was a little recruiting going on back then for football. Chose to stay with my home school and try to get it turned around."
Jackson became a rare four-year varsity contributor at linebacker and fullback, then as a linebacker and pulling offensive guard. He played in the Shrine Bowl. He made The World-Herald's All-Nebraska second team in 2002 as a 6-foot-1, 215-pound senior lineman.
Huffman, then the Burke defensive coordinator, still considers Jackson one of the few players he's ever coached to maximize his abilities every day. And not just as a player -- a 14-year-old Jackson began using his parents' red minivan to pick up teammates for workouts.
"Now he's doing it in coaching," Huffman said. "It's why he's the head coach at South Dakota State already."
Friends at Burke used to predict Jackson would someday go into the profession. He was the kid who shepherded others into Huffman's room to watch football film during 30-minute lunch periods. He once asked if he could attend a coaching clinic with the staff.
Hard work was the model at home growing up. His father, Thomas Jackson, started as a bank teller and eventually became an owner of Enterprise Bank in Omaha while remaining active in investing and real estate -- "He'll never retire," Dan said. His mother, Janet (Flaxbeard) Jackson, owned a dance studio near Millard North that she ran for decades into the 2000s. Both are lifelong Omahans.
Dan Jackson attracted college scholarship offers from Northwest Missouri State and a few Division II schools. He could have walked on at Nebraska. He chose South Dakota State, where he felt valued and saw the opportunity to make a difference.
Three seasons passed with more injuries than his two career tackles as a Jackrabbits linebacker. Nagging hamstring issues and ankle problems prompted him to leave after the 2005 campaign and finish his degree in Spanish and marketing as a student at UNO. Meanwhile, his old Burke coaches -- Huffman and head coach Jack Oholendt -- reached out asking if he would like to volunteer back at 120th and Dodge.
Jackson did -- and loved it. The best part of his day was practice and helping teenagers in the weight room. He stayed on when Burke hired Paul Limongi as head coach in 2006 and steadily took on more responsibility. Picking up kids at 5 a.m. for workouts and coordinating study sessions at Barnes & Noble taught him the power of mentorship in a new, personal way.
When Limongi tapped him as offensive coordinator, Jackson tracked down legendary former Papillion-La Vista coach Gene Suhr -- then Wayne State College's offensive coordinator -- to learn the intricacies of the pistol attack and added his own hurry-up spread flavor.
Jackson started emailing 20 to 30 college coaches a day just asking to talk football. Nevada's Chris Ault was among the few to respond and sent his team's entire playbook. Pistol veer, pistol counter-option and pistol trap became staples of the Burke attack as one of the first metro offenses to spread out with option principles including the running back lining up behind the quarterback.
The local high-school Spanish teacher had a thirst for full-time football. His last season at Burke in 2011 saw the Bulldogs reach the Class A state title game.
But a 26-year-old Jackson was realizing how competitive landing a college football job could be. His offers to work for free mostly went unheeded until his former coach at South Dakota State, John Stiegelmeier, reached out about an open graduate assistant position that would be essentially leading the running backs group.
He drove 230 miles to Brookings for an interview. On the way home he got a call that SDSU wanted him to work with cornerbacks instead.
Yes. Jackson had his chance.
Winning with 'Nebraska Jacks'
Jackson was never a high-profile football prospect. But he could predict the same four recruiting questions he came to dread as a teenager.
How's it going? What'd you have for dinner? How's mom and dad? How's school?
A cookie-cutter script wasn't going to work. If Jackson learned to hate answering the phone, so would the next generation. So he traded annoying for authentic.
Jackson developed a list of tough prompts and participated in the conversation. If he asked about adversity in a player's life, he'd share some of his own too.
"By the end of recruiting," Jackson said, "when I called them, they wanted to answer."
The young assistant interviewed with Iowa State after the 2012 season and might have left South Dakota State if it hadn't expanded his role to full-time with benefits. That came with recruiting areas. Soon he was the team's recruiting coordinator and eventually the assistant head coach. By the time he left after the 2019 campaign, he had held most roles on the staff.
The Nebraska Jacks had arrived. One of the first was Jimmy Forsythe, a Burke quarterback whom Jackson stumped for and SDSU took as a corner before it hired Jackson. The assistant coincidentally joined Forsythe a year later as his position coach in 2012 and helped develop him into an all-conference defender.
There was Ralston running back Isaac Wallace, one of the state's leading rushers who became a 43-game playmaker for the Jackrabbits from 2014-18. Papio South defensive end Ryan Earith became an all-league performer through 2019. Relative unknown Grand Island linebacker Caleb Francl chose to walk on over DII scholarships in the 2020 class and became an All-American and integral to a pair of national titles.
Papio South safety Joshua Manchigiah completed a productive six-year SDSU career in 2021. Fellow former Titan and fullback Luke Sellers ended his time in Brookings as a captain in 2019.
The list goes on for local contributors during Jackson's time in Brookings. Receiver Marquise Lewis (Omaha North). Defensive end Elijah Wilson (Omaha Central). Safety Makiah Slade (Lincoln Northeast). Linebacker Noah Urbanek (Kearney).
Defensive tackle Caleb Sanders -- from nearby Glenwood, Iowa -- capped his Jackrabbits tenure in 2022 as a finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award, given to the most outstanding FCS defensive player.
