Seven years earlier than he grew to become the successor to a future Corridor of Famer and a beginning heart 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 College in Nebraska — the ball as a lot as doable.
He’d line up as an outdoor receiver for bounce balls.
He’d function the down block for “tremendous energy,” certainly one of their finest operating performs. He’d bump again exterior 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 every little thing labored.
And when Jurgens served as a blocking tight finish, Schuster and the remainder of the Beatrice employees 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 considered Jurgens — given his mix of explosiveness and measurement — as a defensive lineman or tight finish past highschool.
However inside his first yr with Nebraska in 2018, then-head coach Scott Frost approached him a couple of swap that helped Jurgens blossom right into a second-round choose in 2022 and the Eagles’ eventual substitute for Jason Kelce, the legendary heart 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.
“Typically it’s arduous to suppose that it’s actual,” Beth Jurgens, his mom, advised The Put up. “Typically it’s arduous to suppose that, you understand, you’ll go to a bar or go to a restaurant with the TVs going and suppose, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s my child up there.’ ”
At first, although, Jurgens “questioned the transfer” to heart, former Beatrice head coach Bob Sexton advised The Put up. When he known as Beth and Ted, his father, to inform them, they initially thought it meant going to the Nebraska defensive position. When Jurgens known as Schuster, his thoughts jumped to an analogous situation, too.
“No, I’m gonna contact the ball each play,” Schuster recalled Jurgens saying. “Effectively I knew instantly there was no approach he was enjoying 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, similar to with the shotgun flicks, and settle right into a rhythm. He’d follow together with his roommate at Nebraska, Beth stated, and finally, at the beginning of the 2019 season following a redshirt yr, he grew to become the starter.
“You go from a child the place you’re catching landing passes or making tackles or dunking a basketball to type of the place the place you’re not glorified within the offensive line,” Sexton stated. “However the truth that he had the ball in his hand each down, all eyes have been on him. And any mistake you made with a nasty snap was magnified.”
As a rookie with the Eagles, he served as Kelce’s backup. In his second yr, 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 all the time anticipated occurring — thrust Jurgens into the highlight, although Sexton stated he wasn’t nervous or nervous about changing among the best facilities in NFL historical past.
It has shortly develop into a “dream come true” for Jurgens’ household, Sexton stated.
Sunday will mark Jurgens’ second Tremendous Bowl look, and he’ll have at the least 10 members of the family and buddies 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 recreation, when he didn’t play within the first half as a result of harm however then gutted by way of the second half as soon as Landon Dickerson — his substitute — exited.
“He can do some issues within the NFL proper now that there’s not plenty of different facilities can do, particularly in relation to his pulling and getting out on the perimeter and stuff like that,” Schuster stated. “That’s simply that pure athleticism he has. … After which like final week, simply when he got here in and also you knew he was hurting, he’s accomplished that earlier than. You simply kinda bought that farm child, Nebraska farm child toughness. He’ll do no matter it takes for the group to win, and he confirmed that final 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.