Dave Feit's Greatest Huskers by the Numbers: 63

Dave Feit is counting down the days until the start of the 2025 season by naming the best Husker to wear each uniform number, as well as one of his personal favorites at that number. For more information about the series, click here. To see more entries, click here.

Greatest Husker to wear No. 63: David Clark, Defensive Tackle, 1978 – 1980

Honorable Mention: Richard Hutton, Greg Jorgensen, Lynn Senkbeil

Also worn by: Tom Alward, Grant Brix, Tanner Farmer, Doug Herrmann, Richard Kosier, Derek Meyer, Nouredin Nouili, Brian Nunns, Andrew Rodriguez, James Sherman

Dave’s Fave: Andrew Rodriguez, Offensive Guard, 2010 – 2013

The University of Nebraska Bugeaters football team of 1892 had 24 lads on the roster. Two of them – Alonzo and Jesse Yont – were brothers. Jesse, who started his Nebraska career on the 1891 team, was known to the local newspapers as “Big.” His younger brother Alonzo was “Little.”

In the 1893 game against Iowa – played in a late-November blizzard in Omaha – “Little” Yont scored a touchdown in a 20-18 win. The newspapers said “(W. Harry) Oury and ‘Little’ Yont were carried from the field on the shoulders of Nebraska admirers.”

The Yonts are – to the best of my research – the first brothers to play for Nebraska. They were far from the last.

There have been – by my very conservative, and definitely incomplete count – at least 75 sets of siblings within the Nebraska football program. Given the time to investigate other possible pairings, I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual number of families to send multiple sons to the football team is closer 150.

Their names are a journey across eras and notable players: Bootle, Bullock, Bullocks, Brown, Cotton, Craig, Daniels, Davis, Dewitz, Erickson, Farniok, Fischer, Foster, Gifford, Grixby, Hubka, Ickes, Kelsay, Long, Makovicka, Munn, Noonan, Osborne, Peter, Pillen, Rozier, Ruud, Schwartzkopf, Shanle, Sievers, Steinkuhler, Vedral, Wiegert, Williams, Wistrom, Zatechka and so, so many more.

That’s obviously just a partial list. I can hear you telling me about 10 more that I didn’t list like Broekemeier, Hausmann, Humm, Mazzccua, Minnick, Picou, the other Ruuds, Schmadeke, Singleton, or Weinmaster. And this is only Husker brothers.* There is a completely separate layer of fathers and sons. I promise we’ll talk about Husker legacies very soon.

*Alas, “Husker brothers” does not include former defensive back Titus Brothers. If he has any siblings, I do not believe they played for Nebraska. Maybe Brothers’s sons or nephews can play for the Huskers.

David Clark | Nebraska Football Media Guide

Also, if one really wanted to peel the layers off the onion and get into uncle/nephew combos, cousins, and other various in-law connections, there are some crazy six-degrees-of-separation links to be found. But without getting a sponsorship from Ancestry dot com, we won’t be exploring that relative rabbit hole.

No two sibling sets are the same. Some played the same position, others split between offense and defense. Some played together, some were leaving as their little brother was arriving. Sometimes, both brothers found the end zone, in other cases one has lifetime bragging rights.

The Fischer family likely has the record for most siblings – and family members – to play for Nebraska. Four of their six sons (Ken, Cletus, Rex, and Pat) played at NU between 1945 and 1960. Three of Clete’s sons (Pat, Dan, and Tim) also played for NU. There’s an old media guide blurb that talks about two other related Fischers (John and Jerry) as well.

The Bullocks (Daniel and Josh) and Davis brothers (Carlos and Khalil) are twins. The Bullocks boys own another unique distinction: they are the only set of twins to be taken in the same pick in two different NFL drafts. Josh was taken by the Saints with the 40th overall pick in 2005. Daniel was the 40th overall pick by the Lions in 2006.

The Browns may have the mark for the biggest sibling gap. Kris was a placekicker from 1995 – 1998. Baby brother Drew kicked from 2014 – 2017.

While definitely not a universal truth, I can point to several examples where it seemed like the younger brother had more a successful career than his older sibling. However, in many of those cases, credit should go to the big brother who paved the way.

Here’s what baby bro Bo Ruud told Hail Varsity magazine in 2015: “I think there’s a big advantage being the younger brother. You get to see how it’s done a little bit before you get there. Plus, having your brother is another friend you’ve got on the team.” In the same article, Joel Makovicka said similar things about his older brother Jeff: “He got his foot in the door and then widened the door for me to get there.”