No Nebraskan is more pro-Dan Jackson than Cade Johnson. The former Bellevue West receiver was an undersized 5-foot-10 playmaker in the 2016 class looking for a believer. Other schools strung him along without offers. And when the player circled back to SDSU after the school's scholarship money had been spent elsewhere, Jackson promised they would find a way if Johnson performed.
Johnson became a Freshman All-American in 2017 as a dynamic returner and pass catcher. He went on scholarship on his way to an All-America career that led to three seasons with the Seattle Seahawks.
"Throughout the whole recruiting process, Coach Jackson was always the No. 1 coach on my list," Johnson said. "He believed in me, really, when no one else did. He wasn't even my position coach but I owe him so much."
Said Huffman, Johnson's coach at Bellevue West: "That kid played in the NFL because Dan and the Nebraska Jacks believed he could do it. I think he's always looking for that kind of situation."
Recruiting isn't a sales pitch, Jackson likes to say. Find someone you believe in and invest in them. If they need to be talked into something, move on. SDSU players wanted to be the reason their team won, not part of the ride at a bigger FBS program. Jackson never missed the FCS playoffs in Brookings as an assistant.
Jackson stayed on Nebraska prospects even after he took a leap of faith and left SDSU to be a position coach at Northern Illinois in 2020 and 2021. He brought in Omaha Westside defensive tackle Cade Haberman, who appeared in 50-plus games and is now training for the NFL draft. Linebackers Makhi Nelson-Douglas (Elkhorn South) and Jake Gassaway (Millard South) and running backs Jay Ducker (Bellevue West) and Christian Nash (Millard South) also got MAC opportunities as part of the "Corn-Huskies" movement.
Haberman probably would have gone to SDSU if Jackson were there, he said. Few coaches could he chat with about everything from grades to girls to personal health. Anything.
"If I were a kid in the Omaha area, I'd be pumped up," Haberman said. "Because not only is this guy the pride of Omaha and finds a lot of talent, he is a great relationship builder and cares about the players individually. He's the epitome of a players' coach."
Jackson joined Vanderbilt as defensive backs coach for 2022 and 2023. Vandy has tough admissions standards and is an 11-hour drive from Omaha but Jackson -- mostly recruiting in Florida, Houston and Memphis -- still convinced Westside running back Dominic Rezac to walk on there.
In his week at New Mexico as defensive coordinator in December, Jackson managed to extend 2026 Omaha North cornerback/receiver Darion Jones one of his first scholarship offers. He also secured a visit and commitment from Kansas State transfer receiver and Bellevue West grad Keagan Johnson.
Then SDSU offered its head job days later after coach Jimmy Rogers left for Washington State.
"My only weekend with the Lobos and we went 1 for 1," Jackson said. "Keagan will do great there."
Now Jackson is back at South Dakota State. More local stories will be coming.
Homeward bound -- for talent
Jackson will still be back in Omaha some. Old habits are hard to break.
But his work as head coach now will begin in South Dakota high schools, he said. Plus, he hired someone to make all those drives along Interstate 29. That's new linebackers coach Zane Busekist, a Lincoln East product who served as a grad assistant at Nebraska in 2022 and followed former NU defensive coordinator Erik Chinander to Boise State for the past two seasons.
Jackson had already beaten Busekist checking in on a few late 2025 prospects in Nebraska last month before remembering he could delegate.
"I kind of forgot I've got to let him do his job," Jackson said. "Zane will do an even better job recruiting Nebraska than I did, probably."
SDSU in late January added Omaha Skutt receiver Joe Kolega, the Class B Player of the Year and the state's top 2025 wideout target. Former Husker defensive back Koby Bretz - from Westside - transferred to the Jacks too.
Jackson took a risk leaving Brookings five years ago. He could have stayed and been in the mix for the head job when Stiegelmeier retired. But that staff also included three current FBS head coaches in Jason Eck (New Mexico), Jake Dickert (Wake Forest) and Rogers (Washington State).
Instead, Jackson proved he could thrive elsewhere. Now he's back at a program that has reached the national semifinals five consecutive seasons and counting.
"It wasn't easy for him to get here," Limongi said. "He put in the time, moved around, went through some ups and downs. He's earned it."
Few have climbed the ladder this high from Nebraska preps to college head coach. Barry Alvarez started his coaching career at Lincoln Northeast and Lexington nearly 20 years before becoming Wisconsin's head coach. Dan McLaughlin did it at Wayne State after coaching high-school ball at Broken Bow, Norfolk and Millard West into the 2000s. Former Nebraska coach Frank Solich led Omaha Holy Name (1966-67) and Lincoln Southeast (1968-78) before Tom Osborne handed him the reigns in Lincoln in 1998.
Among those predecessors, only Jackson grew up in the state.
"Man, there aren't too many from around here that have done that," Huffman said. "I know it happens in Texas and California and Florida. But it doesn't happen around here."
If the Huskers don't offer a player, Jackson said, the norm should be for SDSU to be involved. The Jacks are scheduled to play Nebraska in Lincoln in 2028 and 2030 -- NU won a 2013 meeting of the schools 59-20 with Jackson on the opponent sideline.
South Dakota State will have quality players, Huffman said, and many will be locals. That's the Dan Jackson Effect.
"He has this unbelievable ability to make you think he really cares about whatever you're talking about," Huffman said. "Most of us will talk to anybody but you can tell by their facial expression that it doesn't register on your give-a-crap meter. He can talk to everybody."