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DeBoer and Staff Return to Sioux Falls, Offer Promising Edge Rusher

Thomas Heiberger is the latest South Dakota connection the Husky coach is trying to bring to Montlake.
Dan Raley|
DeBoer and Staff Return to Sioux Falls, Offer Promising Edge Rusher
DeBoer and Staff Return to Sioux Falls, Offer Promising Edge Rusher

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Washington Huskies

The Sioux Falls connection is never far from Kalen DeBoer. He played college football there. Coached that NAIA team to three national championships. 

This past week, the University of Washington football leader and others on his staff such as co-defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell, another alum, mourned the passing of their University of Sioux Falls coach, Bob Young.

They also pushed ahead with football business and made a scholarship offer to an intriguing Sioux Falls prospect named Thomas Heiberger, a Jefferson High School edge rusher fast gaining a lot of recruiting traction.

Heiberger is a 6-foot-4, 210-pound defender from the Class of 2024 who helped lead Jefferson to a state championship in only the school's second year of operation. He runs the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds and has a 37.5-inch vertical leap, all exemplary numbers for a defensive lineman.

All of a sudden, Heiberger has gone from being recruited by Augustana, South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa and Western Michigan to pulling offers from the Huskies, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt.

As DeBoer will tell you, there are a lot of really good football players in the Dakotas. You just have to go and find them.

This past recruiting cycle, he signed touted University of Sioux Falls transfer Zach Durfee, an edge rusher originally from a small town in Minnesota who clearly needed to move up to a higher college football level and could play right away at the UW.

Before that, DeBoer and staff had record-setting quarterback Lincoln Kienholz from the South Dakota state capital of Pierre and T.J. Riggs High orally committed for the longest time until Ohio State came in and flipped him late.

Heiberger emerges from a junior season in which he piled up 44 tackles, including 10 tackles for loss and 6 sacks, and intercepted a pass, and was named first-team All-State. 

This Midwest prospect is just starting to grow into his big frame, but the potential is there for him to use all that size and athleticism to make a lot of things happen on the football field.

And coming from South Dakota, and specifically from Sioux Falls, that will get you an audience and a scholarship offer from Kalen DeBoer.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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