We met Kelvin Clark, the 6’4″, 275-pound offensive tackle back at #73. That would make David Clark – a petite 6’3″, 246 pounds, and two years younger – his “little” brother. David started his career at UTEP (the Clarks hail from Odessa, Texas), but transferred to Nebraska after his freshman year. Due to the transfer rules at the time, he had to sit out the entire 1977 season. With David playing defensive tackle, I wonder how many times the Clark brothers faced off in practice. There’s sibling rivalry and then there’s meeting your brother in a one-on-one drill with your friends and teammates watching.

Like Kelvin, David knew his way around the weight room, earning the “Mr. Redshirt” crown in 1977 for his efforts. In 1978 and 1979 David was a backup but still made significant contributions with 20+ tackles each of his first two seasons. Before his senior season (1980), Clark ruptured a disc in his back. He was sent to Canada for an experimental procedure where enzymes were injected into the disc.

The procedure was successful. Clark earned first-team All-Big Eight honors in 1980 and was an honorable mention All-American. David was inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame in 2023, joining Kelvin, a 2002 inductee.

The Clark boys are one of six sets of brothers to be inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame. Can you name the five other sets? As a hint, their names appear in this entry.

The answer is at the bottom.

***

When I go to a Nebraska game – and I’ve been to hundreds of them – I have one simple rule.

I’m not leaving early.

There are lots of reasons for this. I’m not that concerned about “beating traffic.” I’ve already planned my day around attending the game, so if I must wait a few more minutes to get home, so be it. In the many blowout wins I’ve attended, I love watching the backups and walk-ons get their moment of glory.

In ugly losses – and sadly, I’ve seen my fair share of those too – I’ll watch until the bitter end. Yeah, it really sucks to be on the wrong side of an uncompetitive game, but I like to think of it as paying off the karma debt for the dozens of blowout wins I saw during the 1990s.

But mostly, I’m sticking around because of something I strongly believe:

During every game you will see something you have never seen before… but only if you’re there to see it.

Not knowing what you’ll see – or miss – is a big reason I attend games in person. Television broadcasts of football games – and the TVs they’re shown on – have come a long way in my lifetime, but there is always something I notice by being in the stadium that the TV cameras don’t capture for the folks at home.

For example, let’s go back to the 2012 game against Wisconsin. The Huskers were wearing those ridiculous all-red superhero costumes with the gigantic “N” on the chest – the ones that made them look like the “Noid” character from the old Domino’s Pizza commercials.

The Huskers had gotten a dramatic stop on fourth-and-one to clinch the game. With just 1:11 to go, Taylor Martinez simply needed to kneel on the ball a few times to escape with a 30-27 win. With the Badgers all but officially beaten, most fans shifted their energy to trying to beat traffic. I could have been one of the tens of thousands of fans leaving.

Had I been standing in the aisles like a passenger on a plane that just landed, I would have missed something minor, yet rare.

On second down, the Badger defenders were flinching and fidgeting at the line of scrimmage. Their movements caused Nebraska’s right guard, Andrew Rodriguez, to jump offsides.

To be clear: I’m not picking on Nebraska’s “A-Rod,” a four-year letterman from Aurora. He was a strong as an ox with the ability to play multiple positions on the line. That came in handy in 2013 when the line was rocked by injuries. Rodriguez was one of just two linemen to start every game in 2013. That patchwork group – led by Rodriguez – did an excellent job paving the way for Ameer Abdullah (1,690 yards) and providing protection for quarterbacks Taylor Martinez, Tommy Armstrong and Ron Kellogg.

Rodriguez also possessed an ideal mix to tenacious and nasty – traits that many offensive lines in the 21st century have lacked. He was recognized as an honorable mention All-Big Ten player in 2013. I remember thinking he deserved higher honors.

So, with all due respect to Andrew Rodriguez, I’ll ask: have you ever seen anybody jump offsides in the victory formation? I’ve been watching football for the better part of 40 years and cannot remember ever seeing it before. I know I haven’t seen it since.

Those random, yet memorable moments are worth a few extra minutes in my seat or drive home.

***

Here are the six sets of brothers in the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame, with the brothers listed oldest to youngest and the year of induction in parentheses.

Clark: Kelvin (2002) and David (2023)
Fischer: Cletus (1979), Rex (1987) and Pat (1974)
Kelsay: Chad (2017) and Chris (2024)
Peter: Christian (2006) and Jason (2007)
Pillen: Clete (2004) and Jim (2004)
Wiegert: Erik (2007) and Zach (1995)

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