Brandon Wegher's high school highlight video says it all with the volume on mute.
Wegher's speed, quickness, power and poise are evident in long runs and short bursts. Wegher raced past the competition for a state-record 3,238 rushing yards last year while leading Sioux City Heelan to the Class 3A title. His ability has drawn favorable comparisons to Iowa prep legends Tavian Banks and Tim Dwight, yet doubt lingered in Sioux City about Wegher's talents.
"For whatever reason, I'm not sure,"Â said Heelan football coach Roger Jansen. "A lot of it is that people kind of have a tendency to shy away from players that are good. I've got to believe if they really opened their mind and take a look and see what he did, they'd see that this kid is as special as everybody is talking about."Â
Ten BCS schools â€" five Big 12, four Big Ten and Auburn â€" offered Wegher scholarships, although some wanted him to move to defense. Iowa coaches considered him as a defender but changed their tone once they watched him carry the ball as a Heelan upperclassmen.
"When we saw him as a younger player, we thought he might be a safety," Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. "In his junior year and senior year, we saw him as a running back. We also saw him as a running back with great pass-receiving skills. "¦ He was more than just a guy who was going to run the ball every down.
"When you watch his high school tape, it's pretty impressive. He's pretty productive, and he's a hard-charging guy."Â
Wegher, a 19-year-old freshman at Iowa, went from YouTube hero to Saturday sensation last week against Iowa State. He rushed for 101 yards on 15 carries â€" 6.7 yards per carry â€" and leapt into the end zone from the 1 to score his first touchdown. He caught two passes for 17 yards, including a one-handed grab behind his back and over his head.
For those closest to Wegher, that performance validated their expectations. He not only flashed his athletic talent but displayed strength and perseverance. He learned much of that hard work ethic in weight training sessions at CNOS Sports Medicine in his hometown of Dakota Dunes, S.D.
Wegher and a few classmates began working at CNOS when he was in sixth grade with speed, agility and body weight drills. Wegher progressed into a weight room machine and benches presses more than 300 pounds. He's a compact and muscular 205 pounds while standing about 5 feet, 11 inches.
"You can set talent aside, it's his hard work and determination,"Â said Zach Mathers, director of CNOS. "You get him in a competitive drill or a competitive practice or game time he always stepped up, and that's what we thrived on in a lot of our workouts, that competitive nature."Â
Wegher enters Saturday's game against Arizona as the team's No. 2 running back behind Adam Robinson. With his strength and a 40-yard dash time hovering around 4.4 seconds, Wegher's skills also include patience. That's what Iowa guard Julian Vandervelde values.
"He's got fantastic speed on the outside, he's got great vision,"Â Vandervelde said. "I think the most important thing for him right now is as a true freshman he's got great patience. Sometimes you've got to sit back there and you've got to tone your tempo down, and you've got to wait for the holes to develop and wait for the tempo of the play to kind of catch up. That's definitely something that he has naturally, and we're happy to see."Â
Wegher continues to carry weight on the message boards. A link "Wegher=Starter" on HawkeyeReport.com's member board generated nearly 2,500 page views and 65 responses. Threads on HawkeyeNation.com include "BW" as in "Boy Wonder," and one asking for his last name's pronunciation â€" "WAY-gir" according to the Iowa media guide â€" show more than 2,000 views. His YouTube videos, ranging from his Sioux City heroics to his weightlifting regimen to his Iowa State performance, total more than 100,000 views.
Ferentz said he's not concern that Wegher's success will go to his head, saying the running back is "very grounded, levelheaded and focused."Â Jansen coached against Banks and Dwight in state championship games and said Wegher compares favorably with both former Hawkeyes, both as preps and collegians.
"I would not hesitate to use his name in the same category as those guys,"Â Jansen said. "I kept it pretty quiet, but I did say to a handful of people that there was no doubt in my mind that he could impact right away, just seeing what he could do. Now, did it surprise me a little me a little bit he did it so early? Sure."Â